Just a few questions about plants and soil.

[bob351]

Just bought two dwarf scheffleras, like an idiot I tried to unbraid the tall one and mangled it. Its still a nice plant but lesson learned. Anyways, I removed both plants from their original pots, loosened and got rid of as much soil from the root system as I could, rinsed the root system a bit. Purchased potting soil, unfortunately with perlite, I kept insisting on a bag of regular earth with nothing in it but ended up with a bag of vigoro all purpose potting mix, long story.

I guess the real issue here Is I jumped the gun in excitement before I had noticed the soil contains fertilizer or pearlite. The fertilizer says its natural, I really don't want to stress these plants out again replanting. I would assume natural fertz are perfectly fine its the chemical crap we are trying to avoid.

With the tall plant, covering the base with stones and rocks is a non issue, however the other schefflera is more of a bush and the only type of rocks I could think of working would be similar to aquarium gravel. The issue with the gravel is I would assume a chameleon could move little gravel pellets thus defeating the purpose of them in the first place. Larger river rocks just end up pushing the plant all over the place. Any tips?

Lastly how do you clean the leaves?



Also there is no chameleon at the moment to worry about, I have time to sort these issues out.

 

[jannb]

I wouldn't use that soil. I recommend using organic soil and buy large river rocks to cover the soil so your cham will not be able to eat the soil. Make sure the rocks are very or the chameleon can eat the rocks. I wash the leaves with dawn dish wash and rinse really well before I re-pot the plants.

 

[Matteo]

All my plants are reported and lined with screen on top of the soil then with large river rocks. Check my thread out you can see.

 

[bob351]

Any brands in particular? What should I be looking out for this time to avoid getting the wrong soil because all these bags have natural and organic and whatever thrown all over them. Is manure or something similar alright as a fertilizer vs the time released "natural" fertilizer in the potting mix I bought.

Also with the organic soil would it be okay to go rockless? Obviously there would be a risk of impaction from the dirt but I have been around the block in the reptile world a few times. I think we can all agree its a fairly overblown risk mentioned with almost every species.

 

[bob351]

All my plants are reported and lined with screen on top of the soil then with large river rocks. Check my thread out you can see.

It wouldn't work with the particular plant I am using, hard to show without a picture... ill bring them inside and take one.

 

[MamatoElvis]

You said one was braided. That might be a money tree. Those are toxic I bevieve. The foliage is similar to a schefflera. I hear you on the impaction issue but most reptiles do not shoot out a sticky tongue. The gravel would be bad. Use river stones or try the screen a cross the top of the pot. I'd risk nothing before I'd risk putting putting in gravel. With eating the dirt your chameleon is at RISK of impaction but swallowing gravel I'm pretty sure would kill him. At the very minimum it would cut up his insides.

 

[bob351]

They are both dwarf scheffs 100%, not sure why these were braided but they are, 4 of em you can see how I hacked it up haha. The shorter bush isn't braided.

 

[bob351]

As you can see, its quite dense and it all grows out of a very dense core instead of easily separable pieces (like the braided one), hence the issue with using stones of any decent size not toppling over and snapping branches, the taller plant is fine I can fit big rocks in never mind stones, its this little one.