How many times have we received a beautiful (perhaps rare) plant as a gift and wished it could live forever, or wanted to have more of the same in different parts of the house or garden?
To fulfill these and other desires or needs, we resort to "plant propagation", that is, their duplication which, when carried out through human intervention, can be performed using various methods including cuttings.
What is a cutting
A cutting is a specific propagation technique that allows multiplying an existing plant into many small genetically identical plants.
This multiplication occurs by taking some parts of the mother plant (branches, leaves, or pieces of roots) and placing them in a suitable substrate for their development as independent plants.
The term "cutting" refers both to the portion of the mother plant used for propagation and to the propagation technique itself.
Propagation by cuttings is applied to a wide range of plants: from aromatic plants (rosemary, sage, mint, thyme, basil, parsley, and chili pepper) to ornamental plants (geraniums, begonias, azaleas, and roses) and fruit plants (grapevines) to certain types of shrubs (jasmine and hibiscus).
Depending on the type of plant to be propagated, the cutting process varies depending on the structure and behavior of the plant itself.
The factors of variation in the cutting process for different types of plants include, for example: which portion of the mother plant to take (branches, leaves, or roots), the time of year to take the cutting to make it develop more easily, the type of substrate to use, whether or not to add rooting hormones, etc...
For this reason, before attempting the procedure, it is important to be well informed about the process to follow for our specific plant in order to achieve the highest probability of success possible.
Cuttings for aromatic plants
As is well known, aromatic plants are very precious allies in many aspects of our daily lives.
From a culinary perspective, herbs such as basil, rosemary, thyme, and parsley (just to name a few), make our dishes unique by enriching them with intense flavors and aromas.
Thanks to their medicinal and therapeutic properties, aromatic herbs help our physical and mental well-being.
Furthermore, for gardening enthusiasts, they provide great satisfaction as they are plants that are really easy to grow even in pots since all they need is just water and sun.
Having an aromatic garden on the balcony with our favorite herbs available all year round allows us to have access to always fresh herbs, naturally grown by us, which can therefore release all their beneficial properties for healthier cooking.
The propagation process by cuttings is more or less similar for all aromatic herbs and involves taking a young branch from the mother plant.
Procedure for creating a rosemary plant by cutting
To illustrate how to propagate aromatic plants by cuttings, let's take the example of a mother plant of rosemary from which to obtain new plants.
To have a greater chance of success, the multiplication process by cutting is generally carried out during the period from April/May to the autumn months of September/October excluding the hot summer months such as July and August.
Here are the steps to follow to create our rosemary plants starting from the mother plant:
- We cut from the mother plant young branches whose stem is not yet woody, about 10-15 cm long. We can also use the branches that we usually cut for periodically pruning our mother plant.
- For each branch, we remove the rosemary leaves for 5-6 cm starting from the lower end of the stem so that only the needles remain in the upper part.
- We place our branches in a clear, uncolored glass jar full of water. We bring the jars indoors and place them in a bright spot (for example, on a windowsill). We look for a place that is bright enough but avoids prolonged direct sunlight contact with the plants.
- We change the water in the jar every day and we will see that after a week or ten days the first small roots will form from our branches. The roots are very delicate, so, once they have formed, we must handle the branches carefully when changing the water.
Once the roots are long enough (2-3 cm) we can move to the potting phase in a pot:
- We initially equip ourselves with small pots (preferably terracotta which is a breathable material) with their respective saucers, intending to plant a single branch in each pot. The choice to place each branch in a pot is subjective, but we must consider that if multiple branches are successful and become plants, then it would be more difficult to extract them from the same small pot to divide them.
- We place terracotta "shards" in correspondence with the holes inside each pot, i.e., broken pieces of terracotta pots that serve to drain water better, then fill about half of the pot with soil.
- We plant our branch 5-6 cm deep and add more soil to fill the pot. We press lightly with our fingers on the soil to settle it but without overdoing it as too compressed soil could both damage the plant and hinder water passage.
- At this point, we trim a little bit of the tip of the branch so the plant's energy can focus more on the development of its root system.
- We place the pots outdoors (for example on the balcony) and water our plants thoroughly a couple of times. In doing so, the well-soaked soil will tend to cling better to the small roots of the branch.
In the early days, it is best to water more frequently trying to keep the soil always moist but never full of water to avoid root rot.
After about a month, we will be able to tell if our branches have succeeded in becoming healthy independent plants and after about a year, if we see that the pot is now too small for our plant, then we can think of repotting it into a larger pot where it will be free to grow and rejuvenate.