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Shadowing practice: Plant propagation for beginners » 5 indoor plants

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  1. I think it goes without saying that I absolutely adore plants and today I'm going to be making some new ones or propagating some plants and I thought I'd bring0:00
  2. you along and show you how I do it.0:07
  3. So propagating plants is just the process of creating these new baby plants out of some existing mature mama plants and it's just a really easy affordable way to fill0:11
  4. up your house full of plants just based on what you've already got.0:20
  5. You don't necessarily need to go and buy anything.0:23
  6. One of the other reasons I do it is it's just such a rewarding feeling to see that you're kind of creating this new life you know.0:26
  7. So I'm going to show you how I propagate five of my favorites.0:31
  8. One of them is pathos which is the one you see here and hanging behind me in the kitchen.0:34
  9. The other one is the monstera.0:39
  10. Monstera deliciosa with its big beautiful leaves.0:41
  11. I'll also show you how to propagate the pancake plant or the pilias and a couple of others as well.0:44
  12. I do want to take a brief moment before we begin to thank Audible for partnering with us on today's video but we're going to chat more about them at0:49
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  1. the end.0:55
  2. For now we're going to get started on propagating some plants.0:55
  3. The pathos is probably my favorite plant.1:00
  4. I think it looks so beautiful the way it waterfalls out of a pot if it's hanging on the ceiling or the way it cascades down the side of a1:03
  5. surface.1:09
  6. So I've got this pathos here and it's beautiful but it's getting really long and it's hitting the ground so it needs a trim and the lovely thing is we1:10
  7. can use the trimmings to create a new baby plant.1:17
  8. So all I'm going to do is I'm going to cut the vine just at a point below where a leaf is coming out of the vine so I'm just1:19
  9. going to snip it like that and you don't need to worry about the fact that you've just made this incision.1:26
  10. A new little vine or piece is going to stick out from here and grow and it's going to hit the ground again within a few months so we're going1:31
  11. to hang on to these trimmings and I'm just going to continue this all the way around the plant.1:37
  12. The first thing we need to do is find the nodes on this vine.1:43
  13. I'm going to show you how to do that.1:46
  14. That's really easy.1:47
  15. It's pretty much just any point where a leaf is coming out from the vine.1:48
  16. So this here is a node.1:52
  17. This is a node.1:54
  18. This, this, this.1:55
  19. I think you get the idea.1:58
  20. So what we're going to want to do is take some sharp scissors, a knife and we're just going to make a cut about one centimeter on either side of1:59
  21. a node like so and we're going to repeat this all the way up the vine.2:07
  22. So one centimeter on each side and any little bit of vine that we cut that was just these pieces here.2:14
  23. We actually don't need these.2:21
  24. So we're just going to put these to the side and this here, these cuttings are what we're going to put in water and if I actually get you to2:22
  25. take a look at these nodes at one node in particular, let's look at that one.2:29
  26. You can see these little protrusions that are coming off of it.2:34
  27. That's actually very likely where the roots are going to pop out from once we put this in water.2:37
  28. So now that we've got all these trimmings, all we need to do is dunk it into some water.2:42
  29. You want to make sure that those nodes stay submerged because like we said, that's where the roots are coming out from and then comes arguably the hardest part, which2:46
  30. is to patiently wait for these to root, which can take anywhere between two to four weeks.2:54
  31. Now one really important thing in that time is you want to make sure that you're topping up your little vessel, your cup, whatever you're using with water because you're2:59
  32. going to notice those water levels are starting to drop as the plant is using it up and as it evaporates.3:06
  33. And maybe even more important than that is about once a week you actually want to completely dump out the water that's in here and fill it up with some3:11
  34. fresh water.3:20
  35. The reason for that is tap water has some oxygen in it and roots of plants need oxygen in order to grow.3:21
  36. They're living things just like us.3:27
  37. And then in terms of where to store it, you just want to put it somewhere that has a good amount of sunlight and somewhere that's preferably a little bit3:29
  38. warmer.3:35
  39. So maybe keep it away from windowsills because that's a lot of fluctuating temperature.3:36
  40. Potting the pathos is actually really straightforward.3:40
  41. Once it roots about two centimeters or an inch or good to go, I'm just going to actually show you this one here.3:43
  42. I put this in water probably at least three or four months ago and the cool thing about that is it shows you that pathos can actually live in water.3:48
  43. So if you don't have time to put it in soil or if you even if want to just keep it like this because it looks decorative, you definitely can.3:56
  44. So long as again, you're replacing the water to keep it fresh, but you can see these roots have actually gotten longer than they need to be.4:02
  45. You only need a couple centimeters or so.4:09
