MAJOR Garden Updates | Water Propagation + Repotting

I don't know if you remember from my last update video, I was very conflicted about moving to Bangkok. And I just made a decision that yes, I am indeed going to move. Hey guys, my name is Sean and I'm a houseplant enthusiast from Jakarta, Indonesia. This is an episode where I'm going to just be potting up some of these babies here. They've been sitting in water for a while, so we're going to see some wonderful root porn. And there's going to be a lot of updates. I'm just going to ramble a lot because a lot has been going on in my life. And I actually really hate talking about myself, but a lot of you guys follow me throughout the years. So some update is definitely overdue. I was in Europe for about three weeks and then in China for about two weeks. So I feel like I came back as a whole new different person. Before I get started, I mean, it's been a while since I've been connected with you guys. And I feel like I don't want this relationship to be one way. I hate that to happen. So write down in the comment section how you're doing and what are maybe some of the plants that you are struggling with or some of the plants that you're into currently. I just wanted to know. I just want to know what's going on in the real world because I've been like going to these plant shows. I've been going on epic holidays and I've been feeling disconnected with my plants and also what's happening around the world in the last two months. So I appreciate if you would connect with me and I guess I will get started. Now I'm going to start off with one that I'm really worried about. This is the Hoya Calistophylla. Now I haven't had this in water for a long time. As you can see, the way that you would know to start repotting or potting up the plant in water propagation is that it would put out initial roots and then it would put out secondary roots. As you can see here, it'll put out one main root and then a secondary is coming out. Now this is slightly premature, but then I wanted to do this now. I wanted to pot this up now because I'm super worried. Let me take a few of these cutting apart. This is very good knowledge for not just with Hoyas but many others. This is a bit risky to pot up, but it can absolutely survive. Now I'm concerned because this has dried out and I know that Hoya has put out vines from over here from the left and right of this. So if this has dried down and I remember when I cut this, this wasn't this dry. This is why for Hoya sometimes it's better to take a two node cutting. So this is a bit risky and rather than having it in water, I might want to opt to move it into soil right away. And this is another one. Now this is a pretty good lesson for this particular Hoya. Look at this. This is a higher root and it's coming down into the water and it's rooted really well. Now what's happened with this is that this node has been used up. So it's put out this vine here. So now from this vine, it's got potential to put out two vines from right here. So I'm not that worried about this, but we are going to pot this up today. And then the other two are kind of similar to the first cutting where the top has started to dry downwards. So I really wanted to move it into soil and try to get it to push out a new vine. Now because I've run out of space, I'm going to just put all my eggs in one basket. And I know that usually I don't do that. I'm usually more into potting each one up differently, giving them more chance to survive. But again, we're running out of space. Before I went to Europe, I had a week at home and I tidied up all the Hoyas and all the Skindapses because they've grown like weeds. They grow so fast. I've thrown away a lot to be honest and I feel super guilty about it. But none of my neighbors can take care of it. And it would take me so much effort to post it. I would give it to people who live nearby. But just the thought of me going through the Instagram to post it up and having to ship it and pack it and deal with people, that just wasn't going to happen. So I actually ended up throwing away quite a lot of plant material. And so the strategy for me with each plant moving forward is that I will have basically one beautiful pot that I'll be having up on display or living on the shelf. And then I would also have a backup of it because again, I've been traveling for so long. I have a gardener that takes care of the plants but eventually when I come back from my travels, I would lose a lot of plants. Things will die. So that is just the price to pay. There's no such thing as a perfect caretaker. And even in my care, things don't survive 100%. So I do have the strategy of keeping one plant that is in display and one that is kind of a backup. And then the rest, I would just throw them away. So that's why I feel like that's sort of my way moving forward in the short term. So this is that. I'm just going to be watering lightly every day. In fact, this is the water where it