Taking an active, healthy leaf from a mature succulent plant and utilizing it to establish a new plant is known as “propagating with leaf cuttings.” Because the leaves of succulents with fleshy, plump leaves, like echeveria, are simple to snap off cleanly, this method of propagation works well with them.
While some leaves may simply pop off with a little tug, others could necessitate the use of a sharp knife. Take a healthy leaf from the plant’s base with clean hands or a sterile knife, making sure to remove the full, undamaged leaf.
After being removed, allow the leaf to recover for about four days in a warm, well-lit place so that the wound can callus over. When the leaf has calloused, prepare a fresh planter with soil, fill it with water, and set the callused leaf on top of the soil for multiplication.
When the earth is dry, spritz your leaves with a spray bottle. Keep them warm, in a room with lots of light, but out of direct sunlight. They must be kept warm and moist.
Little roots and leaves will start to emerge after around three weeks! A succulent may need a few months to grow large enough to be replanted (photos above are after about 8 weeks). When the leaf eventually gets brown and falls off, you’ll know it’s time. This indicates that the succulent no longer requires the leaf because it has consumed all of its nutrients.
What You’ll Need:
- slicing shears
- gardening mitts (for handling spiny varieties)
- a little trowel
- potting soil for cacti and succulents
- jars with sufficient drainage holes
Remove Some Leaves or Behead
Take a few leaves at random from your succulent plant, gently twisting each one off the stem without breaking it.
These can be cut off the bottom of the stem, which will be discarded, when it begins to grow lanky.
To remove a specific leaf from a plant, such as a Christmas cactus, you might need to use scissors.
If you’re “beheading,” cut the stem of the plant head cleanly with your scissors or clippers about an inch below the lower leaves.
Plant
When roots start to form, either choose a site in your garden that is ideal for planting or fill well-draining containers of your choosing with potting material.
Sunshine and well-drained soil are ideal for succulent growth. They get paler in the absence of sunlight, and they decompose in excess moisture.
When the sun is less powerful, such as in the early morning or late afternoon, plant in a sunny location.
To lift the cuttings above the edge of your container or garden surface, pile dirt higher. To stabilize the roots, gently tamp the earth down; do not water.
Water and Feed
It’s time to buy a succulent/cactus food at this stage, such as Miracle-Gro Succulent Plant Food, which is sold on Amazon. administer as directed by the manufacturer.
Succulents can also be propagated via cuttings that are placed on top of potting soil and allowed to callus off so they can root themselves in the soil.
Take the Cutting
Choose a suitable location on your succulent to make the cut. Make a quick, even cut through the succulent’s stem with your pruning shears to separate a cutting. Make sure that there is around 1 inch of stem exposed on the cutting before planting. The bottom leaves of the cutting might need to be removed for this.
Let the Cutting Callous
It is not possible to immediately put the cutting in the ground after it has been taken. Allow the “damaged” stem of the cutting to callous over for 24 hours by setting the cutting aside in a dry place. The stem should be healed and not seem to be “wet” in any regions after 24 hours. It’s now time to plant the cutting.
Plant the Cutting
Put a succulent mix or well-draining soil in a small terracotta or plastic planter. Make a tiny hole in the middle of the soil, and after placing the succulent cutting’s stem there carefully, firm the earth up around it. To prevent rot, make sure the cutting’s lowest leaf is perched just above the surrounding soil.
After planting, avoid watering the cutting. Give the newly planted succulent cutting two or three weeks in a spot with bright, indirect sun.
Begin Watering Once Roots Sprout
It’s crucial to hold off on watering a fresh succulent cutting until the roots have formed, unlike when propagating other plants. Since succulents don’t need much water to begin with, watering a cutting before it has roots might cause the cutting to decompose under the soil very rapidly. Succulent cuttings may go quite a while without water, so don’t worry!
Give the cutting’s top a little push to check for roots after letting it sit for two to three weeks. If there is any resistance, the cutting can now be watered because the roots have started to form. Once the cutting has grown roots, it might need to be watered more frequently than usual succulents until it becomes established. Make sure the top inch of the soil dries out between waterings to prevent overwatering.
Patience, Patience, Patience!
Be patient while you take care of your new plant because succulent cuttings grow slowly. But after a few months after planting, you should start to see fresh growth.
Growing succulent cuttings can be gradually put back into stronger lighting as they become older, eventually reaching the full sun conditions that most succulents enjoy. Remember that succulent cuttings are susceptible to death from excessive affection. Once the soil dries out, they simply require light watering because they thrive on neglect.
Do you water leaves from propagating succulents?
Hello everyone, this video is about watering your succulent propagations and is from Andrea at Sucs for You in Houston, Texas.
I asked for your questions on watering succulent propagations in a post on the Sucs for You YouTube channel’s community page; perhaps you saw it. There were a lot of excellent questions, and I appreciate all of the comments. Please subscribe if you haven’t already so you can notice when I post a request for video ideas and leave questions there as well.
You can learn when and how to water succulents from this video, regardless of whether you’re growing them from leaves, cuttings, or offsets. The main focus of this article is on watering your propagations, but we’ll also go over a few other crucial suggestions.
However, before anything else, we need to quickly discuss callusing since no matter what, no water of any kind should ever be added to a propagation that hasn’t entirely callused.
