ByTanya Anderson July 24, 2024September 3, 2025

How to Propagate Lavender from Cuttings (Plants for Free)

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This thrifty step-by-step guide helps you create dozens of lavender plants for free. You begin by taking cuttings from a mature lavender plant, then encourage them to form roots. After six weeks, you could have enough young plants for a lavender hedge or to start a small lavender farm!

Six newly rooted lavender cuttings lying on a wet stone block floor outside. Each has a healthy bundle of thin white roots.

Buying a single lavender plant isn’t usually that expensive, but if you’d like to create larger plantings, then buying a dozen or more can be. Fortunately, you can propagate lavender from cuttings to create new plants for free. All you need is a mature lavender plant, a pot, free-draining potting mix, and a little bit of time.

The process involves snipping pieces from an existing plant and giving them the right environment to grow roots. Propagating lavender from cuttings is an easy garden project, and as long as you don’t take too much, you won’t harm the original plant. The small plants you’ll get from the process will be clones of the original and will produce the same foliage and flowers. That’s fantastic news if you have a more unusual lavender variety and want to create more of the same plant.

How to Grow Lavender From Cuttings

Not all plants grow from cuttings, but all types of lavender do. English lavender, lavandins, Spanish lavender, French lavender…you name it. The process involves taking cuttings during the growing season, planting them in a free-draining potting mix, and encouraging them to form roots. You do this by keeping them in a bright and warm place and not letting them or the potting mix go dry. It’s easy!

This thrifty step-by-step guide helps you create dozens of lavender plants for free. You begin by taking cuttings from a mature lavender plant, then encourage them to form roots. After six weeks, you could have enough young plants for a lavender hedge or to start a small lavender farm! #garden #gardening #lavenderplants

Lavender stems are filled with hormones that stimulate root formation when they’re planted in potting mix or soil. The level of growth hormones varies based on the stem’s age and the time of year, but generally, they’ll take root within six weeks. After that, you plant the new plants into their own pots, where you grow them to size before planting them in the open ground.

When to Propagate Lavender Cuttings

One of the most misunderstood aspects of taking lavender cuttings is when to do it. I think that it’s best to understand the why so that the when really clicks for you. Younger lavender stems, which are green, soft, and flexible, can take root far quicker than old wood that’s been around for a season or more. However, the younger the stem, the higher the chance it could wilt or rot while you’re trying to root it. It’s best not to use young, floppy growth to avoid this happening.

The green-stemmed growth is called softwood, while the brown is hardwood.

This new, fresh growth is called softwood, and by mid-summer, it begins to mature into semi-ripe wood, also called semi-hardwood. As the summer progresses, the wood matures further, and by the end of August, it transitions from softwood to semi-hardwood. All stages of lavender growth can be propagated, but for speedier rooting, it’s best to use older softwood and semi-hardwood.

I have two Lavender ‘Munstead’ plants and want to create more.

July hits that sweet spot between softwood and semi-hardwood, making it the best time to take lavender cuttings. The new green growth has matured enough to be hardy yet still has high levels of root-stimulating hormones. However, if you’re in the northern hemisphere, you can take lavender cuttings using softwood from late June to early September. Rooted in summer, the cuttings will have a higher chance of forming roots and enough time to fill out before going into the dormant season.

Take Softwood Cuttings

The best lavender cuttings to take are long pieces of older softwood. For the best results, trim them to about four to six inches long before planting, taking this into account. Shorter stems can root, but have a much higher chance of not making it than if they were at least four inches long. The cuttings should also be pieces of growth that aren’t flowering. In summer, that means reaching into the middle of the plant and looking for newer growth at the base.

Long stems of new growth are the best candidates for propagating lavender.

If you have an exceptionally long piece, consider cutting it into four-inch sections. That way, they’re small enough to fit in a pot and easier to keep alive. If you cut a piece into multiple pieces, remember which way was the top and which was the bottom of the branch. Cuttings won’t root if you plant them upside down.

Flowering Lavender Cuttings

As for flowering stems—yes, they can root. However, their natural processes and hormones have been focused on flowering rather than rooting. It can take a long time for flowering cuttings to take root, but it can be done. If the only material you have comes from a flowering stem, cut the flower and flower stem off first. Then, use rooting ho rmone powder or another hormone stimulant to encourage quicker rooting.

Use Free-Draining Potting Mix

Once you have your lavender cuttings taken and trimmed, you’ll need to plant them. A growing medium that will keep the plants moist enough without being so wet that the stems rot. That’s why gritty potting mix is usually called for. Gritty potting mix is light and free-draining, so it doesn’t hold excess moisture. In your hands, it should feel loose, light, and gritty, but it can be made with different types of materials.

The best potting mix for cuttings is free-draining, like this one made with sand and compost.

You can either buy potting mix specially blended for cuttings or make your own. The mix shouldn’t contain any real soil; instead, it should be made with materials such as compost, potting mix, perlite, vermiculite, sand, or very fine stones. As an ecological gardener, I try to use materials that aren’t damaging to the environment. That means avoiding peat moss, which you might also see recommended for cuttings. It’s easily replaced by sterile compost or multipurpose potting mix.