came from. I would water this with the same water just because it's used to the same pH value. It's got a bit of rooting hormone that the plant naturally releases. I don't add any hormone or anything in my water propagation. But it's just used to that water. So I might as well dunk it in here and hopefully this will do well. Now, I have other Calistophilas around so don't worry about it. This is just basically the backup of my backups. So you guys, I was just in a China plant show. It's amazing there. My gosh, I'm actually... Keep in mind, I go to a lot of markets in Indonesia. I went to the US, China, and all over Asia like Thailand, Philippines, Singapore. I'm not on anyone's side just to make it clear. But the Chinese plant market is moving so fast. The people are so passionate. They're so driven. They're so competitive. And they grow things with so much passion and the products are very, very high quality. So you'll see that video up in a few months. Keep in mind, things that I'm filming now will come out in like half a year's time because I've so much that I've filmed over the last few months. It's been like a whirlwind. So I'm genuinely worried for the rest of the world. If China continues at this pace, my gosh, it will out-compete us. It will out-price us because they're selling plants a little bit cheaper than everywhere else. They're making things better quality. And just for one example, they would take like, let's say, a crystal antherium. They would buy it in China and then they would breed it. When I say breed it, that means that they will self-pollinate it and they will produce thousands and maybe even millions of it. And then from there, they will find the best ones. And then the less desirable, even the average one or even the old generation will be thrown away. So now, essentially, what China has are better generation, beautiful venetian, better form, stronger plants and more robust, easier to grow, faster growing because they have such a huge selection process and they have such strong determination. It's insane. It's, in a way, a good thing that their social media and ours are sort of like two different worlds. There's a wall in between us and there's such a wall between the trade. It's not easy for us to trade with China. It's a good thing. I'm just saying that because I'm genuinely worried about the rest of the world. If China ever floods the market with their plants. But it's also very, very interesting to see because on the side of horticulture, with so many new cultivars and better breeds, that's also going to benefit everyone. And I'm not just saying with the ornamental plant market, but also with the agriculture as well. The fruitings and the flowering. Generally speaking, plants that look better, grow better, taste better, they're going to benefit mankind in the long run. The next plants are these begonias. This is pretty easy to repot. I want to show you the roots before. It's pretty snug. I meant to do this even before I went to China for three weeks. So look at that root porn there. I've got another one to unbox for you and this is just really satisfying for me and hopefully for you as well. There you go. Wow. Now, the reason why I have a they actually look really, really well in this wall. So I'm like propagating quite a lot of it. And also the thing with these begonias, I see some in the back there on the shelf, is that they grow super fast for me. So then they would grow and then all you see all these lanky vines that has like, that has basically wouldn't stand up anymore. They're just gotten too big. So we really do want to keep propagating them and start placing them on the wall here. But speaking of the wall, I am, I don't know if you remember from my last update video, I was very conflicted about moving to Bangkok. And I just made a decision that yes, I am indeed going to move. It's going to be somewhere in 2026. Now I do have a lot of things to consider. So please feel free to comment down below with your thoughts. All of your opinions matter. I mean, to see the reasons why I wanted to move, you should check out that video. I'm going to link that up above. I'm not going to repeat that here, but for the logistics of moving, I may need some of, I may need the crowdsource some ideas from you guys. Now I have to sell this house. I don't want this to be something that is a dead weight because it takes money to take care of a house, whether it's empty and it would just lose money if I rent it out. It's just not worth it. So I have to sell this house sooner or later. Now, a lot of you guys are thinking what's going to happen with all my plants. Well, my idea is that I would probably save some of the ones that I can save. They have strong meaning for me. They're gifted by people that are irreplaceable. I can think of like maybe 20 or so. Now the rest of them, I'm even thinking I would probably just sell it. I could buy the same plant again in Bangkok for half the price. That's just how