Propagating Snapdragons – Learn How To Propagate A Snapdragon Plant

Hand Holding A Snapdragon Plant
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(Image credit: Gardening Know How, via Nikki Tilley)

Snapdragons are beautiful, tender perennial plants that put up spikes of colorful flowers in all sorts of colors. How do you grow more snapdragons? Keep reading to learn more about snapdragon propagation methods and how to propagate a snapdragon plant.

How Do I Propagate Snapdragon Plants

Snapdragon plants can be propagated from cuttings, root division, and from seed. They cross-pollinate easily, so if you plant the seed collected from a parent snapdragon, the resulting child plant is not guaranteed to be true to type, and the color of the flowers might be completely different. If you want your new plants to look the same as their parent, you should stick to vegetative cuttings.

Propagating Snapdragons from Seed

You can collect snapdragon seeds by letting the flowers fade naturally instead of deadheading them. Remove the resulting seed pods and either plant them right away in the garden (they will survive the winter and germinate in the spring) or save them to start indoors in the spring. If you’re starting your seeds indoors, press them into a flat of moist growing material. Plant out the resulting seedlings when all chance of spring frost has passed.

How to Propagate a Snapdragon from Cuttings and Root Division

If you want to grow snapdragons from cuttings, take your cuttings about six weeks before the first fall frost. Dip the cuttings in a rooting hormone and sink them in moist, warm soil. To divide a snapdragon plant’s roots, simply dig up the entire plant in late summer. Divide the root mass into as many pieces as you want (making sure there is foliage attached to each) and plant each division in a one-gallon (4 L.) pot. Keep the pot indoors through the winter to allow roots to establish and plant out the following spring when all risk of frost has passed.

Liz Baessler
Senior Editor

The only child of a horticulturist and an English teacher, Liz Baessler was destined to become a gardening editor. She has been with Gardening Know how since 2015, and a Senior Editor since 2020. She holds a BA in English from Brandeis University and an MA in English from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. After years of gardening in containers and community garden plots, she finally has a backyard of her own, which she is systematically filling with vegetables and flowers.