I just found a prolif, how do you properly plant it? Or do you put it in water first?

I leave them on the mother plant as long as possible so the roots will be as big as possible. When you do cut it off, leave a couple inches of stem below the prolif to act as an anchor and plant it in some potting soil. Keep it moist.

I've never tried putting them in water but I try not to root anything in water.

@Nomie,
I normally just plant my prolifs in small trade size one gallon pots and have decent luck with them. I visited a club member's garden the other day and she gifted me some prolifs that she had kept in water from 'Prandsome Hince', and they had already developed nice roots. I took them home, cleaned them up, then potted them.
I have been told that water roots will need to harden up once the plant is planted in soil instead of water, but this will be a good test, I hope, to see if it actually seems to make a difference. Most people tell me it does not really seem to matter if you start them in water or in soil.

I trim the scape, and baby the prolif in water until the roots are a couple of inches long. Then I plant it next to the mother plant and water occasionally if I remember. Seems to give them a nice head-start, but is low maintenance on the back end.

@Nomie - glad you asked, I have just found a prolif in my gardens, too... never had one here before, always just thought our season is too short. But I have a nice one, multiplying on the scape of one of my Sultry x (?) seedlings so I am planning to pot it up and see what happens. Looks like (3) tiny plants started.

Just for those who have not run into this problem with prolifs. They don't always grow the way that makes it easy to plant them. The prolifs I was given recently were more or less growing sideways on the scape.
Normally you would expect to find that if you cut the scape two or three inches below the prolif and and inch or so above the prolif, you could just push the longer end into the soil and plant the prolif. But I had to dig a shallow trench and lay the scape on its side and bury it sideways so the prolif would be placed in an upright position.
One might be tempted to just break off the prolifs and plant them separately, but by laying the cut scape on its side it still acts as an anchor to stabilize the prolif.
I have heard some people say that the reason you cut the prolif a couple of inches long is so the short portion of the scape will nurture the tiny prolif (possibly to some slight degree) but the main reason is just to stabilize the prolif when it is planted being it normally has very small roots or no roots.

I've done both methods and they both work for me. I planted in a pot with potting soil for several weeks and then put them next to the clump or gave them away. But if the roots were small, as in your picture, I would put them in a glass with water just touching the base of the prolif for a few weeks to let the roots get bigger. Either way, I wait until the scape has dried up almost to the prolif before cutting it off a few inches below the bottom of the prolif.

Out checking over the plants today and found a scape on 'Woodlea Wonder' that still had a prolif way down deep in the clump. But, when I pulled the scape the prolif accidently broke free from the scape. I normally pot my prolifs but being this one now had no roots and no piece of a scape to stabilize it I decided it would be a perfect candidate for putting in water instead of a pot of soil. I was cleaning it up and broke off part of the prolif with just a slight misguided bump, maybe that was also an indication of why the prolif itself broke off so easily. Anyhow, the way the prolif was now I decided to just put in in a shallow container with a slight amount of
water, I took the photo below, but still had to empty out quite a bit of water to keep it from being above the little crown of the plant.

Hope your experiment works, Larry. It will be interesting to here the outcome.

I had the same thing happen with three proliferations from Forever Redeemed. I did plant them in soil and weighted them down with pebbles…we'll see. I don't have high hopes.

I soak a paper towel until it's quite wet and then wrap the prolif in it and place it in a shallow can with water in the bottom. They root really well this way as long as you keep some water in the bottom of the can. Just unwrap and plant.

That's a great way to do it Deb. They get the moisture without drowning in it.

Here, Megatron produces a lot of prolifs.
I have done my usual air-layering on one. This one with foil, zip-ties and string. And wet soil.

The fans are growing well so far.

Today, I snipped 3 others from different scapes and will try the water method. I just put them in the base of a cut soda bottle and overlayed with water. I have been using this bottle for months to successfully root many many coleus cuttings.

Might have to go back and try Deb's paper towel wicking method (I like smart ideas such as that), but right now those prolifs have a piece of scape left on as anchors.

I found 2 more on The Jury's Out after wondering why the scapes were still green. . Like I need more of this cultivar

I feel the same about Small World Aliens in the Sky. It has over 10 prolifs now and I'm not going to do anything with them since this plant multiplies like a weed.

It does seem that often some of the quickest multiplying plants are the most prolific proliferation creators also. I liked the sound of that "prolific proliferation".

I like the sound of it too!

blue23rose

Thanks for the acorn.

Yep, I've drowned a few! I've tried every other way imaginable, and this is far and away the most successful!

You're very welcome!

So I looked up the cultivars everyone has mentioned. I've never had a proliferation on any known plant that wasn't a diploid. Orion, you've got a pentaploid!!! No wonder it's vigorous!

Zoia has them on tets. I was sort of hoping that I could use the ability to make prolifs as a ploidy indicator on some of my NOIDs. Darn!!!!