How to grow succulents from cuttings
Better Homes and Gardens’ resident landscaper, Jason Hodges, shares his top tips for growing succulents from cuttings.
If you love your garden, there’s a good chance you’ve got some succulents in the ground or in pots. They provide a wonderful contrast of colours, shapes and textures to the green of your garden but they can get “leggie” and lose their appeal.
Well don’t fear. From what looks like a spent succulent you can grow a whole new generation of plants. They are so easy to strike, I believe anyone can do it.
Succulents grow towards the sunlight and can form a trunk that isn’t desirable causing the leaves to be spaced widely apart and giving the appearance that the plant is on its last legs. Don’t chuck it out or try to nurse it. This is the time to break it down for spare parts and propagate it.
From one leggie succulent you can propagate three different ways:
- The top still looks good so can be removed and planted again to create a new plant that looks good straight away.
- Each of the leaves along the leggie stem can be peeled off and placed into some well-draining potting mix. They will all produce new plants. Once you have new aerial roots you can remove the old leaf and plant on. This is the easiest way to propagate many plants that are uniform in size.
- The root-ball and just the slightest part of the trunk will reshoot too. This will grow quite quickly as the root-ball is the engine of the plant and provides lots of energy for the new growth to establish.
Propagating succulents is a fun and cheap project for kids. They are soft-tissue plants that are easy to cut and small so there’s no heavy lifting and being small, there’s no hard digging either.
Cuttings can be replanted with a pencil or paddle pop stick. Before you plant or propagate, allow the plant to heal or scab over. This will reduce the loss of water that would leave the plant through gravity.
Once you are sure they are dry, they are ready for planting. Now most gardeners have a bag or two of potting mix at home but you need either specific cactus and succulent mix or add an equal amount of coarse river sand together with your potting mix to create a free-draining mix that won’t rot your plants.
For the quickest results, do this in spring but I propagate succulents at the start of winter as I am looking for jobs in the garden and I can see the succulents that look poor or leggie and need freshening up.
To protect them from the cold I place them in a sheltered sunny spot and rarely water them until I see lots of new growth.
If done now, come spring the mother leaf (the leaf removed from the stem) can be removed and the new plant can be planted on to a new home.
Succulent bowls and displays can cost hundreds of dollars and individual succulents from nurseries and markets at $5 or $10 each soon add up but taking a tired old succulent and turning it into many new plants is free and easy.
They make great presents and always put a smile on the recipients face. After all, a homegrown gift has more meaning. The fact it didn’t cost you a cent is a bonus.
Written by Jason Hodges. First appeared on Domain.com.au.
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