Philodendron Micans Water Propagation

Welcome to our philodendron micans water propagation guide. Covering all you need to know from cutting to rooting.

See also: our Philodendron Micans Care article for a full guide to caring for this plant, our other micans prop method: Philodendron Micans Propagation In Sphagnum Moss, as well as our Philodendron Propagation section and our general guide How To Propagate Philodendron and How To Propagate Philodendron In Water.

What You’ll Need

You will need:

A philodendron micans plant
A jar or clear cup of water
Sharp scissors or knife

How To Propagate Philodendron Micans In Water

Micans are really easy to propagate, here’s a step by step guide with pictures from when I propagated my plants.

Step 1: Choose your plant and where you’ll make the cutting

I’m starting off with a large micans with plenty of room for cuttings. This one has been on a shelf getting really long and I’m going to take some cuttings and then plant them back in with the main plant when I repot it in a few months to make a it a lot bushier.

You want to decide how you want your original plant to look, are you happy to lose some of the length? If so you can take cuttings from each vine. Or if you like the length and have a lot of vines you can cut off just one vine. I’m going to cut off one long strand and then separate that into smaller cuttings.

Step 2: make the first cut

I cut off an entire branch, ready to be chopped up for smaller cuttings. You can see in the image below the one long vine.

A branch ready to be chopped up for cuttings.

Step 3: separate the cuttings into smaller one leaf, one node cuttings

I then chop it up really quickly with scissors to leave lots of one-node-and-one-leaf cuttings.

Step 4: let the wounds callous over

Leave the cuttings for a couple of hours so that the open wounds heal over.

Step 5: put the cuttings in water

Then I put them all into water. I use a small jar and arranged them so that the leaves were outside and not in the water and the nodes were in the water.

This is important as the nodes must be in the water to root, but the leaves can rot if touching water and turn the water cloudy, which can then rot the other cuttings.

So I fill the jar with water to cover the nodes, but not touching any leaves.

Step 6: keep it topped up with water and give it indirect sunlight

Then I put it on a shelf where it gets some natural light but does not get direct sun.

You want to check the water level a couple of times a week because if it drops below the nodes they can dry out and die. Ideally you want the level to be halfway between the nodes and where the leaves start.

They tend to propagate really well, you may lose a few of them to rot, but in general the vast majority should root well. In a month or so the jar should be full or roots.

Here’s how they look after a couple of weeks when they’ve already started to root well:

At this point you can move them to soil. I put a lot of cuttings in each pot as I want the plant to be as bushy as possible with lots of vines. I use a very well draining soil so they do not get overwatered (this is the biggest killer of micans). For more on philodendron soil you can see our guide: Philodendron Soil, which covers which soil to buy or how to mix your own from orchid bark, perlite and compost.

Or, if you want, you can keep them in water on-going, they will grow a bit slower, but still look great…

If you move it to soil, you want to keep the propagation fairly humid and in indirect sunlight for about a month as it’s roots take to the soil. They are fairly tough plants and have a high success rate with propagation. Once you see new stem and leaf growth from the top of the plant you can treat them like normal micans plants.

You can find all our articles on water propagation here, like the Philodendron Burle Marx Water Propagation article.