Taking cuttings
I have several pothos plants, from one originally given to me from a cutting a friend made, and one of them has become a bit overgrown, as you can see.
Recently I noticed this one had put out a very long vine that had snaked down, along the floor and under a chair. So I snipped it off then decided to make some more cuttings. (I love propagating plants.)
I had planned to just plop the end into a jar of water, and hope it grew, but then I saw this video, which advised people to snip up cuttings and put quite short shoots into a smallish jar of water.
Mine didn’t have leaves yet, — the guy in the video rooted his cuttings with one leaf and an “eye” which is where the roots would grow from. Without any leaves on my vine, I wasn’t sure it would work for me, but I thought I’d try anyway. You can see the video here.
The trouble was trying to keep these little short cuttings in a jar of water without them sinking. And then rotting.
Then it occurred to me that I’d just bought some onions in a little netting bag. So I cut the bag into two halves, folded one over and fastened it around my jar with a rubber band. I then filled it with water right to the top and poked my little cuttings through the netting into the water, keeping the tops above the surface. Here is the result, sitting on an east-facing shelf in my kitchen. (The kitchen, so I remember to change and freshen the water every few days.) Cute, eh? I hope it works.
A lot of my plants come from bits and pieces given from friends’ and neighbors’ plants. I have a half a dozen or so rooted cuttings growing on a shelf under the big window in my bedroom, which gets good light.
IMO that personal connection adds a little bit extra to the pleasure I get from them.
Do you like growing things and taking cuttings? What do you grow?
We frequently have to trim the office plants at work, so I have a number of rubber trees in pots, and a variety of dragon tree that has spindly branches, that roots well from cuttings. I also have spider plants, sanseviera in a couple of varieties, peace lilies, ferns, zygocactus in a couple of colourways, most of these came from bits from Mum 20- years ago and need updating. Outside, the usual canna lilies, bird of paradise, yellow and orange clivia, hibiscus syriacus which is more treelike and smaller flowers. Anything that can grow with a little neglect.
Elizabeth, that sounds wonderful — sounds like you’ve grown a positive forest of lovely plants from trimmings from the office plants. I’ve never taken cuttings from a rubber tree, and I had to look up dragon tree — a kind of dracaena, I gather. The big ones look amazing. Thanks for sharing.