Q&A for How to Propagate Your Plants

You can typically control small bug populations by squirting your plant with a stream of water and then rubbing the colonies off the leaves with a soft cloth.

Don't let your cuttings dry out, get too hot or too wet. Keep them in dappled shade or indoors until established.

Plants are often propagated asexually by a process known as "cloning" whereby a living segment is selected and severed from the parent and then planted, forming an independent, genetically identical clone. The segment is determined based on its viability as a self sufficient organism, with the exact boundaries of the segment depending on the species. If cut in the optimal place and planted in soil, the clone will grow new roots or other relevant moisture absorption apparatuses. This process may be repeated an infinite number of times, at little to no detriment to the parent plant ,provided that it has enough time regrow. This form of asexual propagation is often done methodically by human agriculturists but also occurs naturally for some species, ch actually break off into viable segments upon forcible enough contact with other kinetic elements in the environment, such as wind or getting caught on the fur of a passing or browsing animal.

Just because a plant has bloomed does not mean there are sufficient roots. You can take a cutting from a plant with a bud and place it in water often it will bloom with no roots. When moving plants into the sun after "rooting" do it slowly by increasing the amount of sun each day as to not shock the plant.

Yes. Putting a plastic bag over the plant is effectively a mini greenhouse.

Yes, you can.

Put your cutting into water as soon as possible. Then change the water every 5-7 days (this keeps a lot of oxygen in the water). Make sure you use distilled water, or you can let tap water sit overnight (this is what I do and it has been working fine). After the roots grow two or more inches you can put them in soil. For the first 5 weeks water your plant more than usual (but be careful of root rot and drowning the plant). Then after 5 weeks, just water the plant as needed.

Healthy aloe vera plants naturally “scab over” the part where it broke, so you don’t need to do anything unless the plant is already unhealthy.