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How to Propagate Vines

What’s better than an outdoor vine? Multiple vines throughout your garden space! When you know how to propagate vines yourself, you can increase the number you manage quickly and cost-effectively.

Propagation is a great way to increase your plant collection, provide starts for friends, and learn more about vine care and growth habits. Most vines are herbaceous plants, meaning they don’t have woody stems. This makes them easy to propagate because the plant can develop new roots all along the stem.

There are multiple methods you can experiment with, but all work toward the same goal of creating new plants from a single main stem.

What Part of the Vine Can You Propagate?

Consider using cuttings from your pruned vines for propagation. While many growers love the look of unruly plants, others keep theirs confined to small areas through regular pruning. Save the plant scraps for propagating fresh ones.

Propagation Materials

Before you consider cutting your existing vines, make sure you have the following supplies on hand:

Sharp, sterilized scissors, pruning shears, or knife

Planting container

High-quality potting soil or glass container with fresh water

Plastic bag

Rooting hormone (optional)

Should You Propagate with Soil or Water?

Your first choice needs to be whether to root your cuttings in water or soil. Water makes sense if it’s your first time, as you can observe the rooting process in real-time. For those with prior experience, rooting in potting soil lets you streamline the process and avoid transplant shock when you put the vine in its permanent location.

Getting Started with Propagation

No matter how you plan to propagate, the first step is securing suitable plant material. This will involve cutting a trimming from the mother plant. It’s usually best to take cuttings in the spring or summer when plants are in the middle of their most intense growing phases. Make sure you only use plants that are completely free of disease.

For the best chance of success, the cutting should be from a portion of the stem that includes a leaf node. This is a small raised bump typically found opposite a leaf where new roots can grow from.

Using your shears, trim off a section that’s about four to six inches long, just below a leaf joint. Remove any leaves from the bottom third of the cutting through a downward pulling motion. Since plants lose moisture through their leaves, fewer leaves will slow down the rate it dries out.

Next, use scissors to cut the stem ¼ inch below the lowest leaf node. You can encourage the plant to root by “wounding” it along the injury point. Use a knife to make light cuts at the base of the stem. This exposes the meristem tissues and will help induce plant growth. Consider applying rooting hormone to the cut end to improve results.

Rooting in Water

Place your prepared cutting in a propagation jar filled with fresh water. Move it to a bright space that’s out of direct sunlight and monitor the cut ends for signs of root growth.

You’ll want them to reach one to three inches long, which can take anywhere from two weeks to two months, depending on growing conditions and the variety. Once the roots seem well-established, you can transplant the cutting into garden soil.

Rooting in Soil

If you’re propagating in soil, you’ll next fill a planting container with potting mix and insert the stem into it so that it’s half-buried. Water lightly until the soil is moist, and then cover the entire container with a plastic bag or clear lid to create a greenhouse effect and trap moisture. Move it to an area out of direct sunlight and check every few days to ensure the soil stays moist.

You should start seeing new growth within a month or so — that’s a sign the plant has properly rooted and is ready for transplanting.

Winter Care for Outdoor Vines

Helping plants survive harsh winters is a constant challenge for many gardeners. This is especially true for vining plants, as many are perennials that take several years to get fully established.

However, winter also offers some unique opportunities for caring for these varieties. When vines lose their leaves, you can better access the plant’s overall structure and retrain it in the direction you want it. Likewise, it also allows you to assess the often hidden support structure and determine whether it needs any repair work.

Late-blooming vines should be pruned in the winter or early spring. This gives the plants plenty of time to recover and produce new growth for the next growing season.

Why You Need to Overwintering Sensitive Plants

Depending on how cold winters get where you live, some of your vines may need extra protection to survive the chilliest days. Studying your USDA plant hardiness zone before choosing varieties helps ensure you grow vines that make sense for your climate.

Tips to Winterize Vines

For your vining plants that need a little extra help to get through the winter, these tips will keep them happy.

