by Georgina Crawford

Created on: April 01, 2010

How to Propagate Plants From Cuttings

Many plants can be propagated from cuttings, which provides a cheap, easy and relatively quick way to increase the stock of plants in your garden.  However there is one simple method of generating large numbers of cuttings in one fell swoop that is rarely mentioned, but which professional gardeners use frequently, and this is the method called ‘plunging.’

This method works best on relatively small woody shrubs that have become ‘leggy’, revealing lots of bare wood, with all the green growth at the top.  Ageing lavender would be a good example of the sort of plant that responds well to plunging.  However, it’s important to differentiate between ‘old, leggy plant’ and ‘diseased’ plant; choose a plant on which the new growth looks fresh, green and healthy.

Find a large pot, big enough to hold the plant you wish to plunge in its entirety, and then dig up your chosen plant, placing it in the base of the pot.  Next, pour soil based compost all around the plant, submerging the roots and stems but leaving the green shoots visible at the top of the plant, although the base of the shoots should be in the soil.  As you pour, firm the compost around the plant, but not so tightly that the compost is packed and dense.  Water the whole thing well, then place a large plastic bag (preferably a clear bag) over the top of the pot, tied tightly around the rim with garden string.

Place the pot somewhere shaded and wait.  Remove the plastic every few days and check that the compost has not dried out; it should be moist but not soggy, and will require watering occasionally.   After around eight weeks, gently scrape a little soil away from the base of a green shoot.  You should see that white roots have formed.  If the roots are plentiful and look sturdy, then this is the time to empty out the pot.  Try to empty the soil out as gently as possible to avoid disturbing the fragile, new root systems.  What you should be left with is your tatty old plant with many new plantlets clinging to the wood.

It’s likely that these plantlets will be too fragile to plant directly into your garden soil, and will benefit from growing on for a few more weeks.  Gently detach each plantlet (sometimes called a ‘slip’) from it’s old stem, preserving as many roots as possible and plant it up in its own, small pot.  The new plants will benefit from regular feeding as well as watering, and may be planted out in the garden in a few weeks when they are growing more vigorously.

Plunging is such quick method of making multiple new plants from one tired old one, which is why it is a method employed by professional growers, as it generally produces numerous plants, more successfully than by the traditional method of taking individual cuttings.

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