Garden Talk: Taking Cuttings From Houseplants

Featured in this Show

• Taking Cuttings From Houseplants

  Download

  Plants can add color, scent and a sense of life to any room. In the midst of a long, severe Wisconsin winter like this year’s, those plants can be a real lifesaver.

  Tovah Martin is the author of a dozen gardening books, including “The Unexpected Houseplant: 220 Extraordinary Choices for Every Spot in Your Home.” A horticulture industry veteran, Martin said she sees winter as a perfect time to tend our houseplants and divide them.

  “In one week, it’ll be the beginning of March, and I always count that as when the light really begins to increase,” Martin said. “It’s a great time to being to propagate plants and get ready for spring!”

  There are many plants that can be propagated by taking cuttings, but Martin’s favorites are her geraniums, especially the scented varieties.

  “I love to take cuttings of those because they’re easy, and you can just pot them,” she said. “Just take about three or four inches off the top (of the plants) and get a little bit of rooting hormone, but usually, geraniums don’t even need that. You just put them in a little bit of soil, and they’re fine. You don’t even need to put a baggie over it (to keep in the moisture).”

  Martin shared that the “old-fashioned” way to propagate plants was to lay out a cutting “and then just put a little drinking cup over it” to raise the humidity.

  “It’s a very pretty way to do it,” Martin commented. “It looks much better than a baggie!”

  Woodier plants are harder to propagate from cuttings, Martin said. So, the less woody the mother plant, the better the cuttings will likely perform. For example, she said that it you take a cutting from a coleus, “Bingo! You’re bound to succeed.”

  Indoor gardeners may worry that taking cuttings from a plant will stress it. Not so, said Martin. “The mother plant will be saying, ‘Thank you, I needed that haircut and I’m going to branch out!’”