Ok, this is going to be a real time houseplant blogging extravaganza. Excited yet? Heh, it helps that it's going to take months. This afternoon I took a cutting off my largest ficus and put it in a cup of water.
This, my friends, is the first step towards propagating a tree in water. Not too far fetched, I know. Heh. I am going to blog it's progress over the next several months. First though, I'm going to give a quick overview of how I do this whole thing.
Now, I've read a lot of articles, blog posts, etc on the differing ways to propagate a ficus and this is the only method I've used and had work for me. I've tried just plunking a cutting right into the dirt, with and without rooting compound, and it didn't work. I've tried air layering and it didn't work. But rooting them in water has worked every time.
All you have to do is cut off a piece of new growth from your ficus. You want it to not be completely green, but not barky yet. You can kind of tell in this picture.
Heh, plant photography is a bit different than food photography. I've had the best luck with branches that have 4-5 leaves, around 5-6" long. I cut off most of the leaves, leaving the two at the top. Then you just put it cut side down into a cup full of water and put it in bright indirect light. And wait. There's a lot of waiting. But within a couple weeks you'll see little white roots. I'm keeping it in front of a south facing window, next to it's mother.
They get some late afternoon direct sunlight, but not too much. Ficus benjamina don't want too much direct sun, but some isn't bad. If the leaves start looking bleached the tree is getting too much.
You want to change the water every 4-5 days, making sure to be really careful when the roots start coming out to not hurt them. Once you have good roots you just transfer them to a pot. But we'll get to that later. So, that's how you do it. Further updates as events warrant.
Other
ficus benjamina propagation posts:
Part 2,
Part 3,
Part 4
Not too shabby, huh? He's about 3' tall now and doing fine. The plan is to just let him do his thing and see what happens.
Good roots, it's ready to go. Just fill a starter pot ~1/3 full of soil. 
Put the cutting down carefully, try to get the roots as evenly spread out as possible. 
Now carefully cover it with more soil, water it well and put it in bright indirect sun. 
You won't need to water it much for the first few months (over watering leads to root rot, repeat as needed for emphasis), it takes a while to get a good root system, