Mine did, too, the box was insulated with styrofoam. The plants were very fresh after three days. If you ordered leaves, they are wrapped in such a way to also stay fresh. Your plants will probably be fine even if it takes an extra day.

Last place I lived, the postman would mark stuff as delivered and drive it around in his truck until he felt like actually delivering it. Drove me nuts. DH finally called the post office and "straightened things out" - our parcels were always delivered promptly after that, whilst our neighbours still waited for theirs...

If it doesn't show up by Monday, definitely call to check what is going on!

I also got my tracking number tuesday and was supposed to be delivered Thursday. I didn't recieve it until Friday. My tracking never updated until about 5 am Friday morning where it said it was delayed

they got here today! they were packaged awesome! also got two free ones which pleased me. everything looked fine! i had so much fun potting them all. ;)

Great job

So cute in their trays!!

gonna bump this thread - just wanted to say that i saw the first babies on these at around April 28-30.... so yeah! babies in a month!! it was jersey girl trail that sent up the first ones. :)

Those Jersey girls know how to rock and roll!

Joanne

yup they sure do! here she is as of today.

Thanks for the great photo. This is my favorite stage of the whole process, when those little green dots pop up. Blooms are great, of course, but when Mama Leaf first produces her offspring, nothing beats that moment! Sometimes, Mama leaf is vigorous and ready to produce more green dots.

Joanne

joanne, i was wondering about that! once baby is big enough, can i take the baby off and stick mother leaf back in the soil and expect mother to put up more babies...? or is she through then?

but yes! this is my favorite stage.. with the new babies coming up all over!! ;)

Once the mama leaf starts to push out babies, its reproductive function has been triggered, so it will continue to make babies if left undisturbed. You can leave the mother leaf in place indefinitely, even up to a year. It is already rooted. However, if you cut it off, then it has to start the cycle all over again and reroot itself. The least amount of disturbance, the better the results.

There is also no need to remove babies when the mama leaf is still healthy. Just allow everything to remain in the pot. The mature leaf will continue to nourish the babies.*

If a mama leaf has several babies, usually, it is the baby closest to the leaf that is the largest and the first one that was formed. As an example, I have a large leaf in a 2 1/4" square pot with three babies, lined up like little ducks. There is no need to remove them as they do not crowd each other.

In a few weeks, I will move out the two babies that grow further out. They will detach easily. I will leave the larger one still attached to the mama leaf and put it back in the square pot. The babies will each go into smaller pots.

It is especially advisable to leave the babies of a variegated leaf alone for as long as possible. They often have almost no green and need all the support they can get from the mature leaf.

*Once a baby is removed, it has to grow its own roots and is not receiving nourishment from the mother, so it will take a few days for it to get established.

Joanne

Thank you Joanne! VERY helpful info. I have always discarded the mother leaf after I separated the babies... what a shame! Thank you so much! :-)

Su

Oh, I've done that, too, we all do things like that at the start until we experiment a little. That was why I went into so much detail as it took me a couple of years to figure all of this out.

Partially, I learned from this forum and my own experimentation, or (cough, cough) "benign neglect."

The only problem with leaving all the babies in a pot is that they eventually get overcrowded, so you do need to keep an eye on them.

I detach most of the babies eventually but always keep the mama leaf attached to the largest baby growing off of it. The mama leaf just continues to happily grow along with the baby.

I just took a quick look at my babies in the 2 1/2" stage. Many are still attached to the mother. The babies that were detached into their own pots are not as large as those still attached to the mama.

That must be the "attachment" parenting style (as opposed to the "day care" parenting style.

Or maybe the kangaroo style. Or the "hover mother." (You get the idea!)

To be honest, this is laziness on my part. If the mom is going to make another baby, then even at the 2 1/2" pot stage, she still can do it. Then I have saved myself and herself a major step.

I am growing a lot right now, so any time saving tips I can discover, I will use.

I might try to take a photo next week of what these pots look like and send in to you an email.

We are going out of town for a couple of days. Be back Monday.

(I don't know if others do it this way. But it works for me. Maybe I will send a photo also to my club members to ask the experts their opinion.)

Joanne

Yes please send a pic if you get a chance! I love to see what other people's set ups look like. What you see in my pic is what I do... I have one cup for each variety, up to three leaves in each cup. The cups are only 2.5" big, so I can't leave the standards in there forever! I think to myself sometimes that there's got to be a better way to root plants... this takes up lots of space and wastes some space too. When I saw the video of how Optimara does it, with leaf upon leaf upon leaf, all crammed together with hardly any dirt showing, I have to wonder if I could do that way some too! Once a standard leaf is rooted, I do chop off the top half of the leaf, and root that also.... I've found that if that actually takes, I actually can get more babies that way than from the leaf stem. I have one variegated leaf down that's the top 3/4 of a leaf, and so far it has four babies in different places in the pot. :-)

So all that to say that I do love seeing other people's set ups and what they do for rooting and such.

Su