Who doesn’t love babies? Especially tiny, chubby, soft-skinned, cuties that you made! With your own two hands! It’s so satisfying to see one you’ve nurtured, cared for, loved, turn into a real life grown up plant!
Yes, I said plant.
Succulents are a wonderful family of plants who thrive on neglect. Water them once every week or two, keep them in sunshine and otherwise you can pretty much forget about them. Propagating them is even easier; for the first couple months of their life you don’t water them at all! Most succulents in the Crassulaceae family are incredibly easy to propagate. If you’ve ever tried transplanting or even moving an echeveria, jade or sedum you might have noticed their tough looking leaves are actually held on somewhat tenuously. The leaves are prone to popping off at the slightest touch; it can be very discouraging. Luckily those shed leaves are exactly what you need to make more and the mother plant will eventually regrow new leaves or branches from where old leaves used to be.
Propagating Succulents
Step 1:
Collect some orphaned leaves from any of the following varieties: crassula (jade), echeveria, sedum, kalanchoe, pachyphytum, sempervivum (hens and chicks). Make sure the break happened right at the joint and there is no further damage to the stem or leaf. Set out in a dish in the same light the mother plant received.
Step 2:
Forget about them. Don’t water them, touch them, mist them. Don’t do anything. Just watch and wait. They will shrivel up a bit. But then they’ll start throwing out little roots and eventually you’ll see little baby leaves right at the base of the break. This can take a few months.
Step 3:
Once your leaves have a few roots and baby leaves, move them to a pot or tray filled with succulent soil. Don’t “plant” them, just lay them on top. Mist them every day or two until they set their roots into the soil and the leaves start to bulk up.
Step 4:
When they’ve bulked up into toddler succulents you can either leave them in the existing tray or pot and carefully bury the roots with more succulent soil, or you can transplant them into their very own little pots. Start watering them like regular succulents, but a little more frequently at first, maybe once or twice a week. Soon they’ll be big enough to water once a week-10 days.
Step 5:
Enjoy your new home-made plant!
Don’t have any grown succulents to pluck from? Order your first “mother” from Flowers Talk Tivoli. We always have a large selection of succulents and cacti to choose from. Start your own succulent family today!