bad judgement

I made an error in judgement and have probably killed my beautiful Croton plant. It was one of my favorite plants, and after seeing how well the first cutting rooted, I thought I could get a lot more plants out of this by cutting off its crown, rotting the crown, rooting leaves from further down the stem, and still having the "mother plant" as well.

It was all too much for the poor thing. The crown died.

Most of the leaves I tried to root in water have got moldy ends and were tossed. There are just three remaining, might grow if I am careful to change the water more frequently.

I was about to despair over the whole thing but it appears the stem is sprouting new leaves, I see tiny green nubbins where the old leaves fell off. (Long ago; it was that spindly stem appearance that moved me to cut it so drastically).

So perhaps not all is lost, if this survives. I'm really kicking myself inside over this. It was such a beautiful plant! If I wanted more, should have just gone out and bought some.

Oh, and that rooted cutting died too, by the way. It had spider mites, and I couldn't risk keeping it.