Clean and Deadhead Spent Flowers

Once vines finish blooming for the year, it’s time to take off the dead blossoms. Use clean, sharp scissors to snip them off at the stem and rake them away from the plant base. You don’t want to create space for potential pests and pathogens to overwinter. If your vine is getting out of control, this is also an opportunity to trim it back to shape.

Train the Vine

As the leaves start to fall off, you’ll be better able to see your vine’s full structure. This creates the perfect opportunity to retrain any errant tendrils back around your support structure to ensure it throws in the direction you want. You may need to use garden twine or sections of nylon socks to secure the vines — never use metal, as it can bruise the fragile stems.

Mulch Around the Base

Protect sensitive plant roots from the worst of bad weather by putting one to two inches of mulch around their base. This works like an insulating blanket to help the roots withstand the cold and come back with a vengeance the following spring.

How to Prune Outdoor Vines

While vines are valued for their unpredictable growth habits, keeping them looking their best requires you to do some occasional pruning.

Not only does this help sunlight penetrate through their thick growth and promote proper airflow to reduce disease risk, it also lets you lessen the weight so the vine won’t damage the structure it grows on. Regular pruning also encourages new growth, leading to a more vigorous plant in the long run.

When you prune vines, you’ll have multiple goals in mind. These include the following:

Removing dead, damaged, and diseased stems

Removing errant stems (those growing away from the support structure)

Directing its growth over your support structure

Limiting its growth for easier containment

Encouraging flower or fruit production

Boosting sunlight and airflow to reduce pest and disease pressure

Pruning requirements are stricter for some vine species than others. Grape vines, for example, thrive when you remove 70% to 90% of the previous year’s growth every winter. This intensive pruning process encourages the vine to grow bigger grapes and creates a shape that makes harvesting easier. Others, like English ivy, only need pruning for aesthetic purposes when you think they’re getting out of control.

Guidelines for Pruning Vines

As with all garden plants, the specifics of the pruning process will vary based on what you’re growing and where it’s located. Vines in sunny spots may need more pruning than their shaded companions, and growing zones with long summers provide more months in the year for the plant to proliferate — meaning more trimming might be necessary.

Even so, these steps make sense for most vine pruning projects you’ll take on.

1. Plan Pruning Timing Carefully

The best time of year for pruning vines depends on their growing habits. Plants that bloom in the spring and early summer should be pruned at the end of their growing season in the fall, while fruiting vines should be pruned early in the spring before setting flowers. Still others should be pruned in mid-winter during the dormancy stage.

2. Use Clean, Sharp Tools

The cleaner the cut, the healthier your plant will be after pruning. Sterilize all equipment before pruning, and ideally between plants. Avoid twisting, yanking, or tearing the vines, as this creates more extensive wounds that are more susceptible to disease.

3. Remove Dead, Diseased, and Damaged Vines

Your first step is removing any growth that compromises the plant’s health. Make sure you dispose of infected material far away from other plants to prevent contamination. Ideally, you’ll want to throw it out rather than adding it to your compost pile.

4. Choose the Cutting Location Carefully

It’s not ideal to prune vines anywhere you want. Instead, cut shoots so that they become flush with the main stem without leaving a stub. You’ll also want to avoid making cuts that cause the vines to grow inwards or cross each other, as that makes the plant denser and reduces the amount of sunlight and airflow it’s exposed to. Likewise, you should remove or retrain any stems that are growing away from the support structure.

Note: Some vines have such vigorous growth habits that they can be cut to ground level yearly. Trimming them down in later winter will encourage healthy growth by spring.

How to Create an Environment Safe for Our Family and Community

Now that we have gone through most of the important steps to understand and avoid poisonous plants, it is time to tie together all that we have talked about. What is the ultimate plan to ensure a safe environment for our family and community?

While there is no foolproof plan, we can begin to implement what we have learned. It starts with identifying a majority of the plants that can be a problem for our family. With this step, it is important to realize that plants that are not toxic to us may still be toxic to our furry friends. For example, cyclamen are highly toxic to dogs.

