How to Grow New Plants from Stem Cuttings

Sure, there is a lot to be said for getting a load of delicious fruit and vegetables, seeing a magical array of flowers in bloom, and/or watching the leaves in your yard change colors. However, one of the most rewarding parts of self-sustaining gardening is nurturing young seedlings or saplings into successful plants and trees.

Even better is using those successful plants and trees you’ve nurtured to create more plants. Replicating plants is often very easy to do, and it means you can populate the garden on the cheap. If the garden is already full, you can spread the botanical love to family and friends, or maybe do a spot of guerilla gardening.

Some plants can be easily replicated by collecting seeds and sowing them. Other plants can be spread out by separating clumps of roots or rhizomes to plant elsewhere. Then, some plants are grown anew from cuttings.

Rooting cuttings may seem daunting if you’ve never tried, but it isn’t so hard.

What is a cutting?

Pretty much any plant that produces stems and/or branches can be replicated via cutting. Of course, some are much easier than others (We’ll get to that), but first let’s get into the basics of what cutting is. A cutting is a small section (a few inches) of a plant, either a stem or branch, that is snipped free from the mother plant and encouraged to grow roots of its own.

How does one take a cutting?

The proper way to take a cutting is a little different for each plant but more to the point, it’s different for the type of cutting one is taking. There are four basic types: herbaceous, softwood, semi-hardwood, and hardwood.

• The general rule is that these cuttings are taken just above nodes (where leaves or lateral originate) and then trimmed to just below the next node because roots will form from these places. Use a very sharp, sterilized cutting instrument.
• Next, the bottom node can be dipped into a rooting hormone or natural aid like willow water, cinnamon, or human saliva.
• Finally, the cutting should grow in the growing medium, usually a moist potting mix. They should be kept in temperatures between 60-80 F.

Herbaceous cuttings come from green plants.

Many of them can simply be stripped of lower leaves and suspended in a bottle or jar of water. After a few days, roots will start to develop. Once those roots get to be a couple of inches or more long, the cutting can be put in a pot or directly in the garden. Many people will use herbaceous cuttings to keep ornamental flowers indoors over winter so that they don’t have to pay for them again the next year.

• Plants that work well for herbaceous cuttings are mint, basil, lemon balm, African violet, coleus, geranium, euphorbia…

Softwood cuttings are taken in the spring.

They come from new, green growth on woody plants. As opposed to herbaceous cuttings, softwood cuttings are beginning to stiffen and toughen up. They don’t, however, have bark. Softwood cuttings are less likely to dry out than herbaceous cuttings, and they are faster to root than semi-hardwood or hardwood cuttings. These cuttings will go directly into a moist, soilless potting mix. Hopefully, they will take a few weeks.

• Plants that work well for softwood cuttings are elderberry, dogwood, lilac, hibiscus, gardenia, forsythia, sage, hydrangea…

Semi-hardwood cuttings are great for evergreens.

They are taken when the wood is mature enough to be developing bark but still “green” enough to bend easily. Semi-hardwood cuttings will, however, snap when they break. They are generally taken in late summer/early fall. For these cuttings, the plant mustn’t be flowering or even budding. As with the above types of cuttings, the leaves should be stripped back to just the top two. This can take a few weeks to several months.

• Plants that work well for semi-hardwood cuttings are butterfly bush, holly, jasmine, camellia, arborvitae, blueberry, rose…

Hardwood cuttings are taken when the plant is dormant.

Dormancy is usually late fall and through the winter. This is a great method for propagating new fruit trees which are usually pruned during this time anyway. For hardwood cuttings, snip a piece of mature stem, branch, or vine that’s about a foot long. Cut straight across the stem just above a node (the bottom of your cutting) and cut the top at a sloping angle so that it sheds water. Put the cutting in its potting mix, leaving about 1/3 of it above ground.

• Plants that work well for hardwood cuttings are figs, grapes, goumi, mulberries, kiwi, hawthorn, willow…

Grow well

The beauty of attempting to propagate via cuttings is that it costs virtually nothing, a bit of sterile potting mix. It could result in hundreds of dollars worth of plants and trees. That’s worth experimenting a little.

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