And the reason for this is that if water gets into an open wound, rot could start to develop if there are any unpleasant germs in the soil around it, which there probably are.
And just as there is no way to predict how long a flesh wound would take to totally scab over, there is no single answer for how long your propagations will take to callus.
Naturally, larger cuts will take longer to heal, and humid climates typically require longer than dry ones.
When the area where the propagation, whether a leaf, stem cutting, or offset, was removed shows no trace of wetness or new growth, it has healed.
Now that that has been established, you can begin your leaf propagations on a soilless media, such as a paper tray or windowsill, but you must eventually introduce soil to them.
And I wanted to point you that, in order to prevent the propagations from drying out before they send out roots, gardeners in drier locations might need to start their callused leaves on moderately damp soil. I’ve heard a lot of stories of that happening.
However, avoid drowning the soil and direct moisture away from the plant. Just enough moisture will do to provide the plant some humidity and aid in the development of new roots.
As long as the propagations are not in direct sunlight, humid areas won’t need to worry about this as much.
When it comes to leaf propagation, the leaves themselves should be maintained as dry as possible, which means no misting, and they shouldn’t be watered until they begin to put out roots.
Keep in mind that even though they lack roots, plants are still living, developing, and even breathing thanks to their stomata, the pores that cover leaves and allow gasses and water to travel in and out. Standing water on leaves can also promote rot.
If you have difficulties keeping the roots from drying out, you can arrange the leaf so the roots are simpler to bury. Alternatively, you can wait for the roots to find the soil and direct a tiny amount of water directly at them.
It should only require a few light waterings spread out throughout the course of the week. In order to avoid “spoiling” the propagations with too much water, let the soil dry out for at least a day between waterings. If you don’t, they might slow down the growth of their roots.
The amount of time it takes for them to develop new roots or leaves is unpredictable. How long till this little leaf does anything? is a question I hear frequently.
The plant’s type, climate, and natural growing seasons all have a role in this. It’s interesting how quickly some have put out roots for me—as little as a week—while others have taken their sweet time—well over a month, possibly even two months. However, there is still a potential that the leaf will spread as long as it is sound and well-hydrated.
Now, if you notice a lot of root growth but no leaf growth (I hear about it a lot), hydrate the soil around them more and gradually expose them to more light.
And if you’ve been moistening the soil but are seeing new leaves growing but few to no roots, consider reducing the amount of hydration.
I had some Echeveria Hercules leaves that were about two weeks old. Some were transferred to a large pot filled with dirt, along with other rooted plants, and I watered them without touching the leaves. I didn’t water the other batch at all, and they were kept in a tray with nothing but drainage materials.
While plants in the tray had far more roots than leaves, those in the soil produced many more roots than foliage.
This made me think that the leaves in the soil could sense or “smell” the water nearby and didn’t feel as pressured to put out roots, focusing instead on developing new leaves, whilst the leaves in the tray did the opposite.
One of two things will follow, depending on how well the propagation went. The mother leaf may even maintain sufficient moisture to remain attached to the new plant after drying out and the baby leaf spontaneously separates.
The new plant needs to be cared after like a newborn. To keep the roots happy, it can require more frequent watering; nevertheless, you must be careful not to overpot it. Use a smaller pot and make sure the soil mix contains sufficient of drainage components to avoid overpotting, which occurs when a plant is in a pot with too much soil for it to dry out quickly enough.
In most circumstances, it’s advisable to wait for roots to form before adding moisture, unless you’re in an arid region, and cuttings need to be fully callused before introducing any water, just like with leaf propagations.
In order to detect when a cutting is fully callused without having to dig it up and perhaps harm any delicate new roots, I prefer to “air” pot my cuttings. This merely indicates that I will either place the cuttings in an empty pot or in a container that is only partially filled with drainage materials.
Since they are still developing, we need to keep them standing erect because if they are lying down, they will begin to bend and sit up like tiny plant zombies in quest of light.
You can pot your cuttings in dry soil once they are calloused and ideally starting to sprout roots. I water roughly three times each month after waiting a few days to give the roots time to adjust to being in soil.
After 5 days, the soil will likely be nearly dry depending on the pot, and I want it to be dry until I water it again to stimulate the roots to seek out moisture.
You should keep an eye out for fresh top growth on your cuttings to see whether new roots are also sprouting. You can gently tug on the plant after about a month to check for resistance coming from the new root growth. Wait until the soil is completely dry before checking for roots because otherwise they could break and infections in wet soil could penetrate more easily. And we all understand that’s bad.
The offset, or pup, must be handled as a cutting if it doesn’t yet have its own root system. Additionally, even if it has its own roots, as with Aloes and Haworthias, you still need to wait for any broken roots to heal before adding any water.
To easily keep an eye out for any infections or other issues, I like to leave offsets unpotted for a few days. And after I plant them up, I continue to wait a few days before watering them. Once more, it is important to give any broken roots time to heal. I also believe that before watering, the plants would benefit from some time to grow used to being buried in dirt.
Start out with less regular waterings until the root system is more robust, just like with the other ways of propagation, and watch out for overpotting your offsets.
That’s it for this video; if you had any doubts regarding watering succulent propagations, it should have covered them. If not, I hope it will have greatly improved your chances of success.
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