Easy Dragon Fruit Propagation and Pruning Technique

All good things must come to an end, or so they say. I think that's true, but I also think that sometimes good things must end to birth something else that's good. And that's certainly the case here with the Epic dragon fruit. This is something that I've grown for 18 months now and it's exploded. I got three dragon fruit last year in my first season from 12 months, just 12 months growing time from cutting to first three fruit, which is pretty insane for the timescale of a dragon fruit. As you can see, it's exploded. We had it growing all the way up my house over a port window into the awning and actually was trying to go into my front door. So I feel like I'm growing something straight out of Jumanji, but we're going to prune it back. And I'm going to talk in today's video about how to do that, when to do it, why I'm pruning certain stems, all these different things, as well as the end of the video, we'll show you how to turn all those cuttings into new dragon fruit so you're not wasting it. So without further ado, cultivate that like button for juicy Epic dragon fruit and let's get into the video. So let's take a quick analysis of what's going on. First of all, you can notice we already have a little bud coming out here. We have a flower that's been pollinated and the fruit's forming right there. We also have another bud right here. So it stands to reason that the ones that are getting the most sun, they're the most ready to fruit and flower. We're not going to take those off. But as we go over here, you can see we have ones that are kind of creeping back. This one's doing something very funky. Obviously these ones have a life of their own. So these are the ones I'm most likely to take off. Again, we're just following the principle of young growth that's going in a direction that is not conducive to flowering or just drastically overgrown stuff. And so what I'm going to do here, you can see here's a really obvious case. It's new young growth coming out from really low on the plant. And I'm going to come through and just snip it. And with dragon fruit, you can be somewhat rough with your snippings because they're a very hardy stem. So this stem piece, you know, I could drop this, not that I'm going to, but I could and it would be completely fine. What you're going to want to do eventually, we'll do this in a second, is divide it into eight to 12 inch chunks. So I can probably get maybe three out of this one and you'll see how to propagate that later in the video. Before we give this guy the old snips, let's go on a little tour down memory lane growing this epic dragon fruit. And my child is waiting to be born into the light. This beautiful, beautiful flower is the most exciting birth since the royal family or any other celebrity birth. This is the epic dragon flower. And that is beautiful, beautiful aroma. But first let's go through and give this guy a haircut. One thing you have to remember about dragon fruit is they're natural climbers. So all these aerial roots are the way that they would normally climb if not given a trellis. So they've gotten into the siding of the home and you can even see, some pest development where they can hide away in those nooks and crannies. So you really do have to watch out for this type of stuff, especially if you're growing it in an unruly manner like I'm growing mine. As you can see, the aftermath of the prune is pretty insane. I feel like I have two to three dragon fruit plants just sitting right here in front of me. So what we need to do is we need to figure out which of these we can turn into new cuttings and which of these we might just have to let go the way of the dragon and pass away. So what we're doing here is generally like, for example, this piece right here is perfectly fine as is. And so this one's ready to go. It's around eight to 12 inches long, probably closer to 12. I can pot this up in a propagation pot with some mix and it's completely fine. But you saw some of those ones that I pulled off that are just insanely long. I mean it's hard to even move them because they're longer than the whole table. So what we need to do there is we need to, there we go, we need to diagnose which ones these are. Let's take a look for example at this guy right here. So this is too long to turn into one cutting. I would say our best bet is probably cutting here and potentially right here. And another thing you'll want to do is remember the direction you pruned it off in. So this is the stem piece. It was growing up in this direction. I'm actually going to grab a Sharpie and mark an arrow. It's a tip I got from my friend Richard at Grafting Dragon Fruit. He has a fantastic channel and I go to him for all my in-depth dragon fruit questions. So I'll go boom, cut right here, make an arrow upwards. So I know which way is up. Especially it's important for these middle stem section pieces cause it's really can be difficult to tell which way is up. Although a pro tip is to just look at the patterning of this ridge. The ridge slopes and then drops off and the top part where it drops off is generally the high point or the direction of new growth. So again, here we go. We're going to make an arrow. This is up and we'll measure out with this particular one since we are going to try to cut it into thirds. I'll probably end up right here and right about