Once we have done our due diligence and studied up about these poisonous plants we should then inform others in our family or circles of influence. This can be done with kids by printing out pictures or drawing pictures of the plant. You can even have the kids draw red X’s over the plants to stick the imagery in their mind that they are to be avoided.

If you are going to have toxic house plants, make sure that they are placed out of reach of children and pets. No matter how much we try to teach plant safety to our loved ones, mistakes can still be made. It is important to mitigate the chance of failure so that the chance is as slim as can be.

This may involve planting your favorite daffodils in an enclosed area that only you can get to, instead of having them in the front lawn where you like to show them off. If your lawn gets riddled with buttercups, it may be necessary to keep your lawn mowed more than you like. It is always better safe than sorry.

When it comes to dealing with toxic plants by hand, make sure to always use gloves to avoid getting sap on your skin. You should also make sure to wash your clothes afterward. This will ensure that even after tending to the plant, you will not accidentally touch the sap later.

As a community, each one of us has a part to play. In the national poison control statistics of 2020, it showed that roughly 31,000 kids under the age of 6 were poisoned by plants. Those are just the reported numbers, and animal cases are not included. Becoming aware of the problem and then acting on your knowledge are the first steps to bringing that number down, ensuring a safer space for kids and pets alike.

Can Toxic Plants Be Used for Good?

Despite all the bad rap we just gave toxic plants, they have a lot of really great uses!

Medicine

Foxgloves contain the compound digoxin. As you already know, this toxin affects the heartbeat, causing it to slow. Doctors and scientists have taken this toxin and formed a drug. The drug is known as digitalis. This drug helps people who have a failing heart. The controlled dosage of digoxin will actually help the heart instead of hinder it. When taking this medication the heart will beat stronger, allowing the patient to live a more ordinary life.

There are plenty of plants that are used similarly. The dosages of toxic compounds in their tissue is too much for us humans to handle, but when extracted by a specialist and then packaged in the right dose, they becomes medicine. This is one reason why people can overdose easily on certain medications. The medicine is created using a compound that is toxic above a certain threshold.

Agriculture

Toxic plants are used all the time in agriculture. That may come as a surprise to us, but the plants that we use are usually not toxic to us humans. In fact, we have even genetically modified some crops to produce toxins that will kill insects that attempt to feed on their foliage.

Genetically modified corn and cotton are famous for this. Scientists were able to find a certain toxin created by a bacteria called bacillus thuringiensis. This toxin is able to enter into and disintegrate insect larvaes’ stomachs. The bugs meet a gruesome, effective death by starvation. Scientists took the gene that was found in this bacteria and placed it into corn and cotton plants. This helped those crops protect themselves from pesky insects.

In addition, plants can be planted together to deter predators. For example, garlic can be planted near more delicate crops to deter insects. The smell and toxicity of the garlic will repel insects such as aphids.

Beauty

Some plants, like daffodils, are grown to be seen rather than to be eaten. We invite a lot of beautiful plants into our spaces because their appearance is heartwarming.

We indeed need to be cautious around them, but well-informed humans find these plants to be harmless. Luckily, plants generally don’t jump out at you and inject their poison, meaning as long as you are aware how to interact with them you should be fine observing their beauty.

Wildlife

While some plants can be just as toxic to us as they can be to other animals, many of our wild friends can benefit from these toxic plants. For example, the rhododendron, with its hundreds of flowers, invites bees from all around the area, and while they are already there the bees may stop and visit your garden.

Some of the berries that we can’t eat can be eaten by birds. You can plant a chokecherry tree and let the birds snack on its fruits. This can often keep birds away from your other produce and be a fun spot to set up a chair for bird watching.

How to Tend to or Get Rid of Toxic Plants

Now that you know where to start with toxic plant identification, let us discuss how to either tend to the poisonous plants you decide to keep or get rid of them that plague your yard.

How to Tend Poisonous Plants

Many plants that are toxic when ingested are also skin irritants. The philodendron is a good example of this. When the sap comes into contact with skin, it can cause a rash to form. To help protect yourself when tending to toxic plants, it is important to wear some sort of gloves.

