If you're in the Northern hemisphere, this is the perfect time to propagate your plants. I've currently got cuttings on my windowsills and around the house. And I'd love to know what you are propagating too. Let me know in the comments!
My propagation method
I propagate most plants by cutting off a portion that has three or four leaves, and at least two leaf-nodes that can go in the water and form new roots.
I do most of my propagation in water. I just really like seeing the roots develop, and being able to keep track of how the plant is growing. I know that some people say that the roots formed in water can be weak, but that's not been my experience. I usually wait until the roots are about 5cm (2 inches) long and look strong, preferably a little darker than the tiny white ones. I pot them up in special potting soil for cuttings and seedlings.
As for succulents and cacti, I propagate these mainly by leaf cuttings--or rather, when a leaf or branch falls off, I tend to chuck it in a shallow dish with a tiny layer of cacti soil and wait for new leaves and roots to form. With cacti, I normally only propagate them when a piece falls off, which I then carefully put into its own pot of cacti soil.
I love this plant. I can't get enough of its patterning, and how it has this matte finish to its leaves. I had one in my home office that got ginormous and was trailing all over my shelves, over, beneath and in between books, between other plants, in between the cracks on the bookshelves...
But, like many vining plants, the top of the plant got quite bare. And I frankly ran out of room to attach the vines and it became increasingly difficult to access my books. So one Sunday morning I sat down with a pair of (clean!) scissors and snipped off all of those long tendrils, leaving just a few short ones near the top.
I ended up with at least 20 metres of vines on the floor of my office, and probably spent an hour cutting them up into smaller cuttings which I put into glass pots, bottles and vases. I only selected the ones that had a couple of leaves on them (max. 3), and made sure that at least two bare leafnodes could be put in water and sprout roots. Once their roots are big enough, I'm going to repot the mother plant with lots of fresh soil and add a bunch of babies to fill up the pot. I'll probably end up with more cuttings that I'll pot up and give away--if I can make myself.
I got the mother plant from my partner J. a couple of years ago. It had been pruned so that it was essentially growing high on a bare trunk--almost like an orchid--and had beautiful pink flowers.
Since then I propagated it twice more, but over the past year all three plants have been struggling. The mother plant was both growing towards the sun and I think also getting too much harsh light as it kept dropping healthy-looking leaves. The other two were also too far away from the sun and ended up stretching for at least fifteen centimetres of bare branch with just a few leaves. I deliberately cut the cuttings in such a way as to not create that same bare branch or trunk effect, and am planning on potting them up in one or two pots like you more traditionally would pot up a begonia.
Epipremnum aureum1 (also often called phothos)
This plant stole my heart when I first got it, second-hand, from a store in my town. It grows and grows and grows, but, like the Argyraeus Scindapsus Pictus gets bare at the top. Over the past six years I've propagated this plant many times, because it's ridiculously easy to do so. One of its children was growing halfway across the room and was getting tangled between the wires behind the TV, so I cut off a large vine.
I'm planning to pot this one up and either find another place for it in my home, or give it away. A bottle with some more mature cuttings will be potted up and will be going to my partner's job. The lovely thing about this plant is that it tolerates a lot of different light conditions, even a spot further away from the window.
This plant has grown quite large over the past couple of years and its branches were getting all over the place. Last month I pruned it to make it fuller, and I'm now using the cuttings to see if I can propagate it successfully. I've never propagated a pachira aquatica before: I heard that you can also propagate them from leaves, but the one time I tried that wasn't a success. The weird thing about propagating these is that they get this slightly unappetizing white discharge on the plant, but according to this video that's normal and a stage in the formation of roots. Fingers crossed!
This has to be the easiest plant to propagate, and the fastest to make new roots. I know that some people don't like these plants because they get stringy, but I love how delicate the leaves are. And it's such a gift to so easily create new plants! I tend to put quite a few of these cuttings, once rooted, in a pot together, as most vining plants don't quickly create new tendrils at the top on their own. So if you put just one vine with roots into a pot, that's what you'll have for a long time.
Chlorophytum comosum (spiderplant)
Okay, I said that the ceropegia woodii is the easiest plant to propagate, but this one essentially makes its own babies, roots and all, so maybe this one wins.
J. and I got the mother plant as a tiny baby cutting from friends three years ago. That plant grew, created babies, who had babies. One of them is in a hanging planter in the hallway and is glorious, the other was in my study and seemed to have nearly died from the stress of having all these babies. So I cut off the babies that looked most viable and got rid of the rest.
In the past I would put one of these in a pot alone, but I recently decided that a nicer look is to have two or three in one pot. Very easy to grow, though they are a bit picky as to light requirements sometimes (they love lots of indirect light), and are sensitive to overwatering. I think pretty much everyone I know already owns one of these plants, so I'll see what to do with them. Maybe pass them on to J.'s colleagues.
Two types of crassula ovata (jade plant) that I'm experimenting with.
As I wrote above, I usually propagate succulents through a leaf that's fallen off, and wait for it to grow roots. But the mother plants (the original succulents that I write about here and that survived years of neglect) were getting very wild and their leaves kept getting tangled in the curtains. So, in an attempt to make them fuller and less expansive, I pruned them.
So far it seems that the mother plants are making new shoots where I pruned them. I ended up with lots of bare branches with little clusters of leaves at the top of them. Even though these didn't have roots (yet) I popped them into two pots with cacti soil, and am now waiting to see whether they'll root. I might pass these on to my mother, although she has a penchant for killing succulents. I might prescribe a routine of (gentle) neglect.
And then there's a shallow saucer with succulent leaves, mainly Sedum morganianum (burro's tail) that are slowly, slowly sprouting tiny little roots and tiny little branches. I'll get back to this particular sedum in a future post, as it has a memorable history.
What are you propagating right now? Do you propagate your own plants, or have you never tried? And what do you do with all of those cuttings? I'd love to know!
This plant was sold to me as a philodendron scandens Brazil, but definitely isn’t.
What a great rundown! I’ve had a lot of success with spider plants and pilea (Chinese money plants) in the past. I say in the past, because the babies of babies of babies, etc, of the mother plant have now had babies of their own and are in desperate need of propagation. But I haven’t got round to doing it… yet. Meanwhile, I’ve got big old Monstera stem sitting in a vase of water on a sunny windowsill. It has been there for ages now. No sign of roots yet, but equally the stem and leaf still look healthy as ever. So for now, whether it roots or not, I’m just enjoying it! Also have some tradescantia and devil’s ivy that could be given a haircut…