Back in August I blogged about restarting an Echeveria where I bemoaned having to take cuttings from this succulent that had become leggy. One of the problems I encounter as an indoor gardener is that I love plants that need very bright sunlight to keep their compact shape. Often times indoors I can provide it and the plants start to stretch or even worse start to deteriorate.
If you find you have the same problem with your succulents the best thing you can do for your plants is to place them in a south facing window. If like me you lack many southern facing windows you can place them in the brightest window you have and supplement the natural light by adding grow lights or even shop lights to boost the light level. The final option you have as an indoor gardener is taking cuttings from your plants that didn't do so well growing indoors over the winter and start over with them by propagating them in the spring.
These are four of the leaves I removed from my Echeveria 'Black Prince' in the original entry. If you didn't follow the link above take a moment to right click this link and open it in a new window so you can see what the plant looked like before I pulled the leaves off of it. Besides removing the leaves I also cut off the rosette and rooted that. When you remove the leaves or you cut off the top portion of your succulent make sure to let is sit in a bright area and allow for the cut ends to dry off for a day or two before planting them. In the image above, the leaves on the ends where just sitting on top of soil while the two leaves in the middle never had any contact with soil.
Cutting off the top of my plant may seem drastic but most Echeverias, and many other plants, will send out new growth along the main stem.
In the this picture you can see the top portion is rooted and growing in a new pot. The original plant is on the right side and if you look closely it has started to send out two new plants along the stem. When those get large enough I'll take that Echeveria and repeat the process by removing the plants it produced.
Echeverias are easy to propagate by just taking a leaf or two and rooting them. You don't need any special rooting hormones for most succulents and you definitely shouldn't put your succulent cuttings in water to root. If you need more proof that succulents can be propagated easily see the post Plant Propagation: Succulents by Leaf Cuttings, it has a picture and links to other pictures on this blog of succulent leaves rooting pretty much on their own.
Echeveria 'Black Prince' is a hybrid and while you can get it to flower and the flower can be pollinated and produce seeds don't expect any of the offspring to exactly match your plant. Because of this if you'd like to reproduce this Echeveria you'll need to do it vegetatively.
This a bit off topic......why do some plants like escheveria, crassula, and cacti need to be calloused over, while other plants don't need it?
ReplyDeleteHi Tracy,
ReplyDeleteIt is actually a good question and very on topic. Succulents hold water and unless the "wound" is given time to callous over it will just rot in constant moisture.
Shucks.. Too bad my hen and chicks died off. They never seem to do well in this climate - either that or I'm doing a bad job of caring for them.
ReplyDeleteDS,
ReplyDeleteHow did you manage to kill a HnC? They're practically weeds. hehe.
Is your climate too humid or wet for them? I have some planted in the garden in a pot and I'm surprise when they come back in the spring.
Is this plant poisonous to animals? My roomate just bought one into our home and I not able to find clear information on whether this plant will hurt my cat. Please let me know! Thanks
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteI'm not 100% sure but I don't think so. I have a stray cat that lives in my yard and he didn't get sick or croak when he nibbled on my plant when he first came across it. Similarly I've had squirrels chew up the plants but not actually eat any of the leaves. But if you have cats that are more than inquisitive I wouldn't take a chance.
Very good information. I am going to try this! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMr Brown, what are the odds for propagating by leaves? What special care is required.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteCan't give the odds, but most of the time I get 100%. You should have all the info I know from reading this post and following the links in it to the other tutorials.
Good luck with your propagation.
HI BT I have a few leaves shallowly embeded in soil. I noticed that they have rooted, when will the new growth start? I'm anxious and I know I should not touch them but I can't help it I pull them out ever couple of days to see how the root growth it. Please advise, I don't want to end up killing them.
ReplyDeleteAdadah, Don't move your cuttings until you notice new growth appear. It may take a couple of weeks, but you'll see them send out a shoot and you'll know that your succulent cutting is growing.
ReplyDeleteBT, my leaves have had been growing roots for about 4 weeks now. Should it take this long?
ReplyDeleteMy question is when you have the leaves that are not dried or dead that have roots.... do you wait for them to dry out before planting or just throw them right into soil & wait for the new plant to emmerge?
ReplyDelete*Sigh* I just had to do this with one of my favourite plants. On the bright side, I now have dozens of leaves to propagate from :) Anway, thanks for the information, it's been most useful.
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ReplyDeleteI have a beautiful jade plant,I lie in Michigan, in summer I leave outside in winter I bring inside. Do I need to bring in the plant a few hrs at a time, or can I bring it in and just leave it in the house.We are leaving for a week and we may get a frost before we get back
You can bring it in to get it accustomed to the indoors at night leading up to the week you'll be gone. Just bring it in every night and you should be fine.
DeleteI'm really new at this. How often do you water the soil before the leaves get any roots? i've already left it to dry to become calloused. thanks for the tips! :)
ReplyDeleteI have the same question as estherjulee... I have beheaded several leggy echeveria plants and most of the leaves from the beheading have sprouted roots, some even tiny plants. Should I water these and if so, when? They are indoors but I am in a humid climate and I don't want to rot the roots. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI have an echeveria that I have had for about 4 months, and it has a shoot that starting to fall, do I just cut it off at the base? help!
ReplyDeletemy hen and chicks lools like a tree coz its shedding its bottom leaves..am i overwatering it? if you live in a tropical country, how often will you water your hen and chicks? .. i have only one so i really wanna save it... it had couple of babies but i want more can i propagate them by leaf cuttings?.....and as i said its shedding its bottom leaves so it looka like it has stem can i cut and root it? so it wont look tall
ReplyDeleteMy Black Prince is very big...grew long....with a perfect big 'prince'...now...has a NEW 'prince' growing from the original 'prince'! What do I do?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice :)
Dolores
Hello. I just want to ask. Does the orientation of the succulent plant leaves or how it was positioned during propagation necessary? To be specific, it's between putting the succulent leaf in a position where the "calloused" part is "facing" (or in contact with) the soil or the opposite (not touching). Is one better that the other? Or they just yield the same results? Succulents currently being observed are BLACK PRINCE and PAINTED LADY.
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