After reading that Snake Plant/Mother-In-Law’s Tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata) can be propagated incredibly easily (in a book by my hero Alys Fowler) – I kept an eye on all my friends indoor plants hoping to find one I could steal a leaf off. Apparently Sake Plants have gone out of fashion recently as none of my friends have it! Although disappointed I did manage to find one on sale which felt like a bearable compromise. I would now really like a new plant for my desk (particularly if I’m going to be spending a lot more time blogging!) so I decided to try the “create your own indoor plant” experiment.
As it goes, all you have to do is cut up a leaf into sections and place into potting mix. Make sure the pieces are facing up (ie correct growing direction) and keep moist.It apparently takes 6-8 weeks for new signs of growth, so no change so far. Keeping my fingers crossed & look out for updates!
In the past week however I have noticed a change in the original pot that wasn’t there before….. A new shoot has emerged from the original plant, so looks like I will have at least one new plant after all!
All you need is a seed from an avocado which suspended over water (memories of primary school science coming back to me…) will germinate after a few weeks. A new indoor plant is created as easy as that! Seeds from overripe avocados work best and keep them in water until a few leaves have formed. I had one last year that died (& still not sure why) but one I germinated this year is looking significantly more healthy & is a great addition to the kitchen!
interesting post! 😀 thank you, thank you so much for sharing this post 🙂 my mum loves gardening and she’s always trying and experimenting with cool ideas 😀 and after readin your post, im definitely gonna swing by the grocery store tomorrow and grab an avocado and start experimenting with this cool idea with her 😀
Thank you! Good luck & hope it goes well 😀
Loving the posts Pen 🙂 I’m gonna have a crack at growing an avo. Will we get any fruit?
Thanks Bec! Yes you will, but you’ll need to be patient – they take 7 years to fruit!
I got time! I have just set up my first seed – excited! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Your garden is beautiful and I look forward to more posts, although it is strange, living where I live (Vancouver Island, BC, Canada), to read titles like “February & the winding down of summer” just as I’m starting to take pictures of my snowdrops!
Such a wonderful thing to do with kids also! We have a large Mother-in-laws tongue that I got at my local Home Depot – it has a few little shoots coming up like yours – maybe cutting the leaf sparked it to send up a shoot?