I have a bunch of purple hearts in a pitcher of water to root. A friend gave them to me from a glass of water on her kitchen table, so there's no telling how long they've been in water. Am I just impatient or are they...not going to take root? I've had them for about a week. Everything else I've done this with has taken root quickly.
Roots on cuttings come from leaf nodes. Did you take off the bottom leaves on the cuttings and make sure that node is under water?
I have never tried rooting cuttings other than just breaking off a chunk and sticking it in the ground. I have done that in the spring and by mid summer they are established. I did some checking around and apparently water is not the recommended way to root them since the cuttings are susceptible to rotting in too much water. Make the cuttings short, the plant needs to focus it's energy on making roots and not on keeping leaves alive. Root them in a pot filled with Peat Moss and sand or Peat Moss and perlite mix after dipping the end in root stimulator. It will take several months for the cuttings to root in the pots.
When we moved, a strand of my long setcreasea broke off and all I did was stick it in the pot. It rooted and I just gave it to my boyfriend's mom. She gave me some crotons last year and a small purple stick that turned out to be a setcreasea was in one of the pots. I didn't know what it was, but I saw what I thought was a root, so I stuck it in a pot and it grew with no trouble at all. I read that greenhouses cut off pieces and put them in other pots to get rid of them.
great advice all. i've noticed that some root cuttings need soil to produce roots, and will not do so in water.
