Unboxing and First Week Care

The week after the box lands decides whether you grew a plant or nursed a patient. It is seven short steps and most of them are restraint.

What do I do on day one?

Photograph the box sealed, then unpack. Free the plant from its bracing without pulling on the stem, water lightly if the medium is dry, and place it under low light: a shaded window or a dimmed lamp at distance. Ambient room temperature is fine. Then walk away, which is the hard part.

Skip fertilizer entirely. A tired plant cannot use it, and feeding a stressed root system is how new growers turn transit fatigue into a real problem.

When should I transplant a shipped clone?

After it perks up, usually day three or four, never day one. You want the plant handling one stress at a time: recover from shipping first, then move house. When you do transplant, keep the root ball intact, water it in, and give it a shaded day if conditions are harsh.

If the plant has not perked up by day three, do not transplant to fix it. Check watering and light and give it another day; roots recover on their own schedule.

How much light does a new clone need?

Start low and climb over the week. A clone arrives from a nursery environment and has no defenses against full-power LED or direct sun. Day one to two: gentle, indirect light. Day three to five: normal indoor veg light at a respectful distance. Day six onward: full strength, or the outdoor hardening schedule if the plant is headed outside.

Bleached white patches on the upper leaves mean you moved too fast. The plant survives it, but you lose a week you did not need to lose.

What signs mean something is actually wrong?

Watch the newest growth. Firm green tips mean the plant is fine no matter how the old leaves look. Warning signs are different: mushy stem at the soil line, a dry shrunken root ball, no new growth after a full week, or fine webbing that suggests hitchhiking mites.

Real problems on arrival day are a documentation matter first: photos, same day, to the nursery you ordered from. Every cut on the marijuana clones shipped manifest is covered by its nursery's live-arrival policy, and those policies run on arrival-day photos.

Written by Mike Hawley for the Marijuana Clones Shipped reference desk.