by Andrew S.
(Ithaca, NY)
Hello there!
The office that my wife works in has a fairly large Mother In Law’s Tongue plant. Some of the pieces were falling over a lot and today I was given a few pieces.
I’ve read about propagating by cutting a leaf into smaller pieces and putting into soil and I was thinking about doing this with one or two leaves.
One of the pieces has some decent roots on it which I was going to try and plant and try to keep upright, the other, has no roots, I wasn’t sure if I could try to plant it and grow roots or if I would have to just do something else.
Thank you in advance!
Hi Andrew, your collection is growing in leaps and bounds. To be completely honest, I’ve had absolutely no success with growing Sanseveria from the pieces of the leaf, so I’ll be fascinated to see if you have any better luck.
Here’s what I tried, and you can either copy my method, or avoid it!
I let the pieces callous over a few days, then inserted them quite deeply (to keep them upright) in my usual Sunshine Potting Mix #4, which has extra aggregate for drainage.
I think in one case I used some hormone, most like Stimroot #2 which is for semi ripe cuttings.
For another experiment, I put the whole thing, pot, cutting everything into a plastic bag from the vegetable department, and blew into it to expand the bag and hold it off the cutting.
With all of these methods, I got zero success, which is unusual for me. More experimentation is in order, if I can ever find someone who will let me butcher their Mother In Laws Tongue!
Best of luck with this – I’ll be waiting to see what your results are,
Jacki
Comments for Mother In Law’s Tongue
| Jun 27, 2012 |
attempt by: Andrew S. I will certainly try with at least one piece. Do you think I should be able to just stick the piece with the bigger roots into some soil and it should be alright? Yes, definitely. It might take a little while to adjust, but with care it will grow more roots. Don’t over water, just keep it slightly damp, and as the roots become more adapted, gradually withhold the water, only water it maybe once a week. This encourages the roots to follow the moisture, down to the bottom of the pot. Best of luck! Jacki |
