What’s going on guys? It’s Hai.
I’ve been wanting to grow some lemongrass for use as a mosquito repellant but when looking to buy some, I couldn’t find any locally and when trying to order, it was like $30 a plant so way too much for what I was wanting to spend. Then after some research, I came across a blog post detailing how you can propagate lemongrass from store-bought stalks. So, in this blog, I want to share with you my attempts at following the instructions from the blog and the results that I got. If you’re interested in reading the blog post for yourself, it’s right HERE.
First things first, we have to find some lemongrass stalks. This is easier to find at an Asian grocery store. I purchased mine from a local H Mart which came in bundles of 3 stalks. In this case, reasonably buy as much as possible. Some of the stalks won’t propagate so you just want to hedge the odds. But also remember that lemongrass grows quite quickly so you’ll be able to propagate more from just one successful plant and there are other forms that propagation for lemongrass that are much easier and almost foolproof once you just get one successful plant going. Personally, I purchased two bundles.
The blog post recommends that when purchasing the stalks, you want to look for stalks with as much of the bottoms intact as possible as the stalks with cut-off bottoms won’t propagate. I looked through a bunch of the bundles at my H Mart but most of the bottoms were pretty heavily trimmed. I kind of wanted to experiment with this and got bottoms with different lengths of cuts. To save you some time, I’m going to say that this doesn’t matter too much because I got successful propagation from 5 of these 6 stalks at the time of this video. So, having more bottom intact is probably better, but you can have success with more of it cut off. Again, I think hedging your odds by buying more stalks is going to be the best approach if you want more plants that propagate.
Next, we’re going to trim some of the stalks back to just a few inches from where they begin to split apart. This gets rid of some of the top dead foliage and I assume helps to allocate more energy for new root development. The blog recommends that you “Try to resist peeling the woody outer layers that form the stem, as new leaves will grow from within these layers.”
Next, we’re going to place the lemongrass stalks in some water. I filled a couple of vases and a mason jar with a few inches of water and just put the stalks in there.
From here, we place the container near a source of light and just wait it out. I started off by putting the plants near a window indoors but my wife got tired of looking at them pretty quickly so outside they went. I experimented by putting them in direct sunlight and in shade. I would say that they prefer to be in the shade because when in direct sunlight, the top of the leaves tends to burn. This didn’t kill the plants but I don’t think it helped them. It probably slowed the growth down but I can’t say for sure. Better to be safe and just let them grow in the shade.
While you wait, you want to change the water a couple of times a week or whenever it starts to look cloudy. I say this but I definitely forgot a few times and just let the plants sit there for like a week and sometimes longer. Again, I still had success.
Now, the blog mentions that within a week, you should see new leaves begin to grow from the top. I did not have any of this but this can definitely be due to me leaving my plants out in direct sunlight and the top of the leaves were just getting burnt.
However, my plants did show signs of new root growth pretty much after the first week. This was the case for 4 of my 6 stalks. Roots started to grow pretty quickly and consistently. However, at the time of this video, which is just a few days over 2 months since I started this process, one stalk has no signs of root growth and one stalk just started to show root growth this week. So just keep in mind that root growth can be completely sporadic. You may be discouraged and want to throw the plants away but it may just need some extra time. For reference, I purchased my stalks on May 14th and today is June 18th.
The blog recommends that you should “Wait until the roots are at least 3 inches long and the stalks have begun to divide (via offshoot stalks) before you plant them.” Honestly, I was a little impatient for this and planted my stalks pretty early. I think two of them were at about two inches and two of them were at less than an inch. What’s worse is I remember snapping one of the smaller roots off which isn’t good at all but hey, it’s working out. I would say that if you’re going to be impatient like me, after planting, you definitely want to keep the soil moist. This is going to help keep the stalks growing.
As for the actual act of planting, I wanted potted plants so I purchased some planters and some organic potting soil. If you’re eating the lemongrass that you’re growing, you’d probably want soil that’s clean in the sense that it doesn’t have a bunch of chemicals that shouldn’t be going in your body in it. I just filled the planter up with soil, placed the root a couple of inches down, and backfilled. After that, give the plat and soil a good soaking and that’s about it. Now, just water the plant, keep the soil moist, and we’re back to waiting to see if propagation is successful.
Again, I’m just over two months into this project and two of my plants are forming new leaves so I would say that this process was a success. I’m still keeping an eye out for the other two planted stalks but those were the ones with less than an inch of root growth when I planted them so things may take a bit longer. Then I have the one stalk that just started to grow roots so that won’t be planted for a while. Lastly, I have one stalk that hasn’t shown any signs of growth so this one may be a dud but I’ll still keep it in the water and we’ll see what happens.
I’m going to keep doing what I’ve already been doing and hopefully, in the future, I’ll come back with a video and show you an easier way to propagate from the mature plants that I’ve grown.
Before we end things, I want to note that I strayed a lot from the original blog referenced in this video. I did a lot of things haphazardly but hey, things worked out for me. I would definitely recommend that you read the blog and understand what the more conventional approach would look like. That approach will probably get you the best approach.
After almost exactly 3 months, the lemongrass stalk that I continued to keep in water finally sprouted new roots. So, if yours is taking a while to sprout roots and if possible, just keep the stalk in water and see what happens!
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