Making a Cutting from your Favorite Plant or Flower
If you have a favorite plant or flower you wish you had a few more of then there is a simple solution, take a cutting of it.
It’s pretty easy to take a cutting of a plant, all you have to do it know where to cut and how to take care of the cutting. Here’s how.
Don’t take a cutting more than 5 inches tall from your plant and you can take several cuttings without harming the original plant itself/ Make each cut about 1/2 -inch below a nod, which is where the plant sprouts a new stem or branch.
You want to place your cutting in a pot of vermiculite that is moist to encourage the roots to develop from the cut. Be sure and keep the leaves out of the vermiculite so not to cause rotting.
Good plants to take cuttings from are aluminum plant, geranium, oval-leaf peperomia, and velvet plant (purple passion flower), English Ivy, Swedish ivy, grape ivy, heart-leaf philodendron, pothos, zebrina, and tradescantia species.
You can even take cuttings from plants with leaves that grow in a whorl around the central stalk. You may want to use a knife to make a small slice in the vermiculite and push the cutting in deeply enough to hold so that it stands upright. Then firm the vermiculite around it.
Best cuttings for this process are African violet, ‘Emerald Ripple’ peperomia, watermelon peperomia, oval-leaf peperomia, jade plant, sedum and other succulents work great. Others include, fancy leafed begonia, and snake plant as well.
The best way to see if a cutting can be done is to try it. Almost all plants can have cuttings taken from them without harming the plant, but only a few will have roots develop to start a new plant, just play around with your plants and do some research if you want to educate yourself further.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Your blog is very useful. Keep posting.