Croton is a rather unusual highly decorative indoor plant. It does not require frequent transplants, but in the care it is quite demanding. They need to be constantly monitored, sprayed, fed, followed by a temperature regime and humidity. If you are ready for this and decided to multiply it, you need to know some features of this process.
Croton - Care and Reproduction
Croton can be propagated by seeds, but more often vegetative reproduction is used, that is, stem or apical cuttings. They need to be cut from lignified shoots. In the case of apical cuttings, they should be 5-10 cm in length, with a couple of internodes. Cut them at an angle so that the cut was oblique.
If stem cuttings are used, their two lower leaves are removed, shortening the upper leaves a third of the length to reduce the evaporation of moisture.
Before planting, they need to be placed for a short while in warm water - this is necessary in order to wash off the juice that has come out. Several cuttings are tied together, the leaves are rolled up into a tube, in order to reduce the evaporation of moisture.
After that, the cutting is planted in a glass or a small pot of soil: chopped sphagnum, peat , sand in equal proportions. We cover everything with a film, making a mini-greenhouse. Twice a week, seedlings need to be sprayed, airing is necessary more often. Reproduction of croton by cuttings in water is rarely used, professionals prefer to plant cuttings immediately in the ground.
Rooting takes about a month. To speed up the process, you can treat the sections with phytohormones before planting and arrange the lower heating of the greenhouse.
Reproduction of croton by leaves
Sometimes the growers use the method of multiplying the croton with a leaf.
This method is longer, in addition, often even when the leaf has given roots, its further development does not occur. And it also happens that the roots do not appear. It's all about plant varieties. Large-leaved croton not multiply leaf, narrow-leaved - multiply normally, but for this it is necessary to cut the leaf together with axillary bud.
A leaf with a "heel" can first be put in water and wait until it has roots and only then land in the ground. The shoots of the croton grown in this way begin to develop from the root.