I love growing new plants from cuttings. It appeals to my twin desires to save money and beautify my environment with lots and lots of plants. I have a couple of Copper Canyon Daisy bushes growing along our back fence that started out as cuttings. After a couple of years, they're as big and bushy as the original plant they came from.
Recently, I started a few new cuttings, including some Copper Canyon Daisies, White Sage and a variety of succulent whose name I don't know. I just take some clippings from a plant, place each one in an empty jelly or olive jar full of water and sit them in a sunny windowsill. Easy-peasy. A couple of them rooted up quite quickly, so I planted them in pots this morning.
The White Sage takes a bit longer to grow roots. I've only successfully grown one of those. I think the woodier the stem, the more difficult it is to grow the plant from a cutting. For a gardening geek like me, it's kind of fun to experiment and see what plants I can manage to coax a root from. I'll let you know how it goes with the rest of my current cuttings.
Not to encourage any questionable activity, but growing from cuttings can also be a good way to get a new plant from one you like in your neighbor's yard. You just break off a small stem from a big, healthy bush while you're, say, walking by with your dog. Pop it in your jar of water, and pretty soon you've got a tiny version of their lovely plant--for free!
very nice!
i need to do the same with my copper canyon daisy... i bought the plant about 8 months ago and now it's this beautiful, bushy, green, flowery, smelly-good wonder plant! i'd love to propagate it elsewhere around my gardens.
just a tip with the succulents. after you cut, go ahead and lay the cutting down inside the house for a few days and let the cut part dry out. then you can plant the succulent straight in the soil. this is the standard way to propagate succulents and it works almost 100% of the time. i have yet to fail with this, and i've propagated quite a few succulents... i'm not sure about putting succulents in a jar of water, since they are so prone to root-rot. has it been working well for you?
Cuttings are fun and affordable!! I think the woodier the stem, the better to start in soil, not water. And the process is much helped by a rooting hormone - a powder or gel that you dip the cutting in before inserting in soil. Woodier cuttings will always root first from a node so take a big enough cutting to be able to strip the bottom set of leaves and have that area below soil level!
Thanks for the tips. I got some rooting hormone a couple of years ago, but got kind of intimidated by all the warnings about not letting it touch your skin and not being able to pour it down the drain. Maybe I picked the wrong type.
I definitely grow a lot of new succulents and cacti from cuttings put dircetly in the soil. But I find there are a few varieties do better with the water method. It really just depends on the plant. Happily, it's easy to experiment with both methods until I find the best way for each variety.
LOL... hummm I think I need to take the dog for a wallk by the neighbors house... seen acouple of things I like ;)
that's interesting about certain succulents in water. which ones have you found work well? i'd like to try them out!
i must admit... i've been a neighborhood thief one too many times. it's just too easy when you walk around the neighborhood with a stroller! lots of space in a stroller for the loot.....