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Unlock This CoursePlants have amazing abilities to reproduce without seeds! One of the most common ways gardeners and farmers create new plants is through cuttings. This method has been used for thousands of years and is still incredibly popular today because it's simple, cheap and produces identical copies of the parent plant.
Imagine you have a beautiful rose bush that produces the most gorgeous flowers. Instead of hoping seeds might grow into something similar, you can take a cutting and guarantee an exact copy. That's the power of artificial propagation through cuttings!
Key Definitions:
Unlike growing from seeds, cuttings create exact copies of the parent plant. This means if you have a plant with perfect characteristics - like disease resistance, beautiful flowers, or tasty fruit - you can make hundreds of identical copies. It's like having a biological photocopier!
There are several different types of cuttings, each suited to different plants and situations. Understanding these types helps you choose the best method for the plant you want to propagate.
Stem cuttings are the most common type and work brilliantly for many plants including roses, geraniums and mint. You simply cut a healthy piece of stem, usually about 10-15cm long and encourage it to grow roots.
Taken from young, flexible stems in spring and early summer. Perfect for herbs like basil and plants like fuchsias. They root quickly but need careful attention.
Taken from mature, woody stems in autumn or winter. Great for fruit trees, roses and shrubs. They take longer to root but are very hardy.
Taken from stems that are partly mature in late summer. Perfect for evergreen shrubs like lavender and rosemary. A good middle ground option.
Some amazing plants can grow entirely new plants from just a leaf! This works particularly well with succulent plants like jade plants and begonias. You place a healthy leaf on compost and tiny plantlets develop along the edges or from the leaf stalk.
Though less common, some plants like horseradish and Japanese anemone can be propagated from pieces of root. These cuttings are usually taken in winter when the plant is dormant.
Rose growers use stem cuttings to produce millions of identical roses each year. A single prize-winning rose bush can become the parent of thousands of plants sold worldwide. The process involves taking cuttings in autumn, treating them with rooting hormone and growing them in controlled greenhouse conditions. This ensures every rose you buy has the exact same characteristics as the original parent plant.
For a cutting to become a new plant, it needs to develop roots and sometimes new shoots. This process relies on the plant's natural ability to regenerate missing parts, similar to how a lizard can regrow its tail.
Plant hormones called auxins are the key to successful cuttings. These chemicals naturally concentrate at the base of cuttings and stimulate root development. Gardeners often use artificial rooting hormones containing auxins to speed up the process and improve success rates.
Cuttings need specific conditions to develop into healthy plants:
Like all propagation methods, cuttings have both benefits and drawbacks that make them suitable for some situations but not others.
Cutting propagation isn't just for home gardeners - it's a massive commercial industry worth billions of pounds worldwide.
Garden centres rely heavily on cuttings to produce the plants they sell. Popular houseplants like pothos, rubber plants and spider plants are almost always grown from cuttings because it ensures consistent quality and appearance.
Many food crops are propagated through cuttings or similar methods. Grapes for wine production, apple trees and even potatoes (technically tuber cuttings) all rely on asexual reproduction to maintain consistent quality and flavour.
Some rare houseplants sell for thousands of pounds and their value comes partly from being propagated through cuttings. A single cutting from a rare variegated monstera can sell for over £1,000! This high value exists because cuttings preserve the exact genetic makeup that creates the plant's unique appearance.
Using cuttings for plant propagation has important environmental benefits that make it an increasingly popular choice for sustainable gardening and farming.
Cuttings help preserve rare plant varieties that might otherwise be lost. Botanical gardens and conservation organisations use cutting propagation to maintain genetic diversity and protect endangered species from extinction.
Compared to seed production, cuttings require fewer resources. There's no need for flowering, pollination, or seed development, which saves the plant energy and reduces the time needed to produce new plants. This efficiency makes cutting propagation an environmentally friendly choice for large-scale plant production.