Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Rooting leaves?, 1 by hcmcdole

hcmcdole wrote:
The tall plant is a shrub and is B. serratipetala. Some Asian species shrubs will produce plants from leaf cuttings such as amphioxus and brevirimosa but typically a lot easier to do by stem cuttings. Not sure about serratipetala from leaf. Anyway the idea is water rooting is easy if you cover the entire cup (plastic bag works well too or at least cover the mouth of the cup with plastic wrap or aluminum foil to keep the germs out).

I have planted some plants in straight perlite but usually I lay down a few inches of potting mix in a larger pot, lift the rooted plant in perlite (if some falls off then so be it) and place it on top of the potting mix and fill the remainder with potting mix. Seems to work pretty good.

Here is a favorite way to propagate single begonias - a six oz drinking cup with perlite and a 12 oz cup as the humidity cover. The plant is 'Maid Marion'. If you have a heavy watering hand then cut holes in the bottom cup to make life easier.