This succulent is truly fascinating, and its nickname is perfect, because if left to grow unfettered she will have millions of babies!
How this plant Propagates: Look at the picture above. See all of the little flowerlike tips? Each one of those is a seed for a new plant, hence the nickname Mother of Millions. They will drop off around where the plant is placed and new plants will begin to grow all around it.
This is one of my favorite succulents not only because it’s so easy to grow, but because of the beautiful shape of the plant, the way it survives, blends in and thrives in any spot you put it. And of course because of the beautiful red-orange colored flowers it produces from late fall into early spring:
Here is how I propagate this plant, let’s start with a more mature picture of the plant shown above. Notice the long, thick stems that came out of the pot. This is another example of a plant growing out of it’s pot and looking for the ground to grow into. This plant grows great in a pot, but don’t be alarmed when it grows out, then downwards, then when it hits the ground grows back upright. To me this is so cool and was so unexpected.
You can see that each of those off-shoots that are on the ground are now growing upwards and each stem has grown several plants over time.
In this next example I clipped away a full stem as close as I could to the original plant and separated each individual plant. As you can see they already have a good root system started!
Then I replanted them into small pots to grow together:
If you look closely, you can see I added a few small babies into 2 of the pots
Keepsake Crafter Tip: I like to use plastic pots for propagating, because when you go to repot the plants it is so much easier to remove a plant from a plastic pot than from ceramic or clay pot. This is because the plastic is flexible, and you can loosen the dirt in a way you can’t with a hard pot. When the soil is completely dry in the pot, place your hands on opposite sides of the pot and gently push the pot inward towards the soil. Do this around the whole pot and you will see the plant start to come away and loosen from the pot. You should now be able to slide the whole plant out of the pot. If the plant is rootbound, though, meaning the plant has outgrown the pot and the roots have formed into a tangled mess at the bottom of the pot, some of the roots may be growing out of the holes in the bottom stopping you from getting the plant all the way out. You can just cut those roots away underneath the pot and the plant will now come out of its old home and is ready for a new one!
When you’re done planting these new teens (I wouldn’t call them babies, this offshoot was at least 2 years old) water them gently:
You can see they are starting to settle nicely into their new homes
Look how cute the Mother of Million babies are! I can see at least 50 babies, can you?
Mother of Millions is the perfect nickname for this plant! I absolutely have millions of them now!
Trust me, in no time this will be one of your favorites too.
Keepsake Crafter