The best way to enjoy gardening is by propagating new plants, which comes with many methods. One of the easiest propagation methods is when you snip off a piece of stem, put it inside a potting medium, and tend to the cutting until roots start sprouting. Then, transplant the rooted cutting into a pot or garden.
This method is otherwise known as Cuttings Method. Meanwhile, growing plants from cuttings can fill your garden with lush blooms, herbs, etc., even with little effort and cost. It requires cutting out mature plants' cuttings and getting a little container of soilless potting mix to start propagation.
This article would be teaching you how to propagate from cuttings and plants you can.
Jump to:
- How to Propagate Plants from Cuttings
- Essential Requirements for Propagation by Cuttings
- Various Steps to Propagate Plants from Cuttings
- Most Popular Plants You Can Propagate from Cuttings
- 1. Arrowhead Vine
- 2. Lavender
- 3. Sage
- 4. Rosemary
- 5. Basil
- 6. Christmas Cactus
- 7. Coleus
- 8. Mint
- 9. African Violets
- 10. Rex Begonia
- 11. Thyme
- 12. Corn Plant
- 13. Dumb Cane
- 14. Snake Plant (Sansevieria)
- 15. English Ivy
- Conclusion
How to Propagate Plants from Cuttings
Stem-cutting propagation is another cloning method since it will give the new plant an identical gene to the parent plant.
This phenomenon is only sometimes true of the other popular methods like collecting seeds, germinating, and planting. Hence, making rooting stem cuttings the best way of propagating hybrid plants.
Meanwhile, there are two methods of propagating through stem cuttings. You can place them in water or embed them in potting soil or another growing medium.
Plants like coleus, spider, and pothos can readily root in water; however, the water method can cause fragility in the roots, and several plants don't root in water. So, best to root your cuttings in potting medium if necessary.
Essential Requirements for Propagation by Cuttings
As a gardener, before sniping, you need specific tools and supplies that will make your cuttings easier. Apart from grabbing a pair of shears or scissors, you must be prepared to apply rooting hormone and pot your new cuttings as fast as possible. Below are the basic requirements you need for a successful cutting.
Sharp Knife or Pruning Shears: Tidy your cutting tools using hot, soapy water before you start cuttings to avoid inviting any disease to the cuttings.
Containers for Potting Up the Cuttings: Proper drainage is essential; hence, you must pick a pot with suitable drainage holes that can drain out excess water.
Potting Mix, Perlite, Vermiculite, or Sand: Provide a mix formulated for seed starting, which also works excellently for cuttings.
Rooting Hormone: Several plants naturally produce a hormone known as auxin that enhances root growth, and garden centers sell synthetic forms as a rooting hormone. So, you can invest in a dry powder rooting hormone as it increases your cuttings' success.
Various Steps to Propagate Plants from Cuttings
Step 1: Taking Cuttings from a Healthy Plant
This step involves pinching a 3 to 6 inches long piece from a healthy section of the parent plant's stem with a sharp knife or pruning shears, cutting at a 45-degree angle. The angled cut will increase the space required for roots to grow. You can even take cuttings from the newest growth on the plant.
Again, ensure that every cutting you make possesses at least two or three sets of leaves along its length. Ensure the cutting has at least one growth node (a bump on the stem from which leaves or blooms germinate), allowing them to be planted in the growing medium.
Step 2: Trim the Leaves and Apply Rooting Hormone
After taking cuttings from its healthy parent plant, the next thing to do is to eliminate the leaves from underneath the node of the stem cutting. Often, you can easily pick off the leaves and ensure you keep at least three to four leaves on the stem cutting.
Step 3: Grow the Cuttings
Pick a growing tray or small containers with a soilless potting medium like a seed-starter mix or vermiculite. Create a hole in the medium using a pencil, and put the end of each cutting inside the growing medium. Then, carefully tamp the mix around the stem of the cutting to keep it straight.
Step 4: Tend the Cuttings
Many plants will hardly root well in full sun, so keep the cuttings in a spot where they will get bright but indirect sunlight. For several plants, cuttings do well in warmth and humidity and require an evenly moist growing medium while roots grow.
Check the cuttings every two weeks to look for new leaf growth and root germination. If blooms start budding or flowering, pinch them off. Fresh leaves enhance root development, while flowers divert energy away from root growth.
Step 5: Transfer the Cuttings
Once you notice the growth of new leaves along the cutting stem, it is often a sign of healthy new roots becoming mature.
When you feel an opposition while slightly tugging on the cutting, it shows that the roots are sufficiently established. It means you can transfer the cutting to a new pot using fresh potting soil with a small trowel or a large kitchen spoon.
Step 6: Moving New Plants Outdoors
Once you take the newly propagated plants outdoors, ensure you gradually acclimate them to outdoor conditions, called hardening off.
Hardening off means giving the new specimens increasingly more prolonged exposure to the outside for one to two weeks. Keep the plants outdoors for one to two hours the first few days and slowly increase exposure time.
You can bring the plants outside in the warmer period of the day, but ensure you take them back in during cold nights.
With time, the plants will get used to outdoor conditions. Immediately nighttime temperatures reach 50 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer throughout the night, you can now safely grow your new plants in the garden.
