I got these from Orange Lake Nursery during their Black Friday sale. The first batch of TCs I ordered from them were great, this one…is questionable. The pallidiflorum and luxurians arrived with yellowing leaves, which I know isn’t a problem, but they’ve continued to yellow further, on new leaves. The black velvet, regale, and forgetii are all translucent, and the black velvet is mushy.
I live in Maine, and we’ve gotten some pretty cold weather the last few weeks, so they were shipped with a heat pack. They spent less than ten minutes on the porch.
I’ve tried contacting them over Instagram and they tell me they look okay and that they’re not mushy. The black velvet is mushy and the leaves look like cooked spinach. I don’t know how to show them that they’re mushy in a photo through Instagram. I’m fully willing to give these a shot, but I know that none of the leaves will survive the deflasking process, I’d have better luck cutting them off than trying to remove the agar from leaves with the same consistency as wet tissues.
A bit frustrated.
by YardIights
12 Comments
IMO, These TCs look fine.
https://preview.redd.it/15ojqq0xjm7g1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=acfbca33fa9587159aea819bc622d78640e2834b
Here is an example of some Bad TCs from Palmstreet
They definitely have cold damage- the translucent and mushy ones especially. The yellowing is questionable, but likely damaged beyond survivability also with how the others look. I did TC for a few years and live in Alaska. My orders that arrived looking like that had didnt make it at all.
They don’t look great, especially if mushy. Not to say there isn’t any hope for them, but not ideal.
Unfortunately that’s the risk of buying in winter. It’s why most people stop buying plants that need to be shipped because in extreme cold they just die
I’d keep contacting Orange Lake. They’re very nice people and will probably work with you to some extent
They look mushy to me and I’d probably be upset and request a partial refund or store credit. It looks like they went from baking hot to freezing and then thawed. Or like a bag of steamed spinach.
The roots are most important, if they are firm and the crown isn’t completely soft either, you should be good. You half expect the first couple leaves of a TC plant to just die if you look at it wrong anyway. I would deflask into damp sphagnum in a bag/terrarium to maintain very high humidity, and see what happens.
They look fine to me honestly. I got 2 tc plants earlier this year that looked similar from oln and they are both doing great now.
Some of those look like every bag of spinach I’ve bought for months after two days.
Maybe December isn’t the time to have tropical plants shipped in the mail.
Yes rinse well and enjoy your accumulation period
I dont see anything wrong with these, the leaves from tc all die anyway, even if you destroy all the roots, theyll grow. Do the squeeze test
They look fine, just peel away the mushy stuff trim the roots a little bit and acclimate it. You can’t expect perfection from tissue cultures, especially when they’ve been shipped in the cold.
If you wash away all of the gel very carefully and get rid of whatever looks suspect, they’ll be fine. I would take them out of the plastic immediately, because the longer they stay in it the more likely it is that the mush will spread.