Potting Mix Blend for Cuttings

It’s easy to make a potting mix for cuttings. The recipe doesn’t have to be exact, and you don’t have to use the same materials that I do. I recommend using what you have on hand and what you can find inexpensively. Typically, you use a half-and-half mix of small-particle drainage material and multipurpose potting mix (or compost).

One part perlite and one part multipurpose potting mix is ideal for rooting cuttings.

Drainage materials include horticultural grit (very fine gravel), sand, perlite, and/or vermiculite. Vermiculite absorbs water, but it does so without making the overall potting mix wet. It holds moisture inside each small particle.

Mix your chosen drainage material with multipurpose potting mix or sterile compost.

As far as a multipurpose potting mix is concerned, it’s a soil-less and sterile medium usually made from coco coir, wood fiber, compost, and other ingredients. It’s best not to use garden compost in your mix because it may contain microbes and seeds that will interfere with your cuttings. On an aside, in the UK, potting mix is confusingly called ‘compost,’ even though only a portion of it is actually compost.

Plants for Free: Instructions on how to propagate lavender from cuttings. Works for all types of lavender and cuttings from new or semi-hard wood. Full DIY video included #gardeningtips #growlavender #flowergarden — Lavender cuttings form their own roots within about six weeks.

Another thing to avoid in your mix is soil. Garden soil, topsoil, etc. It has a tendency to dry out and compact in pots, which isn’t ideal for young, developing roots. Soil from the garden also contains microbes that can cause root rot and damping off in cuttings.

Are Terracotta Pots Necessary?

The container you use to propagate lavender cuttings can be plastic or terracotta. Terracotta is best because it’s porous (making it also brilliant for DIY ollas) and allows air and moisture to flow through. If the terracotta appears wet on the outside, the potting mix inside is likely also wet. If the pot looks dry, it’s likely absorbed much of the moisture from the mix and needs watering.

Terracotta pots pull moisture from the potting mix inside. To prevent the potting mix from drying out too quickly, soak the pots in water before planting them with cuttings.

You don’t have to use terracotta pots, though, so don’t feel that you need to rush out and buy them before propagating. Plastic pots work fine, but they hold more moisture, so you’ll need to be more vigilant about ensuring the cuttings don’t rot from damp.

You can use either terracotta or plastic pots to propagate lavender.

When it comes to the pot(s) you choose, the size and depth of the pot do matter. It should be deep enough to bury at least half of the cutting and wide enough to hold three or more cuttings. Ideally, space them two inches (5 cm) apart around the rim of the pot.

Rooting Hormone for Propagation

Many people use rooting hormon e when propagating lavender and other plants. It’s a white powder that you dip cuttings into before planting, and it stimulates them to grow roots. It’s a synthetic form of the hormone auxin. Lavender cuttings generally don’t need rooting hormone to take root, but it can help guarantee success.

Plants for free: How to Propagate new Lavender plants from cuttings. — Rooting hormone stimulates cuttings to form their own root systems.

Propagating Lavender with Honey

Other, more natural substances can help ensure your cuttings take root. One is honey, and the other is cinnamon, and they’re usually used either one or the other. While neither of them actually stimulates rooting, they can help protect the cuttings from microbes in the growing medium and give them a chance to start forming roots naturally. Both honey and cinnamon are antifungal, antibacterial, and antimicrobial. It doesn’t hurt at all to dip the cut end into them just before planting.

Can I Root Lavender Cuttings in Water?

If you’ve ever taken houseplant cuttings before, you’ll know that many will root in water alone. Though lavender cuttings can do, too, there’s a higher chance of the cuttings rotting. That’s why I usually propagate them using potting mix. If you do try starting them off in water, make sure to change the water often so that it doesn’t scum up with algae and other organisms. This should help keep it clean enough to give the cuttings a chance. If you’re interested in trying, here’s how to propagate lavender in water.

Watering Cuttings

Though cuttings can rot if they’re too wet, they can wilt and dry out if the potting mix and air around them are too dry. That’s why it’s a good idea to put cuttings in a propagator or to put a clear plastic bag over the pot. The propagator lid and bag work in the same way, keeping the air inside more humid than the air outside. Humidity helps keep the aerial part of the cutting from dying.

Only top-water the cuttings to water them in. After that, water the plants from the bottom.

It is also essential to keep the potting mix inside the pot just moist enough. If it’s too wet, it causes rot, but if it’s too dry, the cutting and its baby roots can shrivel up. As already discussed, it can be easier to tell if the mix is dry when using terracotta pots since they, too, dry out when the potting mix is dry. Still, it’s always a good idea to feel if it’s wet or dry with a finger.

To water pots filled with cuttings, it’s best not to water from the top. You have to remove the plastic bag (if using one), as it can disturb the developing roots. Instead, set the pot in a tray filled with water and let it sit for around fifteen minutes. The potting mix will wick moisture up during that time. Then take the pot out, drain it, and put it back where you’re keeping it.

More Plants to Propagate

If there’s one thing that we know as gardeners, it’s that buying plants can get expensive. Fortunately, many plants can be propagated from cuttings. Houseplant lovers are well-known for taking a little snip-snip of plants to grow on. Woody herbs, herbaceous perennials, and even vegetables can be propagated, too. Here are a few more ways to create plants for free: