Tried to prop a calathea from a leaf cutting - three months of wasted effort

I don't know what I was thinking honestly. I saw all those YouTube videos where people just stick a leaf in water and boom new plant. So I took a nice big leaf off my rattlesnake calathea back in July, put it in a jar on my kitchen windowsill, changed the water every week like a good plant parent. Three months later (three months!) the leaf was still perfectly green but zero roots. Zero. I finally googled it properly and found out calatheas can't even be propagated from leaf cuttings. You need to divide the rhizome. I could have just divided it and had two plants in like 20 minutes. Has anyone else wasted months on a propagation method that literally cannot work?

3 comments

3 Comments

foster.tessa1mo ago

Is it really that deep though? You learned something and now you know for next time.

samk771mo ago

You ever notice how the internet makes everything look easy? It's not just plants, it's everything. Like those cooking videos where someone makes a perfect souffle in 10 minutes but they cut out all the failed attempts and the cleanup. You see the highlights reel and think that's how it works. I fell for it with sourdough starter last year, watched a bunch of videos, killed three starters before I realized you actually have to feed them properly and keep them warm. Same idea with the calathea. You watch someone online who already knows what they're doing and they make it look like a no-brainer. Then you're three months in with a jar of water and a single green leaf staring at you like you're the fool. It's like the whole world runs on this fake shortcut logic now.

daniel_gonzalez1mo ago

I mean I get what you're saying but I think it depends on how you look at it. Those videos aren't really trying to trick you, they're just showing the end result after someone put in the work. Idk, maybe it's just me but I think there's something to be said for taking the highlights as motivation instead of a blueprint.