there. So nice sharp cutting knife. It can be difficult when you get to the interior because you have this little interior section that you really want to cleave through. You don't want to kind of mess it up a little bit. So there we go. We have one cutting. Now this is the important one, remember because it can be difficult to tell which way is up. Make our little note. We'll come through right here. Do that and then same here. I'm going to remove these little aerial roots as well. I'm not certain that the plant really needs those at this point. It's got to put some effort into other types of roots and this one obviously is already done. So we'll wipe off any debris and we'll just mark another arrow. Now this one I'm curious about. It looks a little messed up and we'll see if it'll actually take, but I don't expect all of these to take. Although I do expect this one to take and I do expect this one to take after we let them dry out. I've got my work cut out for me so enjoy this little propagation chopping montage. Segments like this I'm really not going to bother with. It's extremely thin. There's tons of aerial roots. I just think the propagation rate will be really low. So I'm just going to compost this and not even bother. And there's also a lot of disease going on or pests going on in the interior of these. And so we'll, we'll leave some of these out for now. From one epic father dragon fruit or mother dragon fruit, we have got at least 30 cuttings. The next step is actually just patience. You need to let these wounds heal, especially on the double cut ends. You just have to because if you don't and you pot them up, you're going to introduce rot pretty quickly. They'll start to rot away and you'll have to cut the rot away and let it dry again. And it's just not a good recipe. So I'm going to let these sit. I'll spread them out over this table, uh, probably for at least three days or so, potentially even longer depending on how big and how well these are callousing over. And at that point we'll be back to figure out exactly how to stake them up and support them in their new pots so they can root successfully. Been about five days. We're at the new property with a box full of dragon fruit, something I never thought I'd say. Let's just talk about a couple of things we'll need. Got some normal pruning snips. We have some larger ones just in case we need that and then buried beneath our dragon fruit. Let's just uncover this. So many cuttings, so many new dragon fruit to be born. Wear some gloves. Now that our dragon fruit are out, we have our containers. I just got some Thermoform one gallon containers. It's all we really need. And we have a couple of rolls of this nursery tape, which is really handy in this particular situation. The next thing we need is some soil. I'm going to use some standard raised bed mix, which probably isn't the absolute most perfect solution, but these are pretty forgiving. A lot of people think it's a cactus, it needs cactus mix, especially for propagation. I found that to really not be the case. And again, just some nursery tape and these little bamboo stakes, which we're going to chop up with our Felco F2s. So let's do one just to show you how to do it. Again, they're not that much of a fussy plant. They're going to help you out quite a bit just with their hardiness. Let's do one real quick. So you have a single pot filled up with soil, right to the brim. We've chosen our first repotting victim. Remember we put those arrows on so we know which direction is up. And you only want to plant about two inches or so. But if we were to do this, you know, it knocks over or whatever. It's just not the best recipe for success. Constant contact is probably what we want here. And so what I'm going to do is just measure a bamboo stake roughly equal to the height. Come through with my pruning snips. Okay, now let's place it. So again, we're going to go in about to about here. There we go. Let's place our stake right next to it and we can go a little deeper for added stability. And then the magic ingredient here is this nursery tape. Look how thin it is. It's thin. It wraps around really easily. We have a nice secure point for our, our new little dragon fruit. You can stretch it out a lot too. It's kind of nice. There we go. It'll stay up. Number one is done. It's time to water and do the rest of them. Well that took a good chunk of time, but we have an entire table full of future dragon fruit babies. The last step really is just gently water them in and you want to leave them in the shade until you start to see new growth. On some of these ones where it's actually the end of the plant, so the growing tip right here, you may see a new stem start to form right out of the very top. But on the ones where we've cut, you're going to start to see them form at one of these joints right here. So let's get these guys watered. These guys are ready to wait. Patience. Sometimes one of the biggest keys in gardening, at least a couple of weeks, if not a month or more on some of these cuttings. And if you're curious how I got a dragon fruit to grow so much that I could even take this many cuttings, then there's an entire A to Z playlist on how I grew my dragon fruit from scratch from a cutting much like these. So go ahead and check that out. But until next time, happy propagating, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.