Growing Spindles plant in water

 Growing Spindles plant in water

Here you can see very pretty evergreen Spindle plants growing outdoor on March 2nd, 2020

I want to check how Spindles could grow with roots in water in my aquariums.

I made a couple about 6 inches long cuttings.

I like double-colored leaves of this plant.

Let's remove the bottom leaves keeping total of 10 leaves on each cutting.

I put this cuttings in one of my aquarium gardens with other small plants shown in previous videos.

Make sure bottom parts of the stems stay in the water.

Here I have 3 more about 5 inch long cuttings.

This time I want to make stems even shorter with less leaves on them to see if it would make any difference.

Generally, less leaves on the cuttings allows the plant to give more energy and resources for development of new roots.

New roots grow from the nodes I keep at the end of the stems.

Stronger roots result in healthier plants.

This cuttings go into another aquarium garden.

Make sure the stems stay in the water!

Five weeks later on June 13th.

About 1 cm long white roots have grown on shorter stems.

I am going to add some scuds into this aquarium.

I put scuds and snails in all my aquariums before adding fish.

Scuds serve as cleaning crew and as food for fish.

The only problem with scuds is that they may chew the plants...

Though generally, scuds chew soft leaves of fast growing plants that I have in my aquariums.

That is something I want to find out 😉

Seven months late on September 21st, the Spindles look pretty much the same.

Some plants get slightly longer roots.

December 3rd.

The cutting with less leaves has developed longer roots.

Spindles did not grow any noticeable and the roots still are small compare to other terrestrial plants that I've been growing.

July 11th, 2021.

It took more than one year for the Spindles plant to grow new leaves.

Spindles are the most slow growing terrestrial plant growing with roots in water among all I tried.

The fifteen month old plant has about 3 cm long roots you can see here.

The slow growing evergreen Spindles make great decorative addition to aquarium gardens.

Have fun and happy aquarium gardens :)