Plant Mail Recovery Tips: Plant Received, Now What?

Plant Mail Recovery Tips

Plant Received, Now What?

This is by no means meant to be a definitive guide; this is a work in progress. I have not found much information online about the best practices upon receiving a new plant baby so I figured I'd better share what I know, based on my personal experiences. We will explore several topics, but the main focus will be best practices for care upon arrival of your new friend(s).

If you have any specific tips/tricks that you swear by, I would love to hear about them! For the good of all plants everywhere, let's share the love!

In this post, I will tell you:

-What I have tried

-What I have learned

-What I plan to do next time. 

Let's start with some simple facts:

Sending a plant via the postal system is a rather stressful ordeal. HOW much stress the plant experiences is dependent upon several factors, including:

-Health of the plant before shipment

-Length of the journey (duration, not distance)

-Time of year (has a direct impact upon plant health)

-Shipping temperatures (below 40F for most tropicals is problematic)

-Environmental differences between origin and destination (ie, from tropics to desert)

-Care upon arrival

Length of Journey:

Depending on the size of your order and the types of plants purchased, it could easily be worth it to spend substantially more on expedited shipping. I have found that the plants I received in the 2-3 day range show little to no signs of stress, while those taking longer than a week need a considerable time to recover. 

I haven't tried yet, but I can't imagine a variegated ficus lyrata surviving more than a week in the mail...

I've been eyeing certain hard-find-plants that I could purchase from Thailand, and I plan to eventually purchase them all together and gladly pay the extra $50+ to make sure they arrive in a timely manner. This would not be cost-effective for a single plant (probably) but if you are ordering several special plants all at once, this is a great investment towards the health of your plants.

Time of Year:

I have purchased two Ficus Triangularis Variegatas from Thailand. Both took 10 days to arrive. One arrived with 80% of leaves still attached, and the other arrived with ZERO leaves still attached. I attribute this largely to time of year and temperature. Both plants were repotted and placed under grow lights immediately.

The difference? The first one was purchased in late summer, and the second was purchased in late winter. There may have been some other factors involved, but sending a plant during 80F weather is going to be much more successful than sending it during 45F weather.

Care upon arrival:

This is really the reason that I am motivated to write this post. Assuming you have located a credible source for your plants and have considered time of year and shipping speed, you would be well advised to have a plan in place for that glorious moment when your new plants arrive.

I have a long established habit of repotting everything the moment I bring it home and in many cases this has served me and my plants very well. 

The reason I prefer to repot immediately is twofold:

1. This eliminates the threat of fungus gnat larvae and other critters lurking in the soil

2. Most potting mixes stay wet too long for my liking and I prefer to grow all of my plants in a custom mix that has earned my full confidence

My most recent piece of plant mail has me questioning this practice.

I just received a beautiful Philodendron Ring of Fire that spent 12 days in the mail. This is the longest journey of any plant I've purchased and it is the first to respond so negatively to my "magic formula".

The Magic Formula:

Repot into any fully inorganic mix - I used equal parts of pumice, lava, and turface 

Place in propagation bin to enjoy high humidity and led grow lights. 

Let the magic begin!

Two days later and it had dropped 6 of its 8 leaves!! Yikes! While I can't say for sure that this was a result of my treatment, I also can't help but feel partially responsible (and guilty!) Maybe it had already decided to lose those leaves, but I wonder if it would have responded more favorably to a gentler approach.

So the question arises: should I have waited to repot? Should I have given it less light? Are my energy healing methods just not up to the task?

Let's address the question of light first, as this seems to be easier to clear up.

Giving a plant too much light too soon, means that the leaves will be using up more moisture and nutrients than the root system can easily provide. As a result, the plant will drop some leaves in order to lighten its load. This is a survival tactic and the plant will choose to drop the oldest leaves first.

To partially debunk the question of light intensity as it applies to the current example:

I have a cutting from my ficus audrey in the exact same propagation bin and it is doing extremely well! It had 6 leaves and zero roots when it went in, and two weeks later it had 5 leaves and TONS of roots. It also has already grown a NEW leaf! 

Since the humidity is over 90%, I don't think that the amount of light was stressing the plants out. Of course, ficuses prefer a higher light than philodendrons, but if a ficus with no roots can manage, then I would think that a philodendron with healthy roots would be just fine.