expensive things are in Jakarta. Now I know that you guys think, you know, how can plants be so expensive in Jakarta? A lot of our plants come from Jakarta. We are producers. But believe it or not, the common plants here actually cost quite a bit. And Thailand, everything is so much cheaper. There's so much more selection and they're grown so much better there, which is one of the reasons why I'm moving to Thailand. And I'm so looking forward to it. So my idea is that, by the way, this is pretty much done. This year I've been away most of the time. I think if I made the right calculation in 2025 alone, I've stayed in 70 different hotel rooms. That's how crazy 2025 has been. I don't even know how some of these plants are still standing here. I'm really really grateful for my gardener for pulling this off. But I really wanted to sort of leave this house with like a nice sweet taste in my mouth. Meaning that I wanted to spruce up everything. I want to grow everything nicely. I want to stay home for like the next six months at least. Try to minimize travel as much as I can. And just like propagate, make my walls nice. And then before I go, film a lot of beautiful epic contents in this house. And just like treat it as a studio. Treat it with a lot of love and respect. And then sell it and leave. And then that would be a wonderful memory. And then there's also the other side where, I don't know, this house honestly hasn't given me the best of luck. I have not had any growth since I moved here in the last two to three years. And I don't know if you guys have been paying attention to the news here. I might as well work on another begonia while we talk. This one here. I don't know if you guys have been paying attention to the news. But there has been riots in Indonesia. The political system is really messed up. Now a lot of you guys are going to comment on below and say my political system is messed up too. You're right. I mean a lot of the world now are facing crazy political problems. Including Nepal and the Philippines. So you know, I wouldn't say our problem here is unique. But it is coming from a very broken government system. I have no faith that they will repair this in our lifetime. I mean the riots resolved with no solution basically. And to make things worse, I was trying to get gas earlier in a reputable gas company called Shell. Not sponsored by any means. But they were being screwed over because the government here wanted their gas company to do well. So they banned Shell from importing any gas. So I could not get even my car gas tank filled up. The only way I could do that is if I went to the local company owned by the government. And my gosh, that is such bullshit. I grew up in a place, I mean I grew up in the US and Singapore. And I grew up based on the values of fairness and everything. And this country no longer has any of that value that I hold. So anyways, I digress. My second option is, should I just leave right now, right away? Should I not wait? I mean, I'm kind of okay with just like selling everything, packing up and finding happiness elsewhere as soon as possible. But again, there's this part of me, again I'm 50-50, I'm on the fence. There's a part of me that really really wants to leave some love behind in this house to do what I set out to do. Honestly, my green wall looks kind of nice now, but it's not perfect. It's taught me a lot. And honestly, there's a lot that I wanted to share with you about the green wall and also a lot of the plants that are around me. There's some care and propagation videos that I could do with some of the plants that I've gathered around over the years. Sorry, I'm looking around because there's a lot of plants around me now. So, I could rebuild my collection in Thailand, that could be awesome. But I'm so torn and I've been so tired of traveling that I haven't had time to even figure out how I'm doing. I haven't had anyone ask me that. And I haven't asked myself that, honestly. So, I don't know. Literally, I just arrived two days ago. I rested yesterday and today I'm just starting to film and then I've got a lot of editing that I'm gonna be doing. I'm barely keeping up with my weekly uploads, let alone try to plan long term of what I'm gonna do. So, it'll be so much easier if you could just tell me what to do. But anyways, this is an Edensonia that fell off a wall over there. It got really lanky and fell off. The larger leaf was actually quite big. I don't know where that went, actually. There was a top cutting. But this is from a middle cutting and look at how big the leaves are. And of course, if you let this climb up the wall further, it will size up really fast. Because I remember when I started this plant up on there in the ground, it was like regular size leaves. And now this is just like, I don't know, side shoots. It's gotten quite big. So, I might start this in the ground again and let it climb up. Although, as I mentioned earlier, I might be out of here in a few