Three Tips for Faster Indoor Plant Propagation

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Credit: Mariia Boiko/Shutterstock

The indoor-plant market has been hit by two factors: the same inflation affecting everything else, and the pandemic making the acquisition of indoor plants popular. As a result, the two-inch babies you could purchase for $4.00 a few years ago have now doubled in price. This is the perfect time to learn to propagate your own plants at home.

What is propagation?

While germination means growing a plant from seed, propagation involves growing a plant from a cutting. Propagation is far faster, since all the cutting needs to do is form roots, rather than sprout an entire plant. Germination is tricky: Different seeds need different kinds of light, temperature and moisture. Propagation ensures that you’re taking a plant that is already doing well in the specific space. Most people have, at some point or another, grabbed a clipping and stuck it in some water and hoped for the best, but even propagation takes a few weeks. That’s why it’s helpful to employ some tricks to get good, proper, fast growth of your propagated plants.

Create a moisture-rich environment

In other words, you'll need a greenhouse, which serves to both insulate against the cold, magnify heat, and prevent moisture loss. In this case, you don’t need a whole building. There are plenty of miniature greenhouses made for this purpose. 

Ikea Åkerbär: $22.99

Tall Plant Greenhouse Terrarium: $33.74

Large Tall Plant Terrarium Glass: $45.74

Ensure sufficient light

Different indoor plants have different requirements—some prefer more sun, some less. But unless you live in a glass house, the likelihood is that your home doesn’t provide enough sunlight on its own, particularly during fall and winter. This is why grow lights exist. As you’re cultivating a propagation, you’re trying to keep two parts of the plant healthy—the new roots forming, and the foliage above. The lights are going to keep the existing part of the plant healthy.

Adjustable Gooseneck Grow Lights for Indoor Plants: $14.97 

Small Plant Light: $8.49

Gooseneck Halo Ring Plant Lamp: $26.99

Hormones can help

Plants have hormones, too, and they’re an essential part of the growth cycle. You can purchase hormone spray for outdoor plants, but in the case of cuttings, you use root hormone powder or gel. It’s inexpensive and comes in a small bottle perfectly sized to dip your cuttings into, making sure you get a nice even coating all around.

While you can propagate in water, rooting hormone doesn’t work well in those conditions. A neat trick, if you’d like to propagate in water, is to borrow the hormones from a pothos plant. Pothos plants contain auxins and cytokinin, which stimulate hormone production in other plants. Plonk a pothos cutting into the water with your new cutting and you’ll be able to observe the root growth as it happens, if you use clear glass. 

Rooting Gel: $21.55

Hormex Rooting Powder: $17.89