Goingreen: P-P-P-Propagate
Propagating is a fancy way of saying making babies. If you have a favorite plant that you’d like to reproduce for your garden or to even better – give away as gifts – our in-house garden expert Steve Martinez shares his secrets on how to do it right. “First thing you need are the proper tools.” Steve says you’ll need a good pair of pruning shears which should be very sharp and very clean. “You want to keep the fungus away from the cutting,” says Steve. “And to clean them, all you need to do is rub them really well with alcohol.”
The right soil is the last thing you’ll need. Steve suggests using any sanitized commercial soil. Now using your plant, you cut nothing more than 6 inches off of it. Then you find the leaf node and you’ll want to cut a ½ inch below the node. Next you cut the leaves, “Don’t pull off the leaves or you’ll wound the plant.”
As soon as you cut all the leaves in half, go to the leaf node and scrape a little off. Then you stick it in some rooting hormone. After this, you slightly poke a hole in your soil then put the plant in being sure to compress it tightly because you want the soil and the plant to make contact so the roots will come out. STEVE’S TRICK: learning the right moisture level for each plant. For beginners, Steve suggests keeping the plant in the shade and simply misting every two to three days for thirty seconds. “You want to keep the moisture in the plant, but not too much because then it takes in fungus.”
“Cut the plumeria…then be sure not to pull the leaves off the cutting. Use your shears to cut the leaves off.” Once complete, you let the cutting dry for two to three days. “By doing this you allow the plant to close the wound.” When you’re sure it’s dry you just stick it in dirt and shade and finally…don’t water.
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Next you need the right size pot. “Smaller is better because you don’t want the cutting to stay wet for too long.” 
This is called transpiration – when the leaves wilt and lose moisture. 
While Steve assures you can do this with almost any plant, he provides some helpful tips for propagating plumerias.
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