Mint Propagation

One of my 2015 garden goals is to propagate more plants so that I spend less money on plants, as well as share more plants with friends and family.  I decided to try my hand at one of the easiest plants to propagate - mint.

I have both spearmint (above) and peppermint (below) in my herb garden, so I decided to propagate a little bit of both.

All I had to do was dig up a small clump of the runners and roots.  As long as some of the plant has some roots, it should be a cinch to propagate.

I places three to four root clippings into a small pot with potting soil and watered in.  There was no need to use any kind of rooting hormone, since the mint already had roots.  I then placed them on the grow shelves for a few weeks.

After four weeks, I was left with a jungle of mint to either plant around in other areas of the yard or share with friends (I'll be sharing most with friends).

Mint has been, by far, the easiest plant to propagate.  Now... who wants some mint?

Spider Plant Propagation

I've had my spider plant about 6 months now, and in the past couple of months, it has been producing a lot of baby spider plants, so I thought it was time to try my hand at some spider plant propagation.  Spider plants are one of the easiest plants to propagate, lucky for me, since this is my first go at propagation.

First, I selected a couple of the largest babies that had some good starter root nubs and cut them off the mother plant.

Before planting the baby spider plants in soil, I wanted to give them a head start by getting the roots to grow in some water.  I placed the baby spider plants in enough water to cover the root shoots and in a large enough container to help keep the plant propped upright in the water.

After about 10 days, I had enough roots started to pot the plant.

And voila! I magically have two new spider plants. Looks like I will need to find another friend or neighbor to do some plant swapping with!