Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The nursery near me has them but they were raised on Miracle-Gro. If i wash the leaves really good will it be ok for my Cham to crawl on it. I dont plan on leaving the plant in her cage, but only to transfer her to it when i take her out of her cage so she can come in the living room with me for a few hours or so or when i clean her cage.

I called Miracle-Gro consumer info line and they said the plant uses all the nutrients and the remains of any miracle-gro is used by the plant (not sitting in the soil) they said it should be safe. What do you think?

I live in a small apartment and have no real resources to hose off all the dirt and re-pot a plant. I suck at gardening.

I'm not much of a garden type person either, we bought a ficus for our chams cage 2 feet tall for 5 bucks at superstore. I dont have a clue what they use on their plants there but this is what I did with it...

*others feel free to correct me if this isnt 100% safe like I said I'm not a gardner and I'm new to owning chams*

I put it in the shower turned on the shower and soaked the plant (roughly 5-10 mins) then I washed the leaves and branches.. teadious but I wanted to be safe, I didnt re pot it. I dont have any new pots to put it in and I didnt know you should have done it oops hehe

I let all the water drain from inside the plant, and dry. I think it was in the tub for a day or 2 ... after this I took screen and covered the top of the pot and secured it around the base of the tree, oh and I also put rocks and marbles in the dirt under the screen to stop crix from trying to breed in it *i feed free range*

I hope this helps you out a bit, wait to see what the experts say though lol because I'm not sure if this method is totally safe but its worked for me.

cham_paradise also has a link - find on of his post scroll down goto the one about cageing baby chams he had some info in there about replanting plants and making cuttings from plants (dont know what cuttings are you will after reading this lol) to make things easy scroll down till you see option #2 of plants for your cages it tells you about re potting - which I suppose it the proper way you should really do it.

okay enough blabbering... good luck with the plant

Christa

You nailed the important part; Getting the leaves nice and clean.

Get a big tub of water and use some antibacterial dish soap. Turn the plant upside-down, and dip. Squeeze the water through the leaves with your hand. After a few dips - (where you feel the plant got a good coating) Pull the plant and leave it sit wet for about 10 minutes. (so the antibacterial can do its thing) Come back and spray it off.

Next, remove the top inch or so of soil, and put some kind of barrier. (regular unfertalized potting soil, stones, etc.)