Sandpaper Vine Propagation by Cuttings in Water

In a previous article, I wrote how the Sandpaper Vine (Petrea volubilis), also known as Queen's Wreath, Purple Wreath, Blue Bird Vine and Fleur de Dieu, can be propagated by using a simple method. That Sandpaper Vine propagation is by a humidity chamber.

Recently, I discovered another way to propagate the Sandpaper Vine almost by accident.

Dumping Cuttings in Water

Four weeks ago, I pruned my Sandpaper Vine. Many of the branches I pruned were not flowering much and were climbing up an street light post's guy wire. Rather than throw them away, I cut the branches further and put them in a pail of water.

The branch thickness varied from 1/2 inch up to 1 inch. After 5 years, you could say that these thick branches are old wood and are very mature. The cut lengths were anywhere from 1 foot to 2 feet. I dumped all the cut branches in a pail of water with nary a thought of the consequences.

The water inside the pail was around 6 inches high. For the cuttings, I just left the topmost 2 pairs of leaves, but cutting the leaves in half. The leaves of the Sandpaper vine are large.

Here's the pail of water where I dumped the cuttings. It has a mix of cuttings still with the old leaves and cuttings that have shed their dried leaves.

Results After Three Weeks

After 3 weeks, I was so surprised that some of the cut branches had very young roots that were 1 inch long! New growth (tiny green leaves) have also started to sprout. By this time, many of the leftover old leaves had dried and fallen off.

Some of those that had longer roots (more than 1 inch long), I planted them in temporary pots. Shown below is one of those planted cuttings. Notice the new growth after a week of being potted.

Juvenile Roots in Sandpaper Vine Cuttings

The other cuttings developed root nubs at the end. Here's one of the cuttings that's around 18 inches long.

Here are the root nubs at the bottom end of the cutting.

A few inches up is a 1/2-inch root.

There's new growth sprouting at the top.

The photo above is of a cutting that was soaked in a pail of water just 3 weeks before. Hopefully, the above cuttings as well as the potted rooted ones would eventually survive and thrive.