Pups and 3D Printing

I need pots and saucers for all of the little plants I've been accumulating, and I've been trying to find alternatives to just buying more stuff on Amazon. Three Haworthias occupy ceramic coffee cups with holes drilled in the bottom, and I just got a 3D printer. I printed two versions of the pot shown below, this first one (with the new Sedum Jelly Bean) with Jade White filament.

The other version of this pot was printed with "white-brown stone" filament. As it turned out, in bright light that means light pink with some flecks. In lower light, it does sort of look like the description. That pot got put to use today. I split up the Haworthia limifolia Fairy Washboard, which had three pups (two huge, one tiny) growing out of it in its little coffee cup. The big pups are shown here, and the small one is out of sight to the right.

When I dumped the cup, only half of the soil came out with the plant which isn't surprising since I planted it just a month ago. The roots appeared very healthy, but the soil was still moist a week after the last watering, which concerned me. The risk of using glazed ceramic instead of terra cotta is it does not dry out as fast, which could cause problems with succulents. I also noticed that the big 10-inch ceramic planter (aka "The Montage") isn't drying out very fast. I need to be especially careful with ceramic. This is what the cup dump looked like, with the big pups on the left and the little one on the right.

It took a little bit of effort to snap off the big pups, but I had courage from watching an Australian manhandle his haworthias on YouTube. Here is one of the big pups in The Montage between the Ice Plant and a Cuban Oregano cutting. I stuck the CO and a rosemary cutting into The Montage just to fill up space and I wasn't sure they would stay there. When I tug on them there is some resistance, so they might have rooted already.

Here are the main plant in the 3D-printed pot, the little pup in a 2-inch plastic pot, and the other big pup planted back in the ceramic cup. I also stuck a stray chunk of root into the little pot. After watching the Australian YouTuber, it seems like any little chunk might sprout into a new plant.

The Haworthias are on the front lines of my 3D printing efforts so far. I am using three coffee cups now, all with Haworthias, and I 3D printed saucers for them. The saucers I had been using were all too tall and hit the cup handle. Also, I broke a saucer for one of my small ceramic pots, and replaced it with a simple 3D print. Maybe as I get better I will replace the saucer with one that has a blue rim, like the original. Unfortunately the Hawortha attentuata Concolor (coffee cup) and the Haworthia Zebra (ceramic pot) have not produced any pups yet. I've had them less than a month; yes, I'm impatient. I received and potted the Haworthia Cooperi yesterday in a coffee cup. This is one of those that has the translucent leaves. It came in a 2-inch pot and it looked like they took a plant from elsewhere and jammed it in there. I found a couple pieces under the main plant, and these are now drying and I will try to plant them. Here's Cooperii's portrait in its coffee cup.

As I get more filament colors, I will be printing different designs in the 3.5- to 5-inch range. For anything bigger than that, I will continue to go with real terra cotta or ceramic. 3D PLA filament is not designed to last long when exposed to moisture, so I did hit the pots and saucers with some clear Rustoleum enamel to perhaps slow down any deterioration.