Don’t you hate it when you take a cutting of a plant and stick it in water, and it never produces a single root? It’s the worst feeling! Not only did you set your plant back ~2 weeks on its’ growing progress, but also, that part of your plant that you took yielded literally nothing (unless you count unfulfilling hope). Water propagation, while it's best for some plants, can be a royal hassle. You may end up accumulating 5-10 jars (easily) scattered throughout your home with plants in them that your just praying will root. Simply put, this is not ideal. Water propagation can also have a low success rate if the foliage is not surrounded by enough humidity, and if the cutting doesn’t have adequate opportunities to root.
In response to this problem, I started turning toward more practical methods of propagating: the focus of this post… your favorite white powder, and mine… give it up for… rooting hormone! Rooting hormones can be used to propagate cuttings in soil with a much higher success rate than water propagation. After ordering a bottle of rooting hormone for just under $7, and using it on quite a few propagation projects since, I can confidently say that using rooting hormone for propagating your houseplants is incredibly easy and is a cheap way to achieve a much higher success rate in houseplant propagation!
Here’s the link to the hormone I use and love!
Let’s walk through how to successfully use rooting hormone to propagate houseplants!
Step 1- Take your cutting:
Take your cutting just as you would if you were going to propagate it in water! Take a 2-6 inch cutting of your plant and let it sit out for 1-3 days to allow it to callous over some. Applying rooting hormone to a fresh cutting is just like rubbing alcohol on an open wound. For those of you who don’t know, it hurts. If you apply the hormone too soon it will hurt the cutting. Allow a couple days between ‘chop’ and ‘prop’.
Depending on your plant (this is not a hard and fast rule), you may want to consider getting rid of some or all of the leaves on your cutting. In doing so your cutting won’t focus so much on maintaining foliage and it can turn all of its’ energy toward developing roots. In general, I’ve found that smaller stems will root faster, and so it’s not as important to remove the leaves, but for plants like ficuses and plumerias (plants I have personal experience propagating), you’ll want to remove some or all of the leaves.
Step 2- Apply Hormone:
Now that you have a properly prepared and well sized cutting of your houseplant, it’s time to add your rooting hormone. To apply the hormone, I dump a little bit of it into the cap of the bottle, and then dip the cut site of the plant into the hormone. It’s really as simple as that!
Step 3- Plant your cutting:
You’ve taken your cutting, you’ve prepared it, you’ve applied the hormone; now it’s time to plant it! Prepare a pot with potting soil just as if you were potting an already rooted plant! You know the drill! Once you’re ready, carefully place your cutting into the pot, and fill around it with soil for support!
Step 4- Rooting your cutting:
Now that you’ve gotten this far, it is vital that you put your plant in an environment where it has the best chance of rooting! The best-case scenario is a humid greenhouse- I have a cheap 36 square foot IKEA esc one that was gifted to me. If a greenhouse isn’t in the cards, a sunroom, or humid room in your house works. If neither of the previous two options are accessible, you can cover your cutting in a large plastic cup This will act as a mini greenhouse for your plant and will increase the humidity around it- the most important step in successfully rooting plants.
IMPORTANT: You also want to be sure not to give your plant too much water. When plants are underwatered, they tend to develop more roots, or send existing ones further down in the soil in search of more water. But, giving a plant too easy of access to water will cause no roots to develop in the first place.
That is all! Propagating in soil using rooting hormone is such a simple and cheap way to be very successful with your propagation projects! Be sure to send me any pictures of your successfully (or not successfully) propagated plants, with comments and questions! Happy propping!
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