How to Root Sage Cuttings

Learn how to propagate sage from stem cuttings!

Supplies you’ll need

• Sage stem cuttings
• Scissors or shears
• Well-draining potting soil
• Small pot with drainage holes

Step 1. Take a stem cutting

The first step is to take a cutting from a healthy sage plant. Look for a stem that looks like the one below—mature with larger leaves on the end and a bunch of little sage plantlets growing all along the stem.

The smaller plantlets growing up the stem are what you’ll be rooting. They have a much higher chance of rooting successfully if they are smaller and closer to the top of the plant/end of the stems. This growth is softer and less woody than the base of the plant.

Step 2: Remove plantlets

Next you’ll want to remove any dead, dying, or large leaves from the stem to get a better look at the plantlets. Remember, you want to take plantlets from the top few inches of the stem. That’s because this growth is softer—you can see what I mean in the photos below.

In the first photo below, you can see that the bottom of the main stem is brown and quite “woody” looking. In the second photo, I’m showing a less mature plantlet that would make a great candidate for propagation.

You’ll see that the plantlet I’m highlighting already has some exposed growth points on the stem. If yours doesn’t, that’s okay—just remove the bottom-most set of leaves to expose the growth points.

Step 3: Plant in soil

Plant cuttings in fresh well-draining potting soil and keep them moist. You may notice the older laves on some of the propagations will begin to turn brown and die off. This is fine. As long as it keeps at least one set of leaves, the propagation should be fine.

The plant is focusing its energy on developing a new root system, which takes a lot of energy! It can’t necessarilly do that while also keeping all of the leaves on the cutting alive. This is why rooting smaller, less mature cuttings is the best approach to take.

Step 4: Inspect & pot up or plant

After a month or so, I dumped the pot, soil, and cuttings out on a workbench to inspect the growth progress. Some of the cuttings were beginning to sprout roots, so I potting them up individually in their own pots and continued keeping the soil moist.

With warm temperatures, plenty of bright light, and regular watering, you’ll have root that look like the cutting below in no time! You can see in the below photo that one of the oldest leaves is dying off. Like I said, that’s no biggie—look how healthy the roots are!

I transferred this cutting to soil right after taking this photo. I’d normally let it grow a bit before transplanting it, but I decided to gamble and put it in the ground since we were getting pretty late in the growing season. I wanted it to have some time to get established before the real cold set in.

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