My aglaonema Lady Valentine is flopping over. Is it possible to top prune and propagate the cutting? In the photos the yellow arrow is where I'm considering making the cut. Any advice on how to prune and propagate would be much appreciated.

Your Chinese Evergreen (Aglaonema 'Lady Valentine') is gorgeous!
The focus of your photo showing the yellow arrow is a bit fuzzy for my old eyes to see clearly but it should be fine to prune the stem in that location. I have many Aglaonema plants and I've rooted a few stem cuttings over the years. I just cut the top off, remove the lower most leaves and stick the cutting into soil.

@plantladylin, thanks for the compliment! It is my favorite plant. Would it be possible to place the cutting in water until it roots and then plant in soil? Do I need to treat the cut ends with antifungal?

I'd avoid the water step and go directly to soil like Lin said. Aglaonema root very easily. You could use a bit of rooting hormone, many have added fungicide

I know that many people propagate plant cuttings in water but I don't use that method because of the possibility of rot. I've been using the rooting hormone powder in my photo below for quite awhile now because it's readily available at Home Depot.


I have heard some people talk about using ground cinnamon, which is supposed to be an anti-fungal and also stimulate root growth but I've never tried that method. I will have to test it out one of these days soon!

Yes this is one of the brands I use as well. Its a good one, all rooting powders are basically Auxin.

In some YouTube videos from India, they recommend dipping the cutting end in the juice of a broken off aloe vera leaf as a natural rooting hormone and fungicide.

I don't watch Youtube videos for plants so I would not have heard about that LOL

Fran12 said: In some YouTube videos from India, they recommend dipping the cutting end in the juice of a broken off aloe vera leaf as a natural rooting hormone and fungicide.

My gut reaction is, Probably that is BS but won't hurt

I have actually never used rooting hormone since I usually root in water, but after reading your comments, I decided to order some and try soil propagation. I read that one should be careful about covering the cut end too thickly with the rooting powder and thus block water and nutrients from the cutting. Truth or fiction?

I'm pretty sure it just dissolves. I dip, then shake off the excess

I wet the stem, dunk it into the rooting powder and swirl it around to thickly coat it before sticking it into soil. As Gina said, the powder will dissolve in the damp soil.

This is a photo I took a few months ago to show someone a Polyscias stem cutting that I was rooting.

Am going to try with next cutting. Thanks for the info!

This is my first attempt at propagating Lady Valentine cutting in soil. Used your rooting hormone. Wish me luck.