How to Grow Succulents from Leaf Cuttings

My new favorite hobby is growing something out of almost nothing: growing new little succulent plants from succulent leaves and cuttings:

We grow them in trays with regular potting soil. Some sites recommend pricier mixes but my local nursery recommends just regular old starter soil…they grow all their own varieties of succulents and they said “fancy dirt” won’t make any bit of difference:

We start the soil pretty damp to keep it all packed down nice:

When a succulent plant is getting too big or has a large offshoot I will carefully pull off the leaves in a gentle twisting motion to make sure I get the entire piece from the stem of the plant:

Spreading all the pieces out on a board I let them sit for 2 to 3 days in indirect sunlight so that the ends can dry out. This will keep them from rotting when you set them back in the soil:

Key step: Don’t let your dog eat them.

Once the ends have dried out or calloused over we just place them on the soil:

If they are a small top cutting with more than one leaf we just stick it straight down into the soil:

You can mix up the technique to see what you have the most success with but depending on the kind of succulent sometimes when I just stick the leaf down into the soil I get better results:

Set the trays out in the sun and mist the soil with water every few days. Remember that succulents prefer an arid environment so if you water them too much they will begin to rot. If it’s too cold bring the succulents inside and set them in front of a window. You might need to move them into indirect sun if you see the leaves starting to scorch. But I’ve found that when I tend to ignore them for a while they thrive! Sometimes they’ll grow at different rats as you can see from the three plants below that were planted at the exact same time:

It’s so exciting to see “baby” succulents appear from the cutting! One day you’ll look closely and an entirely new plant has just popped up through the soil:

To transplant these you can carefully clip off the original leaf cutting and replant the new succulent:

Some of the smaller leafy cuttings will just start to grow and grow. I usually snip off the top a few leaves down for a new plant and then use the rest of the leaves to start new plants as well:

And so many varieties:

All of my cuttings were trimmed from this beautiful succulent wreath and from this one wreath I’ve created hundreds of baby succulents!

Feel free to leave any of your own tips in the comments!