Plant Propagation for Kids
Plant Propagation is easily one of my favourite plant activities; I enjoy it better than re-potting, watering and pruning. It gives me so much joy and satisfaction and the best part is that my kids love it too!
Honestly, there is almost nothing better than seeing your plants giving you babies in ways you wouldn’t even imagine possible! As my daughter put it the other day: “Nature has its ways…”
The beauty of plant propagation stands in its variety; there are different ways you can propagate the same plant and there are many plants that are really easy to propagate.
This propagation variety allows for countless appealing ways of displaying your cuttings, offsets or seeds.
This ever growing interest in plant propagation has lately resulted in an incredible amount of “propagation stations” products geared towards all sorts of design tastes. As a plant loving Interior Designer with an obsession for plant decor, I am a complete sucker for all these different ways to display our cuttings…
Our plant propagation station before I designed the fir blocks to support these little glass jars. Here we have two Pilea offsets, two Sansevieria offsets and one Peperomia Rotundifolia cutting.
Photo Credit: Freshidees
This is an example of a propagation station made with glass bottles and jars and different types of plants. The whole composition is highly decorative and appealing to me.
We all love plant propagating in our family; I love it for the reasons described here above and because I can always come up with different styling solutions; my daughter loves it because she loves the little glass jars and is genuinely interested in observing the “babies” daily progresses; my son likes it because he’s always surprised by the different ways and conditions plants can create roots; my husband is just happy we are happy…
I get so excited talking about plant propagation that I could talk for hours about it, but I want to really focus on the incredible benefits plant propagation has on kids.
Gaia topping her propagation jars with fresh water.
Gaia opens up her sealed Pileas for aeration on a weekly basis.
Plant propagation sparks kids curiosity and enables them to better understand plants life, growth and development in a very close and personal way.
I believe plant propagation is an excellent way to introduce kids to plants as it entices them into daily observation and discovery. It is this daily ritual that will eventually develop into a caring and nurturing attitude towards plants and nature in general, which is such a blessing giving the environmental crisis we are experiencing.
Plant propagating has become a great moment to connect with my kids as they share their findings and excitement for a change in the cuttings. I really encourage anyone who loves plants and has kids to give propagating a try.
Our baby Pileas Sanctuary. The first Pilea pup was transplanted directly into the blue pot. The second and third pups were also transplanted into small terracotta pots; one was placed into open air and the other into a sealed glass jar to see the difference in growth between the two; it’s clear the one in the glass jar grew much faster in just a week! The last two pups are still rooting in water. The frog is there to guard the plants.
The process can be as short or as long as you want to make it, provided that you choose the right plant to propagate with your kids. Some plants are really easy and fast to propagate, others may be tricky and slow, too slow for a child attention span.
Here are the few and easy steps to propagate:
1) Start with cutting a leaf, a stem or an offset from the mother plant you or your friends may have;
2) Go through roots development either in water or soil, (I recommend to use water if experimenting with children so they can see the actual roots growing day after day);
3) End with the cutting growing into a bigger plant.
4) Since I have lots of baby plants, I like to end the process by giving the new plant as a gift to a friend. This will make the plant propagation experience even more meaningful to your kids.
You can add to the experience by making growth experiments. We love experimenting different roots and plants growth with Pileas as the mother plant produces copious amounts of pups, (offsets) and they grow really fast.
For example:
Once we cut the pups from the mother plant, we put one directly in a pot with dirt and the other in a jar with water. So far we haven’t noticed any significant difference between the two pups.
Another fun experiment:
1) Take two identical Pilea pups out of the jar with water and plant them into two identical pots with dirt.
2) Water them both with the same amount of water.
3) Leave one plant on the shelf in the open air and seal one in a glass jar and do not open it for a whole week.
4) After just one week you will notice how much faster the Pilea in the sealed jar has grown compared to the one in the open air. (Pileas love the tropical humid environment created inside the glass jar).
Let’s now take a look at the most common indoor plant propagation techniques you can try with your kids and what are the easiest and most interesting plants to propagate.
Cuttings
Cuttings are either leaves or stems that are intentionally, (or not), removed from the mother plant for the purpose of producing another plant.
Snake Plant, (dracaena Trifasciata)
Snake Plants are among the most popular indoor plants for many, many reasons; they purify the surrounding air, they require low maintenance and they thrive in any lighting condition, including environments with poor natural light.
Photo Credit: Mulhalls on Instagram
Snake plants can be propagated in water.
This solution is more intriguing for the kids as they get to see the roots growing and it is more interesting from a plant display perspective.
Photo Credit: Our House Plants
This picture shows how Snake plants can be propagated by directly planting the cuttings in soil.
Jade Plant (Crassula Ovata)
I bought a huge Jade plant from a Garage Sale and I was able to simply pick the greenest and youngest stems from the thicker and woodier branches.
I’ve never tried to place Jade plant stems in water. I’ve always placed them directly into a pot with dirt as their tiny roots are generally visible on their greenest stems.
Peperomia Rotundifolia
This was a very spontaneous propagation as I simply found this very Peperomia leaf sitting on the dirt detached from the stem. When I picked it up I noticed a very tiny root attached to the bottom of the leaf, so I just placed in a glass jar filled with water.
After two weeks this Peperomia leaf had two major roots with a bunch of smaller roots radiating from it. A month later, the plant started developing with two baby leaves attached to the roots…I believe it’s time to transfer this baby plant to a pot!