Most Popular Plants You Can Propagate from Cuttings
1. Arrowhead Vine
Arrowhead Vine is a very popular houseplant on this list, if not the most famous. It is a stunning plant with gorgeous leaves and is easiest when you propagate from cuttings.
Pinch a 6 to 12-inch long part of the stem and put them in soil or watch the roots germinate in water. It will take about one or two weeks for new roots to develop and one month for fresh leaves to emerge.
2. Lavender
Lavender has woody stems, which means you can propagate it using the hardwood or softwood cutting method, even though several people have succeeded when placing stems in water.
Lavender is among the best plants you can propagate yourself since it can be expensive depending on its species and cultivar.
Most gardeners see lavender as perennial plants, but they can lose their vigor after about 3 to 4 years and grow better when you replant them. After only 2 to 4 weeks, new plants will emerge and can be grown outdoors in the garden.
3. Sage
Another popular plant that you can propagate from the stem is Sage. The easiest method is to take 4-inch semi-ripe basal cuttings in the fall and pot them. Allow the rooting medium to stay warm and moist all winter and transplant during spring.
4. Rosemary
Rosemary is a beautiful plant that you can propagate from cuttings by simply taking 3 to 5-inch long tip cuttings during spring from new growth or using heel or basal cuttings during the fall for rooting during the cold frame.
To avoid too many rosemary plants, root a few cuttings directly in individual pots covered with a plastic dome.
5. Basil
Basil is one of the most precise cuttings to grow, as their soft stems thrive best in water, needing little or no care to grow roots. Again, you'll need more basil in the garden.
It needs enough cuttings to make a good pesto or keep bugs away from other plants. You can plant basil alongside tomatoes to produce the tastiest combination ever.
6. Christmas Cactus
This plant is called Christmas Cactus because it tends to produce its flowers around Christmas yearly. It requires you to leave your cuttings in a cool, dry place for a few days to enable the plant to take root. It is at the top of our list and is one of the most popular plants to grow from cuttings.
7. Coleus
Another popular plant that you can propagate from cuttings is coleus. Even though you can multiply them in the soil, water propagation is best.
It will take 2 to 3 weeks for your cuttings to begin to develop roots, making it one of the fastest and easiest houseplants propagating from cuttings.
8. Mint
Often, propagation of mint is not required since it spreads very fast. Sometimes, if you want to contain its rapid-spreading nature, you may have to plant it in pots.
However, it is a plant that thrives from cuttings in water if you want to follow that method. You'll find wide varieties that always come out; hence, a selection grown in pots or deep border gardens is an excellent prospect to try out in the kitchen.
9. African Violets
If you want your African violets to reproduce edible offspring, pinch off young, healthy leaves with 2 to 3 inches of leafy stalk.
Then, create a hole using a chopstick at a 70-degree angle before inserting the stem of every leaf into a tray containing moist compost and sand. Ensure the tray remains wet and warm and in a brightly lit area.
10. Rex Begonia
Rex begonia is another widespread plant that you can grow from cuttings. In this case, you will only need a single leaf to carry out its propagation.
First, make a few cuts on its showy veins on the underside of the leaf and place it on a moist bed or pot containing peat moss and sharp sand in the same proportions.
Bring down the leaf using a few pebbles to enable the cut edges to keep touching the bed. Then, position the pot or plant in a warm, bright spot and see the new plants displaying at these cut edges.
Follow this propagation process and see your big-leafed plant produce the healthiest plant you'll ever see.
11. Thyme
Thyme is a lovely herb you can use in the kitchen and a popular plant for every herb garden. It is a dwarf plant with woody stems and needs to be propagated in the soil to get the best results.
It prefers heat and thrives in full sun, enabling it to emit a more robust leaf flavor. The bearing of thyme helps to keep the best plants going.
12. Corn Plant
Corn Plant has existed in Europe as far back as the mid-1800s, making them one of the oldest plants.
While you can propagate it from a regular stem cutting, most gardeners prefer to get fancy by using a much more complex method known as air layering, where you grow roots from the center of a stem before cutting it off the plant.
Hence, it would be best to maintain the traditional stem-cutting method.
13. Dumb Cane
Dumb cane is another attractive plant, yet poisonous to kids and pets; therefore, you need to be careful with it. Propagation of this plant is done by cutting in soil, but the fastest and easiest method is cutting it in water to ensure they get the right amount of indirect solid sunlight.
14. Snake Plant (Sansevieria)
Propagation of the snake plant requires cutting off 2 to 3-inch parts of the leaf, ensuring the production of enormous numbers from a single parent plant. However, the only issue accompanying this method is that the new plants may not have the original variegation.
But you can solve that problem by planting some sections of rhizomes, which will help to maintain its variegation.
15. English Ivy
English Ivy is another widespread plant that you can propagate from cuttings. It is relatively easy to fill your house in Ivy if that's your choice.
Making a 4 to 5-inch cutting of English Ivy and a little rooting hormone will produce a new English Ivy plant in around 6 to 8 weeks as long as they receive indirect solid sunlight.
Conclusion
It doesn't end there, though, as there are many plants you can propagate from cuttings. However, one essential point to note is that maintaining the correct procedures is key to the healthy reproduction of new plants.
Hence, you must get the required tools and steps right and follow the same care guide as the parent plant for optimal growth and display.
