MWcraft: Propogating Succulents

Propagating succulents is a new endeavor of mine; it's actually quite simple too! My passion for these little buggers started while I was scrolling through page after page of wedding planning ideas on Pinterest. So what did I do? I constantly found myself wandering around the local plant centers... looking online at nurseries... all just to find the perfect succulent! Eventually, I gave up. Most of what I saw in stores were partially dying, scraggly, too expensive, etc. Then I remembered an old roommate of mine had succulents in pots in our kitchen. She would often forget to water them and leaves would fall off onto the floor. When time came to sweep the floor, I remember picking up a leaf that had started growing a little baby plant from roots it had sprouted. I thought to myself, "challenge accepted!" I was going to snatch a leaf and try to grow my own plant--and it worked!! So here's what I did...

I started with a single leaf.

The end portion of the leaf where the stem connects needs to "heal" for a few days before anything can be done with the leaflet. I just set the leaves on the windowsill in the living room where there's good lighting.

After a few days... sometimes weeks if I forget, I come back to check on my leaves. Some leaves will already have started to sprout roots (from the end that connects to the stem), while others need a little extra help. To "help" out, I place a paper towel in the bottom of one of those plastic containers you put your pots... you know, the ones that catch all the soil drainage so it doesn't leak all over your house. Then I place my leaflet on the paper towel and every few days dampen the paper towel. Anyway, I don't have a picture of that step since my leaf had already sprouted roots.

Once roots have started growing, I set the leaf on top of soil and let the roots do their magic. I've heard some species of succulents propagate from areas other than whats pictured. I'll have to play around and let you know.

You can propagate several leaves and species of succulents at a time and organize them in pretty patterns in your pot. I'm probably going to end up re-potting mine since I only did a leaf or two at a time and they're all the same species. I hope to eventually end up with something like this.