Gadenin日本語Get the appWhy this plant is so easy to increase
In the wild these stems break in wind and rain, land in a fork of the same tree or the one below, and root where they fall. That habit is built into the plant, and it is why the pieces you knock off while repotting will root on a windowsill with almost no help. If you have swept up a fallen segment and thrown it away, you have thrown away a plant.
The most useful thing this means in practice is that you never need to grow a specimen from one cutting. Root eight or ten pieces together in a single pot and you get a full, dense hanging plant in a season, where one cutting would take three or four years to look like anything.
Take cuttings in the warm months while the plant is actively growing. Pieces taken in a cold room sit for weeks without rooting and are far more likely to rot at the base before they do anything.
Taking the cuttings
Length is what matters most. A cutting of four to six inches (10 to 15 cm), taken with two or three joints in it, roots quickly and stands up in the mix on its own. Very short single segments root too but take much longer to build into anything worth looking at.
- Cut at a joint Use clean scissors or snap the stem where two segments meet. That natural break point seals over faster and more cleanly than a cut through the middle of a segment.
- Take from strong growth Choose plump, deep green stems. A thin, stretched, pale piece from a dark corner roots into a thin, stretched plant.
- Keep track of which end is which Lay the cuttings out all facing the same way. A piece planted upside down will sit there for months and eventually rot, and once it is off the plant the two ends look almost identical.
- Let the cut end callus Leave the cuttings on a dry sheet of paper somewhere shaded and airy for one to three days until the cut end is dry and skinned over. Planting a fresh wet cut straight into damp compost is the main cause of rot at this stage.
- Do not use rooting hormone It makes no useful difference here and the powder holds moisture against the cut. These stems produce roots readily on their own.
Rooting them in mix, or in water
Compost is the better method and gives sturdier roots. Use the same open bark-based mix you would pot the adult plant in, or a simple blend of half perlite and half fine compost, in a small pot with drainage. Push each cutting an inch to an inch and a half (3 to 4 cm) deep, deep enough to stand up, and space them around the pot rather than crowding them in the middle.
Water lightly to settle the mix and then keep it barely damp, not wet. Somewhere warm, around 68 to 77F (20 to 25C), in bright shade with no direct sun. A clear bag or propagator lid over the pot helps if your air is very dry, but open it daily; trapped stagnant air rots cuttings faster than dry air ever kills them.
Water rooting works and is easy to watch, but the roots that form are brittle water roots that struggle when moved into compost. If you do use it, keep only the very bottom of the cutting submerged, change the water every few days, and pot the cutting up as soon as the roots reach half an inch (1 cm) rather than waiting for a fine display of them.
| Method | Time to root | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cuttings in open bark mix | 3 to 6 weeks | Best method. Strong roots, no transplant setback |
| Cuttings in half perlite, half compost | 3 to 5 weeks | Fastest of the compost methods. Feed once rooted |
| Cuttings in water | 2 to 4 weeks | Easy to watch, but pot up early or the roots fail |
| Dropped segments laid on damp mix | 4 to 8 weeks | No planting needed. Just leave them on the surface |
| Division of a large clump | Instant plant | Only for a plant with several distinct crowns |
Resist tugging cuttings to check for roots. Every pull breaks the new root tips. Wait for visible new growth at the stem tip instead, which is the reliable sign that roots have taken hold.
Dropped segments and division
The pieces that fall off during handling need almost nothing done to them. Lay them on the surface of a pot of damp mix, keep them in bright shade, and most will push roots down into the compost within a couple of months. This is the laziest possible propagation and it works because it is exactly what the plant does in the wild.
Division is a different tool and only applies to a mature plant that has grown several separate crowns in one pot. While repotting, pull or cut the root ball apart between crowns so each division keeps a good share of roots, and pot each into a pot sized to its own roots. Do not try to divide a single-crowned plant by tearing it; you will get a wounded plant and a pile of cuttings, and you would have been better off just taking cuttings deliberately.
Growing the young plants on
Once you see new growth at the tips, start treating the cuttings as small adult plants: the same finger test for watering, the same bright shade, and a weak liquid feed at quarter strength every third or fourth watering through the warm months.
Leave them together in that first pot for a full year. A crowded pot of rooted cuttings looks better and grows better than the same cuttings spread thinly, and there is no need to separate them at all if you want a dense hanging plant. Move the whole thing up one pot size when roots reach the drainage holes.
Pinching the tips once the cuttings are growing away encourages branching low down, which is what turns a bundle of straight stems into a full curtain. Every tip you pinch out is itself another cutting, so nothing is wasted.
Keep a note of the date you took the cuttings, the method and how many took. After two or three rounds you will know exactly which time of year and which mix works in your own conditions, which is worth far more than any general figure.