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Houseplants bring so much life and color to your home, and ivies are among the easiest to grow. Here’s how to propagate ivy plants to make more beautiful houseplants for free.
I’ve really been loving the whimsy and charm that ivy plants bring to my home over the past couple of years. These old-fashioned vines lend themselves particularly well to traditional interiors, and it helps that they always look so healthy because they’re just so easy to please. I have big, grand, trailing ivy plants, and tiny, cute ivy plants, and they always seem to be just the thing to use when something seems to be missing from a grouping, tabletop, or counter. They don’t mind low-light conditions at all, and they’re happy with my regular weekly watering schedule, which makes them very easy to care for. I’ve been propagating my plants like crazy, and it’s so fun because you get to watch them growing new roots right before your eyes. In a few weeks, you have a whole new plant for free! If this sounds like exactly what you need in your home, here’s how to propagate ivy plants.
What is an Ivy Plant?
Ivy is a common evergreen vine plant, notable for its lobed leaf shape and ability to climb walls and trees when grown outdoors. Ivy also goes by the name Hedera, and works equally well when grown as a perennial garden plant or indoors as a trailing houseplant. These beautiful vines can be considered invasive in some areas, so it’s best to grow them in contained garden beds and planters, or to bring them inside to decorate your home. I personally use ivy both indoors and out, and I seem to grow more and more fond of it every year because of its charming growth patterns, easy care, and abundant green foliage.
Best of all, it’s very adaptable and easy to propagate, so you can create as many ivy plants as you want with a few very simple tools.
More inspiration for houseplant care: The Mayonnaise on the House Plant Trick
Tools Needed for Water Propagation
You’ll need:
- An existing ivy plant (a potted plant or a vine growing in the garden will both work)
- Sharp pruning shears
- A small jar or vase to hold water
- A small planter or pot
- Potting mix or houseplant potting soil
Propagating ivies is quick and easy, and doesn’t require any special materials at all. Some people swear by rooting hormone for this style of propagation, but it truly isn’t necessary in this case. Ivy will grow roots in water very quickly and easily without asking for much from you at all, so I like to keep things simple.
Guide for growing indoor plants: How to Fix Leggy Succulents
How to Propagate Ivy Plants
To propagate an existing ivy plant, you’ll need to take a stem cutting from an ivy house plant or an ivy growing in your garden. You want the cutting to be approximately six to eight inches long and have quite a few leaves growing on it.
In my experience, ivy plants do take some time to adapt to indoor environments if you start with a garden plant, so you’ll have quicker success with creating new, happy, healthy plants if you start with cuttings from a houseplant that is already in your home. If you start with cutting from outside, you will still be successful in growing beautiful houseplants, but you may find that you have a few leaves drop off in the first few months, or you may experience a delay in seeing a large number of new leaves. After four to six months, your plants should be fully adapted and will start growing more rapidly, as though they’ve been houseplants all along.
Once you’ve got your ivy cuttings, fill a small vase or jar with cool water, and remove the leaves from the bottom part of the cutting stems. You want to avoid submerging any of the leaves in the water, so make sure that any below the water line have been pulled off the stem.
Leave your cuttings in the jar in a spot with bright, indirect light, topping up the water weekly, for about 4 weeks, or until you see roots emerging from the bottom of the stem cuttings. Once those roots are about an inch long, you can plant your cuttings in potting mix to create a new plant! I like to put two to three cuttings in a small pot for a fuller look.
As you can see, these stem cuttings are significantly longer than one inch. If you leave your cutting in the water for longer than a month, it won’t be a problem at all. They’ll just keep growing and you can pot them up whenever you have the chance.
My current favourite plant for lush, deep green foliage: How to Grow Hoyas
If you’d like to give your new plants a little extra advantage, houseplant fertilizers like Plant Vitamins can easily provide all the nutrients you need to keep your plants producing fresh new foliage and strong root systems. I use a dropper of the Thrive Plant Vitamins in my watering can during my weekly Friday afternoon watering routine, and the Boost when I transplant existing plants or pot up newly propagated cuttings to give my plants the best start possible.
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.