months. But I'm still going to do what I'm gonna do. But basically, this is gonna have to go in the ground. Wonderful roots though. I don't know. I'm obsessed with looking at plant roots. So, I've been obsessed with like the new philodendron hybrids. But I, honestly speaking, cannot afford any of them. They're so expensive. But there are some philodendrons that kind of have that look. For example, this is just a philodendron strawberry shake. Look at all those roots. And I love that it has all these beautiful colors. These orange hues, flamingos, or yellows that really look a lot like the philodendron hybrids that we're seeing. All the tricolors. So, imagine, I mean, I have some growing in the back there on the shelf. But imagine if you had like this on the wall, like with these beautiful colors. That is just quite beautiful. I mean, I had that for a moment before I took them down. These with the Florida beauty and everything. So, I do think that the philodendrons are quite beautiful. This is a painted lady, by the way. And it does look beautiful too. The painted lady can have pretty nice emergent leaf that's almost like pink. So, oh, this is too many plants in one. So, yeah, I've been trying to grow a few of these out to try to put them on the wall. So, these have been water propagated. I'm gonna do one more. This root porn right here. Hang in there. Hang in there. Okay, there you go. Beautiful. And honestly, I think the leaf is pretty dear than the philodendron pink princess. Now, this is one that I've had for a long, long time. The strawberry shake. When I bought it, it was like COVID era. It was very expensive. And I have neglected it for a while. So, it wasn't doing so well. But now, I've started to see some beauty in it again, which is why we have a few propagating away. There's some other plants back there. I'll show you some b-rolls when you have it. It's got this beautiful caramel type color. Even like the regular, well, not regular, but even the caramel marble, which has been around for a while, is still unaffordable for me. Now, in the past, I would do aeroid potting mix. But because I am growing this out, I'm gonna root them and I wanted to put them on the wall. So, temporarily, I'm just going to put them in my new potting media. And feel free to watch that episode. I'm gonna link that up above. I do have a new potting media that's really, really good. It boosts the growth of the plants because I started introducing mycorrhizal fungi. I started fermenting the media so the roots are better able to absorb the nutrients from the soil, from the potting media. So, yeah, I do plan to be home in the next few months. Although, I do have a Vietnam trip that I kind of promised. So, hi, if you're watching this, you'll know why I'm stressed out. Hi is an anthurium breeder in Vietnam. He's trying to get me to come over. I agreed to it and then he sent me the details of the travel and realized that everything is like three to five hours drive away. There were like five places to visit. And I was like, oh my gosh, I really want to get out of that. I don't know if I can handle so much more traveling. I mean, he's a pretty great friend. He's got a wonderful story and I wanted to support his business. So, let's see how that goes. But I'm still deciding on the logistics. I might cut it down to only one to two places in Vietnam. And then after that, there just won't be any more traveling there. I don't know. I've been so homesick and I love this. I miss working with the plants, you know, and obviously going around has been wonderful. I know some of you guys have mixed feelings about me doing so many travel contents. But honestly, my home videos, if you saw my propagation videos, have been getting very few views. My better viewed videos are the ones where I travel to these gardens, to these nurseries. One, a lot of these travels were paid for. I don't get paid outside of the traveling expenses because I wanted to keep my content purely based on interest, based on the story, based on how well I like, you know, this nursery or this show or whatever. So, none of the shows have been paying me money like out of their pocket. So, it's just been like hotel and airline expenses paid for. But it really is quite difficult when these opportunities come up to say no. And I've been saying yes to most of them. And I've learned so much in my travel experiences because, you know, different growing conditions, different growers have different experience. And I share a lot of that with you here on the channel. So, I hope that you watch those videos because I really think those are super hard to edit. They're super interesting and super fun. So, there's that. But also, I do miss my home videos because one, they're easy to edit. And two, I can connect with you guys better. And three, I get to work on my own plants. So, I really wanted to have a balance. And I'm struggling with that balance as of late. Hopefully, I'll find better balance when I'm in