How Do You Plant Stubborn Stem Plants?

I've been having some troubles lately trying to plant my red cabomba and red scarlet temple telanthera.
I'm probably doing it wrong, but every time I try to plant a portion, it always comes back up. Do I plant them individually at a time or in small bunches? I know I have to get them deep in there, maybe that's my problem, but I can't do that without disturbing the substrate a lot. And that would possibly knock others loose. Do I need really small and thin tweezers to do this properly?
The substrate I use is CaribSea Eco-Complete planted aquarium substrate.
If you have any YouTube videos to recommend or tricks to get stem plants like this to stay put, please do tell!

 

Getting plants in to nutrient rich substrate is such a chore! My “method” is just try for as long as I can by making a hole and shoving a pile of substrate on it and once I get it walk away and just hope it doesn’t come out until the roots grow in.
If this fails step two is cry in a corner

 

Getting plants in to nutrient rich substrate is such a chore! My “method” is just try for as long as I can by making a hole and shoving a pile of substrate on it and once I get it walk away and just hope it doesn’t come out until the roots grow in.
If this fails step two is fry in a corner

I just set up a tank with eco complete and I’m having the same issue. I’ve been using this same “method” with the best results. But I still have had the occasional stem float. OTOH, I have the same issue trying to plant in pool filter sand. I’ve decided that planting in a box full of water is just plain hard lol!

 

Having deep substrate certainly helps, and planting with curved tip tweezers does also. Insert the cutting with the tips of the tweezers very near horizontal, then pull them straight back instead of up helps the substrate settle around the cutting.

 

Getting plants in to nutrient rich substrate is such a chore! My “method” is just try for as long as I can by making a hole and shoving a pile of substrate on it and once I get it walk away and just hope it doesn’t come out until the roots grow in.
If this fails step two is cry in a corner

Thanks for the tip, I'll try that.
And yes that's too true :')

Having deep substrate certainly helps, and planting with curved tip tweezers does also. Insert the cutting with the tips of the tweezers very near horizontal, then pull them straight back instead of up helps the substrate settle around the cutting.

Yeah my substrate is pretty deep, I even bought another bag just for this occasion.
That's very helpful, I'll definitely try it. Thank you!

 

U can also take water bottle caps and cut an X in the cap then put your pinky through it and put it upside down and put your plant stems through it and bury the caps

 

Long planting tweezers are good things to have. The 5 piece sets are worth it. When you plant with your tweezers gently open and close them a few times. That can keep it from popping right up.

 

I just try to stick it in the substrate with my fingers and then put like a small rock on it to weigh it down until it grabs hold of the soil lol

 

U can also take water bottle caps and cut an X in the cap then put your pinky through it and put it upside down and put your plant stems through it and bury the caps

Would that not rot the stems? Do you have experience with this working long term?

Long planting tweezers are good things to have. The 5 piece sets are worth it. When you plant with your tweezers gently open and close them a few times. That can keep it from popping right up.

Yeah I agree you can get really cheap ones on Amazon. But I'll try the tweezer trick bc I definitely was not doing that lol.

 

Would that not rot the stems? Do you have experience with this working long term?

Most all the stem plants we started out with we did it this way and it worked well. Just make sure the X is wide enough to push the stem through easily

 

Most all the stem plants we started out with we did it this way and it worked well. Just make sure the X is wide enough to push the stem through easily

Wow that's something interesting I've never heard of before, thanks!

 

Wow that's something interesting I've never heard of before, thanks!

i cant take credit for it i found it on YouTube cause we were having the same issue wit keepin new plants in the substrate till they established. I tried to find the video to link it but couldn't find it. But i know its on there somewhere