Dill is an amazing herb for multiple reasons. It can be used for cooking, garnishing, and more. You can grow it easily from seed and it will grow quite fast. But if you regularly prune your dill plant then chances are that it never or only rarely blooms. So you will most likely either never or sometimes get very little amounts of seeds from it.
Now you are left with two options. Either you go out and buy dill seeds or you can use cuttings from your dill to multiply it that way.
You can grow dill from cuttings fairly easily. Choose strong and healthy cuttings and put the ends in some water to encourage root growth. After about 2-3 weeks in the water, enough roots should have built so that the Dill cuttings can be transplanted into pots.
That is a short explanation on how to grow dill from cuttings but I will go over every step in more detail down below.
Choose the Right Cuttings To Successfully Grow a New Dill Plant
To successfully grow a new healthy dill plant it is important that you choose the right cuttings to grow the new plant from.
The cuttings should be at least 4 inches long and they should have fairly big stems. The bigger the stem is the more surface area is available to form new roots. The cuttings should also have some greens on the top so that the new cutting can perform photosynthesis right away without the need to first build out new leaves.
You should also cut the cuttings at an angle.
This will help the cuttings to take in more water and it will further encourage the growth of new roots.
I would also recommend using older stems as cuttings because they are, most of the time, sturdier and will survive easier than younger stems. Here are some cutting scissors I would recommend.
Encourage Root Growth of The Dill-Cuttings
Now that you have your cuttings it is time to encourage some root growth!
All you have to do here is put the cuttings in some water. It is important that at least the lower third of the cuttings are submerged in water in order to get optimal results.
You should change the water every 4 to 5 days.
If the water looks a little discolored then it is definitely time to change it.
It will take about 2 to 3 weeks until enough roots have built to transplant the cutting.
You will, however, already see the first roots after 4 to 5 days.
The first roots will be very thin and white in color. They will start to get thicker and become brown in color after a while.
Plant The Dill Cuttings In The Right Type of Soil
Dill is a pretty forgiving plant and it will grow in most soil even if it is poor quality soil.
But the optimal soil for growing dill is rich, well-drained soil. The soil pH should be between 6 and 7.5.
You can transplant the cuttings as soon as you see multiple roots on the cuttings. The more roots the better for the cutting.
Simply fill a pot with some soil and carefully transplant the cutting to the pot. Here is a pot I recommend.
Then carefully add a little more soil on top and press the soil down.
If the cutting is looking a little bit unstable or if it is leaning in one way, no need to worry because the plant will straighten itself after a few days.
The roots will take a few days before they spread through the soil and it will take a few weeks until the roots have spread enough to properly anchor the plant in the soil.
Put your new dill plant in a sunny location and water it regularly. It should start to grow and perform like a regular dill plant after about one month.
So in total, it would take you about one and a half to one month and three weeks until you have a new Dill plant from the time you put the cuttings in water.
Not Every Cutting Will Survive!
One important thing to keep in mind is that not every cutting will survive this process. There is a lot along the way that can go sideways and especially in the root building phase, only about two-thirds of your cuttings will survive.
So you should always cut off multiple stems even if you just plan on multiplying your dill plant once.
It is better to end up with two healthy cuttings that are ready for transplanting than no cuttings at all.
And even after transplanting your cuttings, there is still a chance that your cuttings may not survive. Maybe they got damaged during the transfer, or they simply aren´t strong enough to build enough roots fast enough in the soil in order to survive.
So in the end, if you plan on growing DIll from cuttings then use multiple cuttings and also transplant multiple cuttings and the worst thing that can happen is that you end up with two new healthy Dill plants instead of one.
And in my book, that is way better than ending up with no healthy Dill plants in the end because you only had one cutting that didn´t survive the process.