Latex gloves may be the best solution due to their disposability. Regular gloves could potentially keep the poisonous sap on their surface. If the gloves aren’t cleaned then you could accidentally touch the irritant or pass it to someone else.

In addition you will want to plan where to keep your deadly beauties. If you have a toxic indoor plant try to keep it up high or out of reach of children and pets. This will keep accidents few and far between. Another idea is keeping your plants in areas that are usually inaccessible to children or pets. Areas such as an office, study room, or guest bedroom could be good locations. If applicable, you could also set up a terrarium for your little plant baby, making it more difficult for curious hands or paws to access.

If you plan to have outdoor plants, location will be key. You will want to put plants in an area that will be inaccessible to children, pets and even wild animals. You will probably want to avoid planting the plants in the front of your house if kids walk by on a regular basis, just to be cautious. Having the plants behind a fence will be best, but use your discretion when choosing a spot.

How to Get Rid of Poisonous Plants

The easiest but possibly most controversial way to get rid of poisonous plants is by using herbicides. This can be especially easy if you own a grass lawn and use an herbicide that targets broadleaf (non-grass) species. You can find many herbicides meant for yard use by simply searching the term online. Once you have purchased the herbicide you will want to make sure to follow the label posted on the container. If you follow the instructions precisely, then everything should run smoothly for you.

If you don’t plan on using herbicides, there are a few organic methods you can use to try to get rid of toxic plants. You can manually pull the plants out of the ground. This is probably one of the most difficult methods because there is no assurance that you will get the whole plant out this way.

You can also try pouring boiling hot water or spraying white vinegar on the target plants. This may take more time than using a synthetic herbicide, but you can feel a little better about using these products.

You can also try to use wood chips to cover a certain area where you do not want anything to grow. This will not stop all the weeds, but the few that make it through can be easily picked by hand.

How to Educate Ourselves and Our Community

As you probably see by now, many familiar plants can be harmful despite their appealing appearance. We have listed many common toxic plants, but it is hardly a comprehensive list. There is so much more to the world of plants that you and your family need to know, and we are here to help you understand where to start.

Poison Control Centers

Poison control centers were created to protect citizens in case of exposure to toxins. They help with both accidental medical overdoses and poisonous plant exposure. Many of them have different programs to help inform people of dangerous substances, which you can sign up for on their website. They may also have a list of the poisonous plants in your area.

These lists tend to be brief, listing only the plant name and a brief description of symptoms that follow ingestion. An example is the Washington State poison control center. Their list includes common “safe” and “unsafe” plants, with a number to rate each unsafe plant’s toxicity.

It isn’t an all-encompassing system, but it is simple and straight to the point, which is helpful. Looking over this list and then searching for pictures of each plant can be extremely beneficial. It will help you better understand what plants you and your loved ones should avoid.

Plant Identification Guides

Plant identification guides can be very informative. Local guides are especially useful when it comes to learning about your home turf. They will usually contain plant descriptors along with pictures to make it simpler to identify what you are looking at.

Phone apps that act as plant identifiers also deserve a mention. They are less bulky and will scan their database for you, taking away the need to flip through so many pages in a book. These apps can also lead you to other internet sources that describe the plant in more detail.

However, books don’t require subscription fees or a solid internet connection. Both options are great despite their inherent flaws. I suggest trying both and seeing which you like best.

Plant ID guides are great to not only get familiar with the poisonous plants in your area but the benign ones as well. Taking walks and learning more about your surroundings can make you a more confident source of information for others. You can also take your children with you and use these guides to help them understand the world they live in.

Make a Game

After you have looked up many different poisonous plants, it can be difficult to remember what they look like and the symptoms associated with each one. Something that can help you remember what the poisonous plants look like and how to avoid them is making a game for yourself. Games can take the edge off of learning by introducing a competitive element (even if it is just a competition with yourself).

