Thank you! I currently use water propagation most of the time and the cuttings seem to go into some sort of shock when put in soil and sometimes die, so I was thinking maybe the leca would help the transition. It is pretty pricey though and I would also rather just spend it on more plants :)

Leca is pretty cheap at Ikea. For propagating in leca, you wouldn't use fertilizer. You could use a rooting hormone, like KLN. You can actually soak the leca in a KLN bath, then drain, then put the cuttings in it. Then retain a small reservoir at the bottom of the vessel.

And as Ken recommended, there is another recent thread where we have been discussing leca. Here's a link:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6065458/all-things-leca#n=51

Thank you :)

That’s exactly true. I use leca for some cutting, but honestly I be had better & quicker success using perlite or small volcanic rock the same way~bcuz it’s smaller, it stays closer to the stems & leaves less gaps yet still leaves plenty of room for air circulation & has the same wicking properties. Moss mixed w perlite or just coco husk chips are tied for my 2nd most used. You have to be careful not to keep both too wet & the moss needs to be loose enough, not packed around the nodes & stems, to allow air flow. Different plants actually seem to do better in various substrate, so I try to find their preferences vs sticking to 1 method. Perlite is a great inexpensive way to experiment w this method too. If you don’t already have a bag lying around from adding it to your soil, a large bag is less than $10. Use a regular nursery pot (no need to spend $ on special net pots etc, but after you know you want to do more you can go that route if you choose but it’s not necessary. You can cut a couple of additional small holes in the nursery pot if you prefer but also not necessary), fill it w perlite & your cutting, making sure your cutting doesn’t sit below the upper half of the pot, & set it in a small bowl/dish/or glass container. Water slowly thru the perlite in order to soak it as you allow the water to fill the outer container up to approximately 1/3 the height of the nursery pot. That’s it. Check regularly & add water as needed. Don’t disturb the cutting for a week or so, but then I’d check it to make sure there’s no rot on the bottom. If it calloused properly & water level is kept below it, should be fine, yet sometimes plants don’t follow the rules. If there’s a problem, hopefully you have enough room to clean it off & start over, but if it’s fine at that point, it should continue to be fine if nothing changes. Using perlite drastically increased my success rate w props, & the time it took compared to leca drastically increased for many. Using something like Liquidirt in your semi hydro set ups isn’t necessary but makes a big difference. (Don’t bother w Noot~it’s simply a watered down formula of LD, licensed directly from them. Obviously they’re only going to license an inferior version of their product, they said as much, & the difference isn’t even close!) good luck~

Thank you! I will definitely try these out :)

Hi, when propagating, you don't NEED any nutrients. Like someone mentioned above, KLN is good. I tend to use Superthrive when propagating or transitioning. Once the plant has it's water roots, then I start giving it the easy one step fertilizer, Dyna Grow Foliage Pro