Don't know if this applies to your plants specifically, but if they stems are branched at the bottom, like after a cutting, I use a toothpick in the crotch of the plant and bury that, works good. I've thought about piercing individual stems with a toothpick and planting it that way, but am scared of the damage it might do and haven't had the cahones to try it....
HI and thanks for the reply. As it happens my bacombas are just single stem cuttings - no way to attach a toothpick
What I have come up with might be worth describing. But keep in mind it is still in the idea stage. I have found that I can weigh down the plants by using some rocks around the bases of the stems. From that observation I moved on to a more elegant approach.
"What if?" I asked myself, "I used silicone cement to attach some plant ties to the underside of the rock?". Then use those plant ties to wrap around the stems of the plants. The rocks would be partially buried in the gravel (actually Flourite) so that the plant ties were also below the surface of the substrate. Then if I wanted to, later on, when the plants had rooted I could remove the plant ties/rock - or just leave things as is. The rocks look natural afterall.
Thus far I have found that the silicone cement does effectively stick the rock to the plant ties. Tomorrow a.m. I'll try to go the next step.
I considered other possibilities, incl. using heavy hex nuts (too shiny), lead-free solder (too shiny and not heavy enough and still contains some lead), or just using more substrate. But as this is a small 4 gallon "nano" tank, more than one and a half inches of substrate begins to decrease the available space for other things, like fish and plants and water, pretty fast!
all for now, gasteriaphile
