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Have you ever smelled a Patchouli plant? It smells heavenly. Just like the essential oil, but less over-the-top. All you have to do is touch one of the leaves and you smell great!

Last spring, I bought a tiny Patchouli plant at my local nursery. It was so small, I was going to plant it in an oversized teacup. My husband thought that was too small, and suggested I plant it outside in a 10” pot.

That Patchouli plant grew like crazy! When I think back to my plan to put it in a teacup, I laugh. It doesn’t get terribly tall (maybe 12” or so), but it bushes and branches like wildfire. Pretty quickly, I had this monstrous plant in my pot, with 3/4” thick stems! And oh, every time I walked by it, I could get that great Patchouli essential oil smell. I instantly felt calm and relaxed. Who says aromatherapy doesn’t work? LOL

Patchouli isn’t winter-hardy, so we took some cuttings before it got too cold. I couldn’t find too much on the internet about propagating them, but figured it probably wouldn’t be too hard, given how much Patchouli loves to grow.

We used some rooting hormone (like Root-Tone) and planted 4 cuttings in a small container filled with half perlite and half sphagnum moss. We punctured some holes in the bottom of the container to provide drainage and put the container inside a saucer to catch any water.

We moistened the soil thoroughly and then made a “tent” by putting a plastic bag over the container and its saucer. We used an old plastic chopstick to keep the tent from collapsing in on the plant.

Here’s what the Patchouli tent looked like:

The great thing about the tent is that it keeps moisture in, just like a tiny greenhouse. By the next morning, we had condensation on the inside of the tent. And for this plant, at least, we didn’t have to water it again until we were ready to plant. We checked the cuttings at one week, but didn’t see any roots through the semi-clear container we had planted them in.

At two weeks, we saw roots curling out the bottom, through the drainage holes!

We knew we had a winner. And by then, it was obvious that they were actually growing taller in there, not just setting roots. The plants were actually getting considerably taller! Look at how healthy they were:

At three weeks, we uncovered the cuttings and planted them in Miracle Gro potting soil. When I pulled the cuttings out to transplant them, you should have seen the roots they had created in just 3 weeks! It was amazing. They were absolutely healthy and thriving. I’m sure they’ll do great in their new pots. The only problem is that I’ll have to keep trimming them because they can’t grow into giant bushy plants on my kitchen counter. Here’s one of them in its new home:

I’m pretty much convinced now that we could have (a) rooted them in water; or (b) stuck them directly in their new pots right after we dipped them in the rooting hormone. Patchouli just seems to love to grow. I’m looking forward to smelling that calming scent in the dead of winter. I wonder if they ever bloom? Ours never got around to blooming outside, but they must bloom at some point, because I know you can buy Patchouli seeds. Maybe I’ll find out this winter!