Propagating Tropical Plants

To expand your backyard plant nursery, learn how to propagate these delightful tropical plants! Use heliconia, bamboo, and hibiscus to their fullest potential.

Reader Contribution by Elle Meager
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Heliconia Golden Torch (Heliconia psittacorum x Heliconia spathocircinata)

To expand your backyard plant nursery, learn about propagating tropical plants! Use heliconia, bamboo, and hibiscus to their fullest potential.

In this series, we talked about how to choose plants to grow in part 1 of the Start a Backyard Plant Nursery Business series. In part 2, we talked about how to grow your nursery plants. In part 3, we covered equipment needed and fertilizers, including Dan’s Liquid Microbe Fertilizer. Today, in part 4, we’ll talk about how to propagate plants for your nursery business. It is very rewarding to propagate your own plants. Much more rewarding than ordering plants from a wholesale nursery!

You’ll get to watch the plant grow from seed to plant, or from little cutting to beautiful flowering shrub. Propagating your own plants feels a bit like magic! It is also very cost-efficient. Besides soil and water, home-propagated plants don’t cost you anything but a little time. My tip: propagate plants in bulk. The more you propagate, the higher the chances of success.

There are quite a few different ways of plant propagation. From seed, cuttings, layering, grafting, rhizome division, bulbs, offsets… Some plants will grow from a piece of leaf! How to propagate depends on the type of plant you want to grow. I’ll cover some varieties below.

How to Propagate Tropical Plants

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