 Hi everyone, I'm Marthes from the 2021 Summer Youth Engaged and Library Leadership Program here at the San Francisco Public Library And today I'm going to show you one of my favorite ways to interact with nature by creating your own indoor jungle And all it takes is one plant. It's a simple technique called propagation. Let's get started The supplies you will need are a pair of clean scissors or garden shears if you have them a Small jar or bowl and if you're using the bowl you will also need some rubber bands One growing medium, which we'll talk more about later and one plant before we can get to planting We need to learn a little bit about the type of plants you can use plant anatomy and plant needs So when you're propagating you're essentially taking part of one plant and creating a whole new plant with it But the method of propagation I'm going to be showing you today only works with specific type of plants The general rule to remember is that this will work with any type of vining or climbing plant For example, this is apothos and this is a vining plant You can tell it has a main vine here and the leaves grow off of that vine It doesn't necessarily stay in a clump and the leaves all spread out and grow out off of this vine On this philodendron micons you can tell that it's also a vine because it is shooting out these main stems Where the leaves grow off of instead of the leaves growing out of one central area This spider plant here is not a vining plant as you can see the leaves all grow out of this one central area making it not a vine Today, I'll be using my heart leaf philodendron This is a beautiful very easy plant to grow and it's a fast grower As you can tell it is a vine as I have it growing up this trellis And it can be found at most big box stores like Lowe's or Home Depot But the good thing about propagation is that you don't have to go buy a new plant If you already have one in your house or you know somebody who has a plant like this, you can just ask for a cutting So now that we know what propagation is and what plants we can't propagate. I'll show you how to do it When we propagate a plant, we're going to cut the plant in specific places called nodes When we look at a plant we can identify the three main parts of it the leaf The petiole and the main vine The node is where the petiole and the main vine connect and this is where new roots will come out of So here on our pathos We have right here on the bottom is the main vine where all the leaves are shooting out of we call this the main vine We have of course the leaves up here and then we have the petiole Which is where the leaf? Connects down to the main vine. So this part right here is called the petiole On our philodendron micons We can tell that here is the main vine where all the leaves are coming off of right here And then of course we have the leaves and the petiole where the leaf connects to the vine So this right here this part would be the node right where the petiole and the main vine connect So now I'm going to cut off multiple nodes of my heartly philodendron to make a new plant So I'm going to be cutting along this vine right here So this right here is one node We have the petiole which would connect to this baby leaf that's opening. So I'm going to cut right there And then here we have another leaf. We have the petiole and the stem So we have the node As you can see I'm cutting above and below each node just to get the node and kind of off any excess of the stem We have another leaf the petiole and then along the main stem. I'm going to cut above it and below it So now that we have our cuttings. I have five with me. I'm not sure if this one will actually sprout anything But we will see You're going to want to let these sit out just on the table No water just sitting out for about half an hour to an hour This stuff isn't necessary But it helps the ends of the cutting dry out a little bit and seal themselves This prevents the plant from rotting later on while we wait for our cuttings to seal We need to choose a growing medium a growing medium is simply what you will be growing your plants in There are four popular growing mediums used for propagation soil Water perlite and sphagnum moss each have their own benefits and downsides But before we can choose we need to learn what our plant needs Plants require for nutrients to grow successfully Nitrogen phosphorus and potassium often referred to as NPK Nitrogen encourages leaf growth phosphorus encourages root flower and fruit growth, although we mostly want root and Potassium improves the overall function of the plant. So back to the different growing mediums I'm going to outline the NPK levels some pros and some cons of each medium so that we can choose Which would be best for our plant Soil has the highest amount of NPK of all four It allows your cuttings to grow very strong roots because soil is the most natural habitat However, soil can also have bacteria and needs to be very well draining or it can cause your cuttings to rot Sphagnum moss on the other hand has far less NPK But it retains water very well while not causing rot Another downside is that sphagnum moss can be harder to find and is more expensive Perlite has almost no NPK, but is very well draining and is sterile so your cuttings are very unlikely to rot However, it can be messy and should be handled outdoors to prevent being inhaled excessively Lastly is water water has no NPK But it is very easy to use accessible and allows you to trap the progress of your cuttings because you can actually see the roots Additionally, it has almost no cons So out of our four choices, I will be using water for my cuttings today So now that our cuttings have sealed themselves and we have a growing medium All we have to do is put it together We don't want to use a small jar preferably glass or plastic so you can see your progress with a skinny neck So we'll support the leaves Just fill it up with water That's probably enough and just place your cuttings into it Making sure oh well, that's not enough. So put your cuttings into it And so what you want to do is make sure that the nodes are submerged as you can see mine are not submerged So i'm going to add more water into it just until You see they're all under water If you don't have a small glass jar, you can also just use a bowl and those rubber bands You're going to create a grid with the rubber bands on the top of the bowl like this Just fill it up with some water So create a grid put some water in it and then just put your Cuttings in between the rubber bands so that they can support the leaf and keep them right side up And again, you're just going to want to make sure that The nodes in there are all nice and submerged in the water You're going to want to keep these in bright indirect sunlight This can be found a few feet away from a window where the sun will be shining directly on them for more than a few hours If you can if you put your hand up in the area and you can see a strongly defined shadow It's probably too bright You'll also need to change the water on your cuttings every week just to make sure there's no build-up or any bacteria That could potentially harm your cuttings and in a few weeks to a month You should start to see roots popping out once there are a few inches long You're ready to transfer them to soil and have a whole new plant Here are some beautiful plants. I'm currently growing from cuttings. This is a monstera minima This is a monstera adensoniae And here is a plant wall that I created completely out of cuttings So now that you're an expert on propagation You can teach your friends your family and even give them cuttings of your own plants If you want to continue learning more about plants like different types of them Well, plants can do for you and how to style them. Check out the reading list I've created along with this video. All the books are free on hoopla.com And also make sure to check out the rest of the Yao 2021 videos. There's a lot of really cool ones out there So I'll see you next time. Bye