If you have some plants and want some more, but you don’t have much money to spend on new plants, propagation is a great option! There are multiple ways to propagate plants but I will touch on the two main and easiest ones in this article: water and soil propagation. It’s important to know that not every plant will propagate using one of these methods, but many will. Also, not every cutting or leaf will propagate, so if you fail once don’t be afraid to try again!

Also, some plants don’t even need to be propagated to “multiply”, you can just split some plants at the roots and others grow “puppies”. When you have a plant you want more of, I recommend googling what the best method is to propagate (or split) your specific plant.

The easiest plant to propagate would be Pothos, if you have a Pothos plant I recommend trying one of the 2 propagation methods with this plant first. Pothos cuttings will start to form roots quickly which will boost your confidence. My favorite propagation method is water propagation because you get to see the roots grow.

Water propagation

Water propagation is quite simple: you stick a cutting in water and change the water every few days until the roots grow long enough to transfer the cutting to soil. Now to increase your chances of success it does matter where you take the cutting: if your plant has “knobs” along the stem you want to cut about half a centimeter below this. This is because the roots will grow out of the knob. You also want to avoid having any leaves in the water.

Now I don’t always follow the knob rule. Some plants don’t have knobs, and sometimes stem/leave breaks of while caring for a plant without leaving a knob. In this case I still put the stem in water, just to see if it might take and grows roots. I did this recently with the end of a stem from my mint plant, and although the plant seemed to fail at first it now has some very nice roots.

With water propagation you really don’t have much to lose: it works or it doesn’t and the only thing you had to use is water and a bottle or glass. It’s important to note that some cuttings can also take up to a month before you really see anything happening. The only tricky thing about this method is when you want to transfer your plant from the water into a pot with soil. The roots have become accustom to living in water and therefore will go into a bit of a shock being put in soil. Because of this it’s important you water the plant frequently the first few weeks/months (to keep the soil moist), until it has become accustom to its new living conditions. You can slowly start spacing watering moments out after the first 2-3 weeks.

Soil propagation

Soil propagation is a bit trickier compared to water propagation in my opinion, because you can’t see what is going on below the surface. It is mostly recommended for succulents, as they are not the biggest fan of a lot of moisture (although I have had success propagating jade leaves in water as well).

Most people recommend letting the end of a stem or leave dry out a bit before sticking it into the soil, but some plants (like Pothos) will do fine when you put them directly into the soil. But not all plants have to be propagated by “sticking” it into soil. Many people propagate succulents by laying succulent leaves onto soil, letting the ends dry and then keeping the soil slightly moist. A new baby succulent will form at the end of the leaf while the original leaf will slowly die off. Once the baby succulent is formed and has small roots you can put it properly into soil.

It’s important to note for me that I haven’t had much success with soil propagation. But other people do prefer it over water propagation.

Helpful links

If you're still a bit confused on propagation, don't worry there are a lot of great videos about the topic! I recommend this video by Sadia from Pick Up Limes or this video by Planterina.

Propagation is really just a matter of trial and error, and finding out what works best for you, your environment, and your plants. As a last tip: most plants like a good amount of light for both methods of propagation.

image by Huy Phan from Pexels