Propagation Lab

Three evenings of hands-on propagation with Marcus Bell, who ran a houseplant and herb nursery in Brooklyn for ten years. You bring your plants to the camera, Marcus shows where to cut, how to divide and when to repot, and you do it along with him. The group is capped at 10, so there is time to look at everyone’s plants in every session.

The first session is about cuttings: finding the node, without which most cuttings won’t root; water versus perlite versus sphagnum moss; and leaf cuttings for succulents, begonias and snake plants. The second covers three techniques: dividing clumping plants such as snake plants, ZZ plants, peace lilies and ferns; separating offsets and pups; and air layering, a reliable way to shorten a rubber plant or a fiddle-leaf fig that has reached the ceiling. The third is about repotting: when a plant really needs it, how much bigger the new pot should be, mixes for aroids, succulents and ferns, and moving rooted cuttings from water into soil without losing them.

November is not the fastest month for rooting. With short days, cuttings take longer than in summer; a seedling heat mat and a grow light make up much of the difference, and Marcus shows a setup that fits on one shelf. Some plants have their own rules: a variegated snake plant grown from a leaf cutting loses its yellow edge, while a division keeps it, and calatheas can only be divided.