You can print out pictures of the different plants, or better yet, you and your family can try to draw accurate pictures of them onto note cards. These pictures can then be used as flash cards, with information written on the back. You can try to make a matching game out of them. Throw some benign plants in the mix and see if your family can properly sort them. The options are only limited by your imagination!

Common Toxic Weeds in the Yard

Bittersweet Nightshade

Nightshade is an invasive, noxious weed that is extremely poisonous. It has been found along the East and West Coast of the U.S. It makes its home in areas with disturbed soil. This could be near your garden or areas that have recently had bushes/trees put in.

These plants are dark green with purple flowers that develop into bright red berries. The whole plant is toxic and should be avoided by pets and children alike. If ingested it can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The colorful berries are especially enticing to young children. If you see any plants that look similar to tomato or pepper plants that you did not plant in your yard, it is best to just pull them immediately.

Call poison control immediately if you think someone has fallen victim to nightshade.

Buttercups

Buttercups are found throughout the United States, especially in wet areas. The shiny, yellow flowers will pop up in the springtime, accompanying their dandelion friends. However, unlike dandelions, buttercups are not edible.

Buttercups will release a compound called protoanemonin. This toxin is known to cause vomiting, diarrhea, bloody stool, hypersalivation, depression, blisters, and more. These symptoms will affect both humans and animals. The sap may also cause irritation when it comes into contact with skin. These yellow flowers are dangerous and children should be observed cautiously when around them.

Foxgloves

Foxgloves are beautiful plants that build towers out of vivid purple bell-shaped blossoms. They are very pretty to look at, but they contain a compound known as digoxin. This chemical is used in certain medicines to help people with certain heart conditions. However, the medicine is made by specialists, whereas someone eating foxgloves will receive unregulated amounts of the chemical.

This toxin can make you vomit and lower your heartbeat. This often causes dizziness and faintness. It is extremely important to call poison control immediately to know what to do in the case of foxglove poisoning. Some people have confused the young leaves of foxglove with borage, making adult foragers at risk as well as kids and pets.

Stinging Nettle

Stinging nettle grows throughout the United States and is used in many different forms. They contain trichomes which are little needle-like structures. These trichomes surround the whole plant, making it very difficult to deal with. When touched, the trichome will detach from the plant and embed itself into your skin. It will then inject many chemicals, causing an immediate sting.

These plants can be problematic, especially to kids or animals running around with no clue to the danger of stinging nettles. Contact will cause immediate redness and bumps on the skin. While there is usually no need to call the doctor, it is very painful and the symptoms will stick around for a little while. It is best to remove these weeds from your yard as soon as you see them.

Now that we have discussed a few of the more common toxic plants, we want to go more in-depth on resources and methods to deal with poisonous plants and make your home a better and safer place.

Common Toxic Garden Plants

Daffodil

Daffodils are a strikingly colorful flower. This can sometimes bring them much attention not from just onlooking adults but children as well. Since kids are more drawn to colorful objects, they may have a higher chance of just grabbing the flower and eating it. Adults have also been known to accidentally grab daffodil bulbs instead of onions.

Why are these mistakes so dangerous? Daffodils contain lycorine, which can induce nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. It also contains oxalates which can cause swelling and pain. The symptoms can be worse in animals, because if your pets eat daffodils they may experience drowsiness, low blood pressure or even liver damage.

Make sure to call poison control when these symptoms set in. The vomiting and diarrhea have been known to go away after 3 hours, but it is better to be safe than sorry. Ingesting liquids to keep hydration up can be important. If the patient is having difficulty breathing, seek medical attention immediately.

Hydrangea

Hydrangeas are unique, with their soft blue and pink flowers. They are a great addition to any garden, but should not be snacked on—not that you would want to. Hydrangeas can be especially nasty because they contain compounds known as glycosides. These will release hydrogen cyanide into the bloodstream when consumed. This will block your body’s ability to uptake oxygen to the cells in your body.

As you can imagine this is very serious. People experiencing this type of poisoning will tremble, gasp for air, have a hard time getting up, and experience impaired coordination. Pets’ symptoms can be slightly different since they will show “signs of excitement and generalized muscle spasms, staggering gait, and vomiting, followed by severe clonic convulsions and respiratory distress,” according to Science Direct.