Bangkok. And another thing that I'm wondering even, I mean, if you live in Thailand now or whatever, you can comment down below. But I don't even know where I'm gonna live in Bangkok. I haven't had time to decide whether I want to live in an apartment in downtown. And by the way, in case you didn't notice, I live in the suburbs out of Jakarta. I cannot afford living in downtown. I mean, if I did, I would probably live in like a tiny apartment with a balcony. And I know a lot of you guys do live in that condition. Some of my viewers in tiny apartments struggling with their plants. So, when I moved to Bangkok, I haven't decided if I wanted to live downtown and sort of compromise and, you know, take public transport and just live smaller and struggle a bit with the plants because I would not have like a backyard or anything like this. But then, it would be a lot more relatable. Or I could live maybe somewhere a little bit further and have a little house or something with like a little garden situation. I don't know. I haven't really looked. So, if you live in Thailand or if you had any idea, any recommendations, or if you just are trying to contribute some ideas as to what kind of place you want me to live in or where do you think I should film my content, let me know. One more thing before I let you go. I'm just about done here. I would probably have to consider another means of income if I live in Bangkok because it is a little bit more expensive than my current living situation. And I definitely have more opportunities in Bangkok to monetize based on my platform. So, a friend has offered to, you know, get together and open a cafe with me. So, that's possible. I want to probably have it be a plant-themed cafe. And I'd really love, you know, getting people together, having people come over and be inspired and have a cup of coffee. It could be a place for me to work as well. But it's always not a good idea to work with your friend, isn't it? I haven't had the best luck with working with my good friends or whatever. I mean, same things with husbands and wives or, you know, spouses. It's not a good idea for spouses to work together. Let me know what you think about that. Or a second option would be, I'm thinking that I might actually do live selling. I hate, hate, hate live selling. But I do get DMs every day about people asking, oh, you know, your plants for sale. Do you ship to India? Do you ship to, like, Dubai or whatever? I get so many messages. So, I could monetize really. I could have a huge network of people maybe willing to buy. So, my idea is, what if I set up a platform, like maybe a website, and I do it only once a month. So, I make it sort of a very televised event. And I would go to only one nursery, one genre for that month. That means that, for example, I could do a Sansevieria month. Or I can move to Begonia month. Or I could do, obviously, Anthurium or Ferns or whatever. And it would be broadcast to the world from Thailand. And for Thailand, it's actually super easy to ship plants out of compared to Indonesia. So, what I could do is, I could go to these nurseries, do these epic live sales, have, like, high sales volume all within one day. Because I really hate, to do sales and after sales and all that stuff. So, get it done. And then, a lot of you guys will be able to enjoy, to be able to access some of these plants directly from the nurseries. So, I think that's a win-win-win for all. The nursery would obviously get a really good exposure. And it would move, hopefully, volumes and volumes of plants. Because in Thailand, the nurseries are massive. They propagate en masse. So, they have the volume to sell. They have the quality. And they have the experience to ship. So, that is something that I have been toying around with this idea. That is, sort of, a way for me to make money. For you to get plants at an affordable price. Because I will, for sure, negotiate the price. And obviously, I will be very hands-on in choosing the plants, the quality, and negotiating for the best price for you guys. So, it'll be cheaper than if you guys just had, you know, went there to shop by yourself. Because I would be able to move volumes in one day. So, it's, kind of, a win-win for all. And that is, sort of, my passion. When I see these wonderful plants in these tours, I wanted everyone to own them. Within a reasonable price, of course. So, that might be what's going to happen. But again, a lot can change in between. And if you have any ideas, I definitely welcome it in the comment section. I thank you so much for sticking around. And also, one more thing. Do comment down below to let me know what kinds of contents you prefer. Since I told you that I like both. But I just have been struggling with doing these home contents because of the opportunities that were given to me. Yeah. And I hope that you guys are doing well. And say subscribe, comment, and all that good stuff. And I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.