Propagation & Cloning

What a cutting actually needs

Once you take a cutting, the roots stay on the parent and the leaves keep losing water. Until new roots form, the plant is living on what it already has — and nearly every failed tray is one of three problems: it dried out, it rotted, or the root zone was too cold to start. The kit on this page is there to close those three gaps.

Humidity, so it does not dry out

A clear dome on a tray holds wet air around the leaves so the cutting does not dry faster than it can cope. Once roots appear, the vents let you ease that humidity down instead of dumping the plant straight into room air. Trays, domes and complete propagator sets live under propagation domes and trays.

Bottom heat, so it gets on with it

Strike rate follows root-zone temperature much more than the air above the tray. A heat mat under the tray lifts the medium a fixed amount above the room — the mats we stock are rated 5–11°C above ambient. In an Australian shed or garage, that is often the difference between roots inside a fortnight and a tray that sits and rots. See propagation heat mats.

A hormone, so it roots sooner

Gels, liquids and powders go on the cut and work through auxins. They lift the strike rate and cut the wait, which matters most on semi-hardwood material that is slow to root on its own. Those, and the weak starter feeds a plant with no roots can actually use, sit in propagation and cloning additives.

Where to start

Seed or cuttings

Seed wants warmth, moisture and a medium. It does not want a rooting hormone. Cuttings want all of that, plus humidity and a hormone at the cut, and they are the harder job. Both go into the same trays and the same propagation mediums — rockwool cubes, coco plugs or peat pellets, sized for a tray rather than a pot.

By hand, or in a machine

A tray, a dome and a heat mat is the passive route: cheap, quiet, and you scale it by buying more trays. Cloning machines are the active option — cuttings sit in collars over aerated water with no medium at all, which suits high-volume, repeat cloning. Stations on the store run from 16 sites up to 144.

A dedicated space

Propagation wants warmer, wetter and far dimmer conditions than a flowering room. Clone and propagation tents are compact tents built for that, and propagation grow lights are the low-wattage bars and T5-style fixtures that suit seedlings without burning them.

Getting a strike

1. Cut it clean. A sharp, sterile blade and a fresh cut give the hormone something to work on.
2. Treat the cut at once. Gel, liquid or powder onto the cut immediately, at the rate on the label — softwood and semi-hardwood take different rates.
3. Into a pre-soaked plug. The medium should be damp, not sodden. Soak the cube first so it is conditioned before the cutting goes in.
4. Dome on, mat underneath. Humidity above, gentle heat below, and low light rather than none.
5. Ease the vents once roots show. Then pot on into a larger block before the roots run out of room.

After the strike

A rooted cutting is still a young plant. Move it into a larger block or into full-size grow mediums, start nutrients at reduced strength, and apply a mycorrhizal inoculant at transplant rather than at the cut. After that it is a normal grow — grow tents and grow lights take over.