The way to combat this kind of poisoning is through getting IVs from the vet or doctor. It is important to contact your medical professional immediately since the symptoms can be fatal within minutes or hours.

Rhododendrons

Rhododendron, the state flower of Washington, is also toxic. The multitudinous, pink flowers can be quite dangerous. All parts of this plant are toxic, the leaves and seeds more so than the flowers. However, even the nectar of the flower is toxic and in the Mediterranean, where rhododendrons grow in more dense quantities, the honey from bees who gather rhododendron nectar can be poisonous.

Normally kids and pets do not eat enough to experience the full poisoning effect. However, just eating two leaves is enough to be considered dangerous. The grayanotoxin glycosides within the rhododendron can cause vomiting, diarrhea and irregular heartbeats. Things can get very serious when too much rhododendron is consumed and can lead to necessary medical intervention.

Start by calling poison control first if you suspect anyone has been munching on rhododendrons. The experts there will be able to help guide you through the necessary processes to cure your loved one.

Rhubarb

Yummy rhubarb has a nasty side to it. While the stems are used in many recipes, including for rhubarb strawberry pie, the leaves are toxic. They contain oxalic acid which is known to blister the mouth, cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and kidney stones. The leaves are known to be more toxic to pets than humans, but in either case, it is important to contact poison control immediately to figure out necessary steps to cure the patient.

Common Toxic Houseplants

When it comes to decorating a house, there is nothing more refreshing than adding some beautiful houseplants. Some common house plants can also be toxic.

Aloe

Aloe is famous for its sunburn-soothing properties and its gorgeous desert design. However, many people do not realize that the latex the aloe vera plant produces can be mildly toxic to pets and children.

The latex contains a chemical compound known as saponin. Which when ingested, can cause vomiting, diarrhea, and low blood sugar. This, if left unchecked, can lead to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. The proper response is to contact poison control or a veterinarian to know what to do in your particular circumstance if either your child or pet consumes aloe.

The latex of the plant is similar to the sap of the tree. It is inside the leaf, but sticks mainly toward the edges. If aloe gel is prepared properly it should be safe for use, but be sure to apply it only topically when treating burns.

Philodendron

Philodendron, also known as sweetheart vine, has become a resident at many houses and even businesses. They are glossy green and the leaves elegantly split, displaying interesting designs. Behind this beauty there is a needle-like toxin called calcium oxalate crystals.

These crystals are held within the plant and only affect you, your pets, or your loved ones if the plant tissue is broken. If ingested, the crystals can cause severe swelling, difficulty breathing, stomach pain, burning and pain. If they are accidentally caught on the skin, they can cause skin irritation.

If anyone accidentally ingests philodendron and they find it difficult to breathe or their tongue starts to swell up, it is important to seek medical attention immediately to avoid suffocation. If you have very young children or pets who have a tendency to tear at plants, keep them away from any philodendrons.

Peace lily

Peace lilies produce stunningly white flowers that bring to mind peace and serenity. This is one reason they are invited into our homes and given a place to stay. However, similar to philodendrons, the peace lily contains oxalate crystals known as raphides.

The raphides, once ingested, will cause swelling and burning sensations and can also cause skin irritation. Both pets and humans can get these symptoms so it is important to keep these plants from anyone who is likely to tear or chew it. Symptoms can become dire if the raphides cause the tongue and throat to swell to a point where the person or pet is having difficulty breathing. Seek proper medical attention if this is the case.

Snake plant

The snake plant is an interesting and popular house plant. Its stark architecture and wavy coloring has made it a fan favorite. This plant too, however, is toxic when ingested or if the sap touches your skin.

Snake plant sap will cause rashes if it comes into contact with your skin. In addition, it will cause diarrhea and vomiting when ingested. Again these symptoms are very serious and would be best avoided by keeping snake plants out of reach or by choosing a different houseplant.