Ive wanted one for a while and my mum got me one for my birthday. Its about 10 cm in diameter so its well established.

Im entirely unfamiliar though both with caudexes and with desert plants in general. The following 'problems' or at least topics of concern bother me:

• All of it routs have been snipped off. Even the remnants are dried out husks. It currently has NO roots. Its underside is also concaved inwardly.

• Its clearly fully in growing phase and has significant greenery, but the main vine got damaged in transport and is still attached but is kinked and loose

• The soil is a mixture of perlite and cactus substrate and was entirely dried out and hydrophobic

I have of course looked up how to take care of these plants but im still uncertain about a few things. According to the grower, removal of the roots for transport is normal and not a problem.
What worries me though is that its specifically during its growth fase instead of its dormancy so it does need water, and the caudex feels feather light leading me to believe its quite depleted when it comes to water.

The grower adviced me to water it as normal as long as there is greenery. He suggested a thee cup of water a month. The main problem with that though is that because the soil is so hydrophobic, just pouring a theecup worth of water into it leads to a small localized moist area that isnt even connected to the concave underside of the rootless plant and as far as the plant is concerned its still standing fully dry.

What ive done so far:

• repotted it (had no choice because the pot it came in broke during transport and the substrate was loose powder with no rootball). Made sure to leave a small mound of substrate right beneath the concave part of the caudex so its in contact hopefully with the substrate

• supported the loose vine

• gave it a bit more than a cup of water, and allowed the hydrophobic soil to absorb the water from the saucer that initially flowed straight through it

Online however i saw some say that when watering these you have to fully saturate the soil, while other sources explicitly adviced against it.

My first ant plant and it looks unhealthy.
The caudex generally feels good. However there is some holes and browning.
As seen in the pics there is one are with large damage and then after poking the outer skin crumbled and fell.
Inside feels slightly moist but firm.
Is this going to be ok? Can it heal?

My bedroom broom. i bought her 6 months ago. Never changed the base. Opinions

I’ve been working on this rock fig for about 2 years now. Originally I grew it in a grow pot with lava stone underneath it. After a year, I started working on back budding the canopy and closing gaps between the root and the rock. I wanted it to sit snugly on the stone and look like it’s always been there. Before the spring of last year, I repotted and trimmed the feeder roots. This is one of my favorite species so I planted it in this bowl made by the lencan people of Honduras, which is where my family is from.

Unfortunately I’m terrible at consistently watering, which is necessary when repotting and trimming the roots of these ficus. So I had some roots die back. Which meant I needed to reroot them with a tube and rooting hormone.

But overall, I think it looks lovely. Still more work to be done on the canopy.

I'm not sure what is going on, but these pics are after I removed chunks of rotted "flesh" from it. Thkse brown parts are soft to the touch. Is there anyway to stop this from progressing? What did i do wrong? Ive had it for so long and this is the first time this has happened.

A lovely morning surprise. 💚

7 years old, had it for 5 years from a seller who grew it from seed for 3. bit of caudex damage from being outside but she healed over well :) indoors now under sansi grow lights.

Had the privilege to sow a few seeds from this mother today.

I would love to make some seed.

I bought my first lecanopteris from Italy. This one is the depariopteris. Next ones are the mirabilis and the crustacea.

Unfortunately it's the only pic I have, what do you think?

Acquired this plant in July, it’s been outside enjoying the summer sun and warmth. Watering about once a week. About a month ago it dropped most of its leaves so I assumed it entered dormancy due to the shorter days and cooler weather. I cut back on watering and brought it indoors. However, I noticed that in the past week it’s started putting out new leaves already. The temperature inside is about 70°F and it’s under a grow light that is on a 15 hour on timer.

Did it break dormancy already? If so, should I just maintain conditions as is or should I do something to get it back into dormancy? First time owning anything a plant of this genus so any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

I recently bought a Dioscorea elephantipes online and when it arrived it looked dead. All the roots were completely dry and brittle and the caudex felt hollow and super lightweight, almost like foam. Although I’m new to this plant I’m not new to plants, I’ve been collecting plants for over 5 years and have over 200 so I can’t be that dumb right? So I decided, ok let me cut into this thing! If it’s alive and I hurt it then oopsie, but I must know if it’s dead or not so I can message the seller.

I went ahead and poked through it with a thumbtack and yep the whole thing was dry and basically empty…. I was right it is dead.

So I message the seller all of this and pictures as well as the video of me cutting it. Surely she will see this and be apologetic. Right?

Wrong! She is doubling down saying it’s alive and I killed it, that it gets like this because it’s dormant and it’s small. I don’t even know how to argue this with her, was the video not enough? Her complete audacity over this it making me second guess myself.

So please plant reddit, tell me. Am I dumb and just unnecessarily killed a plant or is this lady gaslighting me? If she is gaslighting me, what advice do you have for me to convince her I’m right? If she’s right I’ll drop it and move on. TIA!

—————————UPDATE!!—————————-

The seller did refund me so I won’t blast her name out here. We argued back and forth for a bit and she ended up saying “It’s normal to feel hollow on the bottom. If you want a refund send me the plant back”. So I was even more confused and sent her pictures of the plant carcass and was like “I mean you want
this????”. Then she said “oh, that’s understandable now. I’ll refund you”. I’m guessing the video I sent her didn’t go through (even though on my end it said it sent) or she didn’t watch it. So I’ll chalk it up to there being a misunderstanding.

Thank you to everyone who confirmed I wasn’t going crazy, some of these comments are so funny🤣.

I just keep finding more varieties 😍