How to Propagate Lavender from Cuttings

Lavender roots best in a medium that drains freely. Dave uses a blend of sand for drainage, coir to hold a bit of moisture, and bark shavings that do a little of both. Fill your cells with the mix, then soak it all the way through and let it drain out the bottom.

The goal is damp, not soggy. Give it a few minutes to shed the extra water while you get everything else ready. Cuttings that sit in waterlogged soil tend to rot before they root, so this drainage step matters more than it looks.

Before you take a single cutting, punch a few holes in each cell with a dibber. It's just a stick, sometimes called a dibbler, and it saves you a lot of grief later.

When you push a hormone-dipped cutting straight into firm soil, the medium scrapes most of that rooting powder right back off. A pre-made hole lets the cutting slide in with the hormone still on it. Make three holes per cell if you plan to fit three cuttings there.

Look for healthy first-year growth and snip a shoot somewhere between 3 and 6 inches long. Four inches tends to be the sweet spot. Dave goes about 4 inches down and cuts with a pair of snips, though pruners work fine too.

Later in the season, aim for shoots that are just starting to firm up at the base. That semi-ripe wood, caught mid-transition between green and woody, roots very reliably. Take a whole bunch at once so you can fill your tray in one go.

Run your fingers down the bottom half of the cutting and strip those leaves off. That leaves a stretch of bare stem dotted with nodes, the little green bumps where leaves used to attach.

Every one of those nodes can turn into roots once it's buried in the medium. Clearing the lower leaves also stops them from rotting underground and pulls the cutting's energy toward making roots instead of feeding foliage it doesn't need yet.

Dip the stripped end into rooting hormone and swirl it around to coat the bare stem. Dave pours a little into a small jar so he never contaminates the main container.

You don't strictly need hormone. Lavender roots on its own, and he's done it plenty of times without any. But he's taking these cuttings in early September, so a bigger root system before the first frost is worth the small boost. Late-season cuttings especially benefit from the head start.

Slide each cutting into a pre-made hole, then firm the medium around it so there's good contact between soil and stem. Dave tucks each one in as he goes, working across the tray until it's full.

He aims for three cuttings per cell, which fills a standard tray with around 36 of them. That's plenty to start a hedge, with spares in case a few don't take. He also marks which cells got rooting hormone and which didn't, so he can compare the results later.

Give the whole tray a light overhead watering. As the water sinks in, it pulls the medium down snug against each stem and closes up the air pockets you left while planting.

Keep it gentle so you don't knock the cuttings loose. Getting a little water on the leaves is fine here, and it even helps. Damp foliage holds more moisture inside the cutting while it works on putting out roots.

Now it's a waiting game, and a couple of small habits make all the difference. Keep the humidity up around the cuttings by tenting them, misting daily, or dropping a clear plastic tote over the tray as a humidity dome. High humidity slows the water they lose through their leaves while they're still rootless.

Set the tray in bright, indirect light, never full sun. With no roots yet, direct sunshine just stresses them out. In about two weeks you'll see signs of rooting. New leaves alone can fool you, so tug gently and feel for resistance, or better yet watch for roots poking through the drainage holes in the bottom of the flat. That's your sure sign they've taken and are ready to pot up.