For cut flowers you can colour the crystals with food colouring for display,

Most plugplants come in trays part submerged with water retaining
gel/crystals

For feeding soak crystals in solution of feed, until they swell, such as
phostrogen, or for hanging baskets etc. use phostrogen tomato fertiliser,
then add to compost.
This will give plants an excellent start.

As long as you continue to add water before they dry out I would think it
would be an ideal rooting medium, must try it for fuschia cuttings and
lavendar cuttings.
Thanks for the idea


Regards
Cineman

I didn't mention slugs this time?

"peterlsutton" wrote in message
news
I have just bought some water absorbant crystals to mix with compost in
pots - but would like to play with them. 1) What are they chemically
speaking. 2) Are they the same as the transparent media I have seen for
growing cuttings. 3) Can you grow cuttings in them and do you need to add
any feed. 4) How do you mix them with water to give a totally transparent
media. My first attempt left a lot air bubbles and air sheets that make
it
almost opaque. Though I have got better since. 5) Can you buy small
transparent containers to put the gel and cuttings in. At the moment I
have
used my smallest glasses. and 6) any tips on recovering and cleaning the
gel afterwards to use again.

I fancy doing a little experimentation with different types of cuttings at
different times and different temperatures, where you can directly observe
what is going on. Any advice would be very welcome.

Peter