Guide to buy plant cuttings online Part 4

You cannot control variegation. Allow me to say this before anything. Most variegated plants you know have chimeral variegation, which is a cell mutation. I will talk about other variegations in future posts, but today we will focus on chimeral type. Since it's a cell mutation and not carrying in the gene, this type of variegation is random and unpredictable. You cannot promote or stop it technically. Therefore, when someone asks me how to make a plant more or less variegated, my answer always is, no, you can't.
However, if you already started with a highly variegated specimen and it's reverting. You can do something about it. I will talk about it tomorrow. But first, we need to pick the right cutting.
The first wrong advice I see people give out is variegation on the original leaf will determine the variegation of the next leaf. This is total nonsense. . Yes, if you have a mother plant or a couple of leaves, you can gauge how the variegation of the next leaf might be. But using it as an indicator is very risky and not reliable.
The second incorrect advice is to look for more variegated nodes, stems. Everyone said the variegation on the stem is the way to tell, and now I say it's not. What am I talking about, right? Let me explain. In the previous posts, we talk about auxiliary buds, where the new leaves are coming from. If you have a highly variegated stem, but the auxiliary bud is situated at the non-variegated part, the chance you will not get a variegated leaf is high. Therefore, the location of the auxiliary bud on the stem is the correct way to look for when buying a variegated cutting. Will it be a definite way to tell? Swipe left to see an example of a variegated auxiliary bud Sadly, no. As I say, chimeral variegation is unpredictable and uncontrollable. I have one highly variegated cataphyll and the variegation carrying on up to the petiole but then lost it when reaching the leaf. You can kinda guess and give yourself the best chance based on all the information I provide.