Strings of Pearls, (Senecio Rowleyanus)
This is one of Gaia’s favourite plants…can you blame her? It is a pretty stunning plant for a child, don’t you think? We’ve never tried to propagate a string or two but we will do it very soon with her ever growing Strings of Bananas
Photo Credit: Verde Alcove
Apparently, all it takes to propagate these beautiful strings is to place cuttings of the strings, (when they get too long) into water and wait for roots to form.
Rubber Plant (Ficus Elastica)
We have never tried propagating a Rubber Plant as our Variegated Rubber Plant is still too little to be cut this way, but I am sure looking forward to trying this!!
Photo Credit: Vintage Revivals
Photo Credit: Vintage Revival
Photo Credit: Ohio Tropics
Succulents
I find succulents propagating very interesting. We found a succulent propagating leaf into one of our pots by pure chance and we were amazed.
However, the process seems very simple; you remove the leaf from the stem, you let it dry for a couple of days and you either place it on top of dirt or into a jar filled with water and wait for roots and baby plants to appear!
Photo Credit: Succulents and Sunshine
Photo Credit: Yohome
This was a beautiful nature miracle to us. I found this succulent baby to be unreal. How do things like this even happen? I have seen hundreds of pictures like the ones here above on social media and I’ve always been fascinated by it but when it naturally happened to one of our succulents I was completely speechless!! I simply found this succulent leaf sitting on the dirt with this tiny plant coming out of it…Isn’t that amazing?
Pencil Cactus (Euphorbia Tirucalli)
This was the propagation that gave me the most satisfaction of all! I was not hoping to see this cutting root! I had to cut this stem off the plant, not because I intended to propagate the plant, but because it was broken. I left it broken on the plant for so long that this stem was all shrivelled and dried out. I just put it in water to see what was going to happen. Well, after a few days I noticed the stems where all re-hydrated, so I kept it in water longer and after a moth, the roots exploded out of the stem!
Gaia even noticed that this stem not only produced new roots, but it created a new bright green pencil stick!!!
I found this gorgeous propagating station on Amazon.
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Offsets
Offsets are different from cuttings simply because the cuttings are not leaves or stems removed from the mother plant above the soil line. Most times, offsets are rhizomes growing new shoots under the dirt line and poking through the soil surface. The best way to cut offsets is to take the mother plant off its pot and dig through the dirt to find where the new shoot attaches to the main plant. Once you cut this shoot off the main plant, you’ll notice that most of the times, it already have small roots attached to it. The bigger the offset, the more developed roots it will have.
dracaena Cylindrica
These are new offsets pocking through the dirt in my Sansevieria pot. Since Sansevierias are quite slow in their growth, we’ve only cut three pups. We are letting the other shoots grow next to the mother plant to fill the pot more.
Here are two of our Sansevieria pups growing roots in water!!
These cute propagating stations can be found on Amazon.
We have placed our potted Sansevieria pup in a sealed glass jar to try speed up its growth process as we did with the Pileas.
Chinese Money Plant (Pilea Peperomioides)
This is one of the most versatile and easy to grow plants I’ve ever had! I bought our first Pilea in October, and not only it grew in size significantly, it gave us 8 pups that we have already removed plus three new ones that just came out! This is why it is very easy to experiment propagating this plant!
This is our Pilea mother plant sporting three new pups.
These three pups were all potted in dirt as they already had some roots and were given as gifts to my girlfriends, (all Gaia’s friends moms…go figure).
This was the last Pilea rooting in Gaia’s propagation station.
These 4 Pileas have all been potted. The two little one, (in glass jar and on top of the jar), were rooted in water jars first.
Seeding
Plant propagating by seeding is the most known way of reproducing a plant and the most used for kids, especially in schools and daycares. I guess every kid has planted a bean and watched it sprout!!
Meyer Lemon
We had a Meyer Lemon tree and this tree had given us quite a few sweet lemons. Good thing we kept some seeds from these lemons as the original tree died in a re-potting accident….Gaia and I planted the seeds in a Jiffy Pot kit and after a few weeks we obtained 8 different lemon plants!
We just recently planted the Jiffy pods into larger terracotta pots to let the plants grow bigger and bigger. It was a neat experience for Gaia to see the cycle of mother plant producing fruits; and the seeds of this fruits producing more plants!
Avocado
We haven’t been successful at growing an Avocado plant from a pit yet. We tried the water method but it didn’t work… I guess we’ll continue trying. And to make it more interesting, we are going to test two methods at the same time to see which one works best for us; pit dipped in water and pit planted in dirt.
Photo Credit: Good Housekeeping
Some people swear by the avocado dipped in water method to make the pit crack and grow roots.
Photo Credit: Apartment Therapy
Some people have been successful by simply planting the pit in dirt.
Layering
This method is mostly used for the outdoor propagation of plants and shrubs! I have experienced this method with my Creeping Jennys, (Lysimachia nummularia) and it really works!!
Photo Credit: Fine Gardening
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Hey Midlife Mom!
Reclaim 10 Hours in Your Day With My 5 Day E-Mail Guide Without Sacrificing Family Time, Even If You Are Already Multitasking From 5 am Till Midnight
So since I started reading your blog I have added new plants weekly. I have been collecting succulent leaves off the floor for awhile now every time I go to Home Depot. And have had a pothos that was given to me by my Grandma in 2007. But other then that I hadn’t had many plants. Well know I have added a snake plant, goldfish plant and pilea. Thanks for your awesome blogs. I love to read them!!