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| Ivy in a small Long Tom terracotta pot |
...like before, I bought just one single ivy (hedera). It's a slightly different one but still variegated - it's actually much prettier than the below photo. What I chose my particularly plant for was that it had three long trailing stems which are perfect for propagation. I planted the 'mother' plant into a Long Tom and then curled the trailing branches back towards the pot . I found the point on the stem where it was convenient to push the stem down into the soil, removing the leaves from that point, and just pushed it into the soil with my finger. If you look at an ivy, you should see that roots are being formed at the point on the stem behind where the leaves grow.
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| Healthy ivy (hedera) showing aerial roots |
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| Propagating ivy (hedera) |
If you want you can use something to peg or anchor the stems into place. Leave the plant undisturbed and the stems will take root (actually it is a similar process to rooting strawberry runners). Once the ivy's roots have developed, the stems can be severed from the mother plant and voila, free plants. I am hoping that in a few weeks my new pot of ivy will be almost, if not as good as, the other one. Fingers crossed.
You can propagate ivy by cuttings but have to remember not to put the growing end into the soil. Ivy likes to know which end's up! Personally, unless you want to propagate a lot of plants, I think that my method is far more reliable as the stems feed from the mother plant until they can survive alone. Your choice.
A further note. I don't think there is anything more miserable than an ivy plant that is nothing but a load of long, straggly, single stems. They don't look good, they look pathetic! Don't be afraid to cut back your ivy to make it bushy (as in the top image). Where you cut, you will get more stems growing and it's worth it in the long run. I do the same thing with trailing fuchsias, etc. Even if I was growing my ivy as a climber, rather than letting it trail, I would still make sure there were a lot of stems before training them up a surface.