progating via stem cuttings
I love rosemary and lavender…truly love them! But they are so very frustrating to start from seed. Poor germination and snail slow growth often makes these feel like more work to grow than they’re worth. But then I tried growing them from stem cuttings…it changed my garden life and I’ve never looked back!
Any woody herb works great for this type of propagation—mint, sage, thyme and oregano all work just as well as lavender and rosemary. You can also root up some plants like coleus.
TO ROOT:
Snip a 6” long stem that has both a bit of new and old growth on it.
Gently strip off the lower 2”-3” of leaves.
Place in small jar of water and keep on a sill.
Make sure to give your cuttings fresh water every 2-3 days, giving the jar a quick cleaning as well to remove any slime. This is a key step to do!
In anywhere from 2-8 weeks, you should see happy, little roots sprouting out. You’ll find some plants sprout fairly quickly, like mint, coleus, basil and oregano, while others like lavender and rosemary could take well over a month.
Once a healthy root system has been established, pot up in soil and give it some good light to grow on.
After it’s acclimated to pot-life, pinch out the tips of your cuttings to encourage branching out. Treat your planting a very light feeding of fertilizer after pinching.
Don’t get discouraged if you don’t have immediate success. It’s sometimes a hit or miss thing. I had one batch of rosemary cuttings that flourished last winter, but I also had one batch that didn’t do squat. I go into it with a few more cuttings than I really need, in case some don’t root.
A few tips:
Not all stem cuttings root…it can be hit or miss, even with cuttings from the same plant
Always take your cuttings from a healthy plant
Cut your sample from the parent plant’s new growth—Mind you, this is the general rule, but I have found that I’ve had more rooting success for things like my woodier herbs, when I take a cutting that has both new and a bit old growth to it
Change water every few days, and clean jar when needed
These things can take time. Some plants sprout roots in just a week, others, it can be well over a month before any signs of life appear
If you spy your cutting trying to develop flower buds (like my Coleus babies like to do), nip that bud right off. Your cutting needs to keep all of its energy focused on shooting out roots, not flowers.
When rooting up houseplants, best to take cuttings from the new growth in the spring, rather when the plant is more dormant
Keep your cuttings on the northern side of your house as they’re not fans of direct sun
Discard any soft or rotting stems
Managing mildew…horror came when one of my larger pots of rosemary developed mildew, which then showed teasing signs that it was also on my newly transplanted stem cuttings. Mildew can be fairly common indoors if you have fluctuating temperatures and not great air circulation…both things we lack here in our sealed up winter home. After I properly freaked out, I trimmed off the affected areas with a clean scissor. Mixed a spray bottle of a 1:4 part mixture of milk to water. Sprayed all the herbs and promptly placed them under fluorescent lights—the lights are the key here as the milk needs the bright light to active it’s mildew killing powers. A bright, sunny spot works just as well.
After a few days, calm was restored and the rosemary is back to growing away.
Happy growing!