One additional note here: while the amount of light was likely fine for the philodendron, the transition from a dark box to grow lights was possibly too dramatic. Maybe it should have spent a few days in lower light to make for a more gentle transition from cardboard box to humidity bin.

This leads me to believe that repotting a plant after such a long journey is not always the best practice.

Maybe the plant would ideally be allowed to recover for at least as long as its time in the mail?

After a 12 day journey, perhaps 12 days of "just chillin" would have allowed my new friend to maintain its glorious variegated foliage!

Some important considerations about repotting plant mail:

Many plants arrive with the roots wrapped in sphagnum moss. This is intended to keep the roots moist during the journey but is meant to be removed and replaced with your choice of potting mix. I would probably still repot these plants right away but you COULD simply spray the moss every few days to keep it moist before repotting. I'll likely try this next time to see if it helps with the plants' recovery.

Both of my ficus triangularis' arrived in sphagnum moss and they were both repotted right away. So far it seems that transitioning a plant from sphagnum to potting mix is LESS stressful than moving from one potting mix to another. This is possibly because the roots have not had time to grow into the moss and it is generally much easier to remove than other mixes.

Also, I have had several plants that had slipped out of their pots along with their soil during their journey. At this point, the plant needs to be repotted and it will not create any additional stress to use a different potting mix. This makes the choice easy - it's going into one of MY mixes 😎

We could make a point here and say that choice of mix DOES influence the amount of stress, but assuming you are moving to a well-designed mix, this is probably not hugely important. Of course,  going from an extremely wet mix to an extremely dry mix (or vice versa) will be more challenging for the plant, but going from a poorly designed mix to an expertly crafted one should be easy!

That being said, the more often your mix allows for watering, the quicker the root system will develop. It might be worth moving your plants to a highly aerated mix for a while to encourage substantial root growth. I've been using inorganic bonsai mixes for this and it works very well, although when transitioning back to a different potting mix, the plant will need time to adjust. 

Is it worth subjecting your plant to multiple repots and growing mediums in order to improve root growth up front?

I really can't say for sure, but I am currently experimenting with this and so far it seems promising. Perhaps this is really best reserved for propagation, but I am trialing it as a means of plant recovery as well.

After all, it IS my "magic formula!"

1. Move plant to fully inorganic bonsai mix and place in humidity bin

2. Once root system is strong and robust, remove from bin and repot into desired medium

3. Magic!

So Here's What I Plan to do Next Time I Receive Plant Mail:

For long journeys: I will NOT repot, unless the plant has slipped out if it's travel soil.

For 2-3 day journeys: I will probably continue to repot right away EXCEPT for the fact that I want to experiment with not repotting for a couple of plants, just to see what happens.

I will boost humidity with methods that do not require inorganic potting mixes.

I will place in medium indirect light for a week or so before moving to higher light conditions.

Once the plant has stabilized and/or is actively growing, I will assess whether or not a repot would be appropriate.

Humidity:

I will simply use the chopstick/skewer and plastic bag method of increasing humidity. For this, a skewer that is taller than the plant is placed in the soil.  A clear bag is then placed over the foliage so that it is supported by the stick. This creates a humidity dome around the leaves, but not the soil.

The idea is that the leaves are mostly enclosed, while the soil is free to breathe. This makes it much less likely that fungus/mold will develop on the soil surface. It also allows the soil to dry out within a reasonable timeframe. Several holes should be poked in the bag to create a slight airflow and it should be opened or completely removed every couple of days or so to refresh the air supply.

You will need to monitor carefully for signs of fungus/mold.

Light:

New arrivals should receive less light than normal. As the plants are stressed, (and possibly in shock), the foliage will continue to lose moisture and the root system cannot always keep up with the demand for moisture and nutrients. By putting the plant in lower light than normal, the root system will have time to recover before the "workload" is increased by brighter light conditions.

Obviously, you could give a plant "not enough" light which would be detrimental, but as long as it's getting some indirect lighting that should suffice. I would avoid any direct lighting for the first week or two until the plant stabilizes or visibly perks up.

It would be really interesting to order two plants from a single source and treat them both differently upon arrival. One would be repotted immediately and the other would be given the bag treatment.

***Special Note***

If anyone has two or more variegated monstera adansonii's that they would like to donate for this invaluable research, please DM me on instagram 😄

Congratulations on making it this far into the article; you are officially a plant nerd! Please reach out with any questions/comments and together we will attain plant mastery!

Cheers!