Easy Plant Propagation

Think plant propagation is too hard? Anyone can be a plant propagator by practicing these traditional, low-tech, and easy plant propagation techniques.

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Think plant propagation is too hard? Anyone can be a plant propagator by practicing these traditional, low-tech, and easy plant propagation techniques.

The most common way to grow new plants is to sow seeds, but many plants also can be propagated vegetatively by rooting cuttings or stems, or dividing clumps. If you already have a healthy plant, plant propagation is often faster, easier, and cheaper than growing more plants from seeds. It takes six weeks to grow a tomato seedling to transplanting size, but you can root a stem tip cutting in half that time. With plant propagation, you can multiply one petunia or coleus into several happy plants, and it will cost you nothing to start a new planting of grapes by sticking pruned branches into a bed of moist soil.

No special equipment is needed to become an accomplished plant propagator, though it helps to carry a spirit of adventure into each new project. Each species responds differently to various techniques, and plant propagation often involves a serious injury or near-death event followed by recovery. Plants that are easy to propagate know how to handle this unnatural disaster.

Green Intelligence

If you were being chased by someone with a knife or about to be trampled by a herd of buffalo, you would run away or hide. Plants cannot, so they have devised fundamental ways to survive common catastrophes. On a cellular level, most plants stock their stems with “undifferentiated” cells that begin multiplying into specialized cells if the plant “decides” that its best shot at survival requires new stems, leaves or roots. These undifferentiated cells are most numerous in nodes — the places where branches and buds emerge from stems — and in buds that form on shallow roots and low-growing stems. Your job as a plant propagator is to identify where the plant is holding its caches of undifferentiated cells, and then provide perfect conditions to help those cells morph into beautiful new roots.

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