  46. So what I've got here is some soil and I like to moisten it first by adding some water to it before we transplant our cuttings into the soil.4:10
  47. Because you got to keep in mind that the pathos just came from being in a water environment for quite a while and so they're going to want the soil4:18
  48. to be moist, not wet, but just moist enough that it kind of sticks together.4:25
  49. So once you've added some water, just get in there with your hands, give it a mix and once you kind of get it to that point where it's it4:29
  50. sticks together a bit, it's good, it's ready to use.4:36
  51. And then the only other thing that you're going to need is an inner pot that has holes on the bottom.4:39
  52. That is incredibly important that it has holes because when you're going to water your plant later, you want it to be able to drain the water out so that4:43
  53. the roots don't rot.4:50
  54. So all I'm going to do now is I'm going to transfer some of that moist soil into this inner pot.4:51
  55. And now I'm going to take this plant that has a lot of roots.4:59
  56. I'm actually going to cut it because I don't think it needs all that much roots and it makes it easier to plant.5:02
  57. I'm just going to cut it to make the roots about an inch long and then we're going to put that into the soil.5:06
  58. So I'm using a four inch or 10 centimeter pot here and I'm going to plant about somewhere around 10 maybe 15 of these cuttings into the soil.5:13
  59. Not all of the cuttings are going to take.5:24
  60. Some of them might die, there might be some casualties, that's okay.5:26
  61. It's still going to grow into becoming a beautiful luscious healthy plant.5:31
  62. And then we're going to pour a little bit of water on the soil as well.5:35
  63. And for the first couple of weeks, we want to try to keep that soil moist to promote the roots to continue to grow and just get used to their5:39
  64. new environment.5:46
  65. And that's pretty much it.5:47
  66. You've made yourself a little baby pathos plant and within a few months, hopefully, and I'm sure you're going to have a lot of success with it.5:48
  67. It's going to go great.5:55
  68. You're going to end up with a plant that's going to grow its own vines and become its own mum at some point that you can trim because it's becoming5:55
  69. so long.6:02
  70. And that's it.6:03
  71. That's how you make your own pathos at home.6:04
  72. Now that we've propagated the pathos, this part is going to be a breeze because you understand a lot of the key principles.6:08
  73. So we are now going to be propagating the string of hearts, which is such a beautiful, delicate plant.6:13
  74. So in much the same way as we did before, we are going to take one of the vines from the mother plant and we are going to give it6:18
  75. a sniff on the vine somewhere around the halfway point.6:25
  76. So now what we could do is we could just put this straight into the water.6:30
  77. The node again is where the roots are going to come from.6:34
  78. But if we put this in the water, the node in the water with the leaf, with that leaf being submerged, it's actually going to rot.6:37
  79. So one of the major or main differences here is we actually want to take that leaf at the node and just pluck it off.6:43
  80. And so then we're creating a little naked node and that's what we're going to dunk into the water.6:50
  81. And what I usually like to do is keep about two nodes worth here attached.6:56
  82. And then I give the vine another snip and then we are going to find another node.7:02
  83. Before we submerge it in the water, we're going to pluck off these leaves to create a little naked node.7:08
  84. And we're going to put that in the water as well.7:15
  85. Again, comes the part of being patient.7:17
  86. So wait about three to four weeks for this to root.7:19
  87. But if I can be honest, what I actually like to do sometimes is to just keep it in the decorative glass jar vase or whatever you've got.7:21
  88. Because I think it looks really pretty when you put it on a shelf like this, just even in solitude, it looks really nice.7:28
  89. But if it does start to root and you're ready to put it into a pot, if you take a look at this one, for example, I've had this sitting7:34
  90. in water for I think a couple of months now at least.7:40
  91. And once it starts to show you roots like this, you can put it into a pot, make sure again it has some drainage holes, make sure that for the7:43
  92. first week or two, you're keeping the soil moist just like we did before.7:52
  93. It came from a water medium.7:55
  94. It needs to acclimate to being in soil again.7:57
  95. But after the one or two weeks are up, really taper back on how much you're watering this because it is a succulent after all actually.7:59
  96. So you don't want to over love it because you could risk losing it in the process.8:07
  97. The next plant that we're going to be propagating is the Monstera deliciosa, which I think is just so beautiful.8:14
  98. And maybe it's because it's rising in popularity, but I also find this to be a particularly expensive plant.8:19
  99. But if you've already got one of these at home, you can make more from it.8:25
  100. And I'm going to show you how.8:29
  101. The main thing about the Monstera is that you really need to know where to cut.8:30
  102. And the node on this particular plant is where you see two stems coming out of a single junction.8:34
  103. The other way you know that that's the node is that very often there's a root already coming out from it.8:39
  104. And on the Monstera, this is called the aerial root.8:44
  105. So you'll notice that this is a node, but this here is also a node because you can see two stems coming out from that as well.8:46
  106. And this one has quite a large aerial root.8:53
  107. So what you usually want to do is make a cut about one or two centimeters below the node.8:56
  108. So you can choose to do that either here or here.9:01
  109. And in our case, I'm going to choose this one.9:05
  110. So about one or two centimeters below.9:07
  111. Make sure you've got really sharp scissors.9:09
  112. There we go.9:12
  113. So this large piece is what I've just cut off.9:13
  114. So we've got three stems and three leaves.9:16
  115. Now there's two options with this in terms of how you can propagate.9:19
  116. One of them, and probably the one I actually use more often, is to put it straight into a big vase of water and then wait till it gives you9:21
  117. some roots and then transplant it into soil.9:29
  118. But because we've already done that twice, I'm going to show you another way that you can propagate this, which is to propagate by putting it straight into soil, which9:31
  119. is an awesome option if you feel impatient and don't want to wait for it to root.9:38
  120. Given that this already has some aerial roots, you can just put these straight into the soil.9:43
  121. Now these aerial roots are actually a little bit longer than I want them to be.9:48
  122. So I'm going to go ahead and give these a little bit of a trim.9:51
  123. And it's not a big deal because they're going to grow back again once they're in the soil.9:54
  124. So I'm going to cut it right here.9:58
  125. And I'm going to cut a little bit right there.10:01
  126. So now we're just going to take a pot.10:03
  127. Again, always make sure that the pot has drainage holes.10:06
  128. That's really important.10:09
  129. And we're going to add to it some pre -moistened soil.10:10
  130. And now what I'm going to do is I'm actually just going to create a large well in the center of the soil so that we can put our cutting10:14
  131. into the soil.10:21
  132. I'm going to put the first node in and just tuck in that aerial root.10:22
  133. And you see this little aerial root right here?10:27
  134. Eventually that's going to turn downwards and it's going to grow into the soil, securing it even more.10:30
  135. That'll happen naturally.10:35
  136. You don't have to do anything for that.10:36
  137. That's pretty much it.10:38
  138. This is really easy.10:39
  139. I'm just going to put it into a nice decorative outer pot.10:40
  140. And monsteras do like a lot of water, so you can make sure to add a little bit of water on top.10:44
  141. And that's pretty much it.10:49
  142. That's how you propagate or one of the ways that you can propagate a monstera deliciosa.10:50
  143. So the Puglia or the Pancake Plant is the one that we have easily propagated the most.10:56
  144. I think we started with two of them.11:00
  145. And in the last year, we've made 20 from those two.11:02
  146. So needless to say, it's pretty straightforward, pretty easy to do.11:06
  147. It's going to be a little bit different than all of the propagations we've done before in that you don't need to look for any nodes.11:09
  148. Instead, what happens is you've got your mature mama plant here, which used to be a baby actually.11:15
  149. But what it's going to start to do is it's going to pop off these little babies.11:20
  150. You're going to see them kind of just coming up in the soil all around the mama plant.11:24
  151. And then what we're going to want to do is very gently, we're going to pry off one of the babies.11:28
  152. Try to keep a little bit.11:34
  153. You don't need a lot, but try to keep a little bit of the roots intact there.11:36
  154. If it's not messy, you're not doing it right.11:40
  155. All right.11:42
  156. And then you're just going to transplant this into some moist soil.11:42
  157. Now, if it happened that you accidentally cut this off and you didn't get any roots in it at all, not to worry, you can just plop, plop, plop, plunk,11:45
  158. plunk, plunk.11:53
  159. You can just plunk this into some water and these love water.11:55
  160. They can live in water just like the plants we've seen that have come before it.11:59
  161. So let me show you an example here.12:02
  162. So this here is a Puglia that I just have hanging off of something.12:03
  163. And I think it looks really beautiful, but it's actually not in soil.12:07
  164. It's submerged in water and look at that beautiful root system that it creates.12:11
  165. So you can keep it in water so long as again, you're keeping it topped up and fresh.12:16
  166. But if you do manage to, and I think this is just the easier way to do it, if you do get one of these babies with roots intact, you12:20
  167. can just transplant it straight into some soil and then you're just going to create a little well and put that baby in there, push it down, close it up.12:27
  168. And that's pretty much it.12:36
  169. So this baby, believe it or not, about a year ago, that's what this mom looked like, like that.12:38
  170. And so it'll grow and hopefully give you some more babies.12:44
  171. And just with like human babies, they need a lot of attention in the beginning.12:47
  172. So keep the soil moist for the first couple weeks and then you can taper it back.12:50
  173. And I just feel like pancake plants especially make for the best gift.12:54
  174. We've given a whole bunch of these away.12:58
  175. And it's always really fun when you go to somebody's house or office and they're like, look, look at how my pancake plant is doing.13:00
  176. And it's really nice to see that you've gotten them excited about plants too.13:06
  177. So that's how you propagate the most easy way to propagate pancake plants.13:10
  178. So the last plant that we're going to propagate is the ZZ plant, which is this beautiful lush plant that's got these really thick, gorgeous green leaves.13:15
  179. It's a really good plant for anyone who's a beginner because it can kind of tolerate low light situations or if you neglect it, not that I'd recommend neglecting it,13:23
  180. but if you know you miss a watering or even two or maybe three, it'll do just fine usually.13:31
  181. So when it comes to propagating this plant, there's a few different ways.13:37
  182. I'm going to tell you about one.13:40
  183. I'm going to show you one.13:41
  184. One method is that you can actually just cut it off, cut one of the stems from the bottom.13:42
  185. And when you do that, then you can just plunk it in some water and it'll grow some roots and then you can put it in some soil.13:47
  186. We've already done that before, so I'm not going to show you how to do that right now.13:53
  187. But the second way that you can propagate this plant is through a process called division.13:56
  188. I feel like I need your help.14:00
  189. Thank you.14:05
  190. Perfect.14:07
  191. So the plant grows from these thick bulbs just underneath the soil called rhizomes and these rhizomes actually hold some water, which is why the plant can tolerate a little14:08
  192. bit of neglect if you miss watering it.14:18
  193. So all we have to do in this case is you gently want to play a little bit of a tug of war.14:21
  194. There we go.14:26
  195. I think I've got one here.14:27
  196. So if possible, that's what you want to do.14:30
  197. You want to make sure that you get some of the roots, one or two of the rhizomes, at least some stems and some leaves and that's it.14:32
  198. So as usual, we're grabbing an inner pot.14:40
  199. I'm going to add to it some pre -moistened soil.14:42
  200. There we go.14:45
  201. So I'm going to plant this in there like so and one more.14:45
  202. Add some new fresh soil on top just to bury those rhizomes.14:50
  203. Again, they want to be under the soil.14:54
  204. So now that it's all planted, I'm just going to put it in this outer pot just for decoration really.14:56
  205. I'm going to give it a little bit more water and then after this, you're just going to want to put it somewhere where it has some indirect light and15:00
  206. make sure you're evenly watering it over the next week or two while it's recovering and then eventually you're going to notice it's going to shoot out these kind of15:07
  207. little baby stems and these new leaves, which you can tell because they're really light green color and that's how you create a little army of these.15:13
  208. So these are them.15:21
  209. These are the five plants that we've propagated together today.15:21
  210. Hopefully it's a perfect time of year to get started here at spring and the days are getting longer and the days are warmer and so you can see the15:24
  211. roots start to grow faster.15:35
  212. Your plants growing quicker.15:36
  213. You see the fruits of your labor sooner and I think it also just gives your plants a better chance for success when you're propagating them this time of year.15:37
  214. And again, a very warm thank you to Audible for partnering with us on today's video.15:45
  215. I've like all of you guys been spending more of my time indoors lately so I've noticed that I've been listening to a lot more audiobooks because I feel like15:49
  216. it's such a nice way to stay stimulated and learn something new.15:56
  217. I just started to re -listen to an audiobook that is incredible.16:00
  218. It's really short and sweet.16:04
  219. It's written by Pema Chodron and it's called Getting Unstuck.16:05
  220. She's just such an amazing teacher.16:08
  221. So in the book she talks about this idea, this concept of something called Shempa and Shempa is just this stickiness that thoughts and feelings can have.16:10
  222. You know sometimes you're in your head so much and you're not really in the present and in the now.16:19
  223. That's Shempa and so she talks about you know why it is that we have Shempa and what we can do, how we can approach it and how to bring16:23
  224. ourselves back into the now and into the present moment.16:29
  225. And she's got this incredible personality, a really awesome sense of humor, a very very soothing voice.16:32
  226. So I definitely recommend it.16:38
  227. If you think you might be interested in giving it a try you can visit audible .com for slash pickup lines.16:39
  228. You'll see the link in the description box below to get a 30 -day free trial plus one audiobook of your choosing and two audible originals absolutely for free.16:44
  229. And I think that's it for today.16:53
  230. If you did enjoy the video it always means a lot when you give it a thumbs up and if you have any propagation tips of your own or any16:55
  231. plants that you propagate I'd actually be curious about that too.17:01
  232. So I'll see you guys in the comments.17:04
  233. Thanks a lot for watching.17:05
  234. Pick up lines signing off and we'll see you in the next video.17:07
  235. Look at how many babies are in this one that is loaded.17:10
  236. Like let's see how many this one can give us actually.17:16
  237. Four, five, six, seven, seven babies off of that one mum.17:19

American accent practice with a fast, B1 plant propagation monologue

This clip is Pick Up Limes walking straight through how to propagate five houseplants, talking to camera for the whole video. It is one voice for the whole clip, not a back and forth, so you get long, uninterrupted stretches of natural American speech to work with. At 242 words per minute, faster than 91% of the catalogue, it moves quickly, so this suits someone who already has some footing in English rather than a true beginner. The CEFR level here is B1, and the vocabulary matches it: propagation, tapering, partnering and cuttings are words worth knowing before you press play.

Nothing dramatic happens on screen. She explains why she propagates plants, introduces the five she is covering, pathos, monstera, the pancake plant and pilias, then starts trimming a pathos vine. The value for you is the sentence structure: long, run on explanations stitched together with 'and', delivered at real pace. That is exactly the kind of speech a scripted textbook dialogue never gives you, and it is good english speaking practice precisely because it was never written to be easy.

The language in this clip: what English listening practice sounds like at native speed

Three lines from the opening show what you are dealing with. She calls new plants 'creating these new baby plants out of some existing mature mama plants', a casual, almost affectionate way to talk about a technical process that a textbook would render in dry, clinical terms. A few lines later she adds a trailing tag: 'it's just such a rewarding feeling to see that you're kind of creating this new life you know', where the 'you know' at the end is not asking a question, it is softening the sentence, the way people actually talk when they mean what they say but do not want to sound too intense about it.

  • "creating these new baby plants out of some existing mature mama plants": a run on clause with no pause markers, said in one breath at full speed
  • "it's just such a rewarding feeling to see that you're kind of creating this new life you know": listen for the flat, unstressed 'you know' tag at the end, it carries almost no separate stress
  • "it's beautiful but it's getting really long and it's hitting the ground so it needs a trim": three short clauses joined with 'but' and 'so', each one landing on its own beat

How to run english shadowing practice on this pathos propagation clip

Do not try the whole clip at once. At this pace and this level, one sentence at a time is the unit that works.

  • Start on line 1, the opening: play it once for meaning, then again to shadow it, matching where she breathes between 'today I'm going to be making some new ones' and the rest
  • Isolate the mama plants line on its own and repeat it five times before moving on, since it is the longest unbroken clause in the opening
  • Practice the 'you know' tag line by itself, aiming to end it as flat and unstressed as she does rather than lifting it like a question
  • Take the three clause line about the pathos needing a trim and say each clause on its own beat, matching her rhythm rather than her exact speed at first
  • Only once those four lines feel comfortable, run lines 1 to 23 straight through at full speed to check the joins between them
  • If a line resists you, slow the audio rather than skipping it, this clip's value is the pace, not the vocabulary
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