How To Plant Dragon Fruit Cuttings?

Is it necessary to dry your cuttings first?

Once you have bought a cutting, it is important that you let it dry for a few days (about a week) if you have cut it very recently from the mother plant, for example. Just let it air dry and don’t water it. If the cutting has been cut more than a week ago, it is best to put the cutting directly in the soil. So there is a difference on when to plant dragon fruit cuttings in the soil.

Our advice: Trim the ends of the cuttings

Depending on how you bought the cutting of course, we recommend trimming the wooden end of the cutting yourself. This ensures that the new cuttings grow better and also in order to create more surface area regarding the tender plant. Sometimes this has of course already been done by the person you bought the cutting from, so in that case you can skip this step.

How to pot it and which soil can I use best?

Keep in mind that the plant is a cactus. A cactus benefits the most from a lot of light, which also applies to the cuttings. Make sure that the cutting has a minimum of 6 hours of sunlight a day. Cuttings don’t like the cold at all. Do you live in a (sup)tropical country? Then you may be able to grow the cuttings outside. For example, we here in the Netherlands have them safely inside where we can create the optimal conditions ourselves. 🙂 Some tips from us on how to plant dragon fruit cuttings best:

Dragon fruit growing conditions

• Make sure you place the cutting upright
• We use some garden soil mixed with sand and wooden chips
• On the question how often to water dragon fruit, we have a fairly simple answer. We approximately water the cuttings 1 per 2 weeks. Don’t overwater them, it could easily kill them! Make sure that to moisten the soil, but not to saturate it.
• Dig a hole in the middle of your pot and place the cuttings inside the soil (approximately 2 to 3 inches deep). I hope this answer your question on how deep to plant dragon fruit cuttings
• Our advice is to place one cutting into 1 pot as they need space to grow

Overpotting?

If you bought a cutting that has not yet rooted, you can expect roots after about 2 weeks. Depending on the size in which you bought/obtained the cutting, it is recommended to repot the cutting to a large pot over time, so that the cutting has enough room to grow. Repotting takes some effort, but as soon as you carefully repot the cuttings with roots and all, the cutting will have time to develop further. Once you have reached this step, it is also important that you support the cuttings a bit more.