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Propagation by Dividing Plants

Learning to propagate plants by dividing them is easy and a fast way to increase the plants you can sell in your nursery. Plants that send off underground shoots such as Hosta are a perfect example. You can let certain plants grow out and they will natural send out runners or spreading rhizomes. Plants that grow this way are easy to propagate by dividing the plant. This encourages new growth and creates new plants you can later sell. This is Part 5 of our series on How to Start a Plant Nursery

Watch our video on propagating plants by dividing them.

How to propagate by dividing a plant

The method shown in our video is fairly straight forward. With most plants you want to locate sections of the plant that look viable if divided off. They will have a top of vegetation and a corresponding root section below. You may find several sections of the plant that look divisible and will likely end up with several smaller plants that can survive on their own.
Propagating Plants by Dividing

 

Really pot bound and large plants

You may have some plants you can propagate that are pot bound and or really large. These may require some heavy cutting. We recommend you be careful of course and use an older serrated knife if you have one handy. Our other recommendation is the Fiskars Garden Hori Knife with Sheath

This Hosta was a monster and we ended up with 9 divided plants when finished. That is of course your goal in propagating by dividing plants, making many more plants.

Dividing plants to propagate them,

When to divide your plants for best propagation?

We propagate Hostas for example, in the early summer to very early fall. This gives the plants some time to settle in and even send out some new roots before the harsh winter comes. We like to avoid having the newly divided plants sitting out in any hot dry conditions. Thus, our preferred time is late Aug/Early September.
Dividing plants with runners

How quickly can a plant propagated by dividing it be sold?

Generally you can divide a plant about once per year. The new small plants will however be fairly small and may take up to 2 full seasons to fill out and be ready to sell. More exactly if you divided a plant in June 2024 it might be ready to sell by Spring of 2026. That isn’t 2 full years, we would call it 2 seasons. Of course if you want to sell larger plants you might have to wait for one more season.

How to propagate plants by dividing to grow your nursery quickly

We have found larger plants can put out a lot on new shoots each year and tend to benefit from a good amount of root pruning or dividing. Like top pruning, root pruning encourages the roots to branch and thus create more baby plants. If you can still leave a good size plant after dividing off 2 to 4 small plants, that plant tends to recover more quickly. The faster the plant rebounds the sooner it starts sending out more shoots. Thus, a really good practice is to leave some of your plants grow out larger. You could do this in beds or larger pots filled with great potting soil. You would use 2 applications per year of a slow release fertilizer to encourage growth. Then you would want to optimize your sunlight for the plant and get your plants all the water they need.
What you will also have to do to increase your production is keep holding back plants to divided from. For example if you bought 10 small Hostas and then divided them into 30 plants in about a year. You would then grow these divided plants out for 18 to 24 months. Then would be about ready to sell. But, don’t sell them all. You will want to keep 10 or more so you can divide off of them. This process takes a while in the beginning. Planning ahead you may need to have about 30 to 50 Hostas to reliably produce 100 new plants per year.
Divided Plants in Nursery

More resources for your Nursery

Our Plant Nursery Start Up Series

How to Start a Plant Nursery – With super low start-up costs.
How to Get Free Plants – Your secret start up advantage
Propagate Plants All Year – Always be propagating
Make Your Own Potting mix – Inexpensively for your nursery
Propagate plants by Dividing A Great Way to Increase your Nursery Plant Inventory

 

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