purpleinopp said:
IMO, trying to separate roots would be more trouble than reward.
purpleinopp said:Forgot to say the sap can give some people a rash like poison ivy and cause serious pain and injury if it gets in your eye. It's best to avoid getting the sap on your skin at all.
purpleinopp said:Yes, the dividing is mostly opinion-based. I doubt it would harm the plant(s) at all. If it wasn't something full of latex sap, I would be more up for it. It would be hard to do that to this particular giant plant without having a sap-contact incident. That stuff is in the roots too. Sounds like a dangerous mess to me, compared to snipping off branches to propagate if I want more than 1 pot of this. I started with 1 of these & have it in several pots now.
When I get latex sap on me, I get a rash indistinguishable from poison ivy. Miserable itching blisters for 8-10 days.
purpleinopp said:
I cut all but a couple of the branches near the soil level and stuck them back in the pot, with 8-15" of stem under the soil surface, depending on how many leaves were near the cut.
skylark said:'They'd use aloe vera as a rooting hormone basically., smearing a new cutting along a freshly opened piece.'
Love the idea, want to try!
Do you mean to put juice on the raw cut ?
Or along the branch at the bottom where it will be in medium?
skylark said:i remember reading that if you put a little aloe vera juice on the cut edge of bromeliad leaf it won't turn unsightly brown. so..another interesting use for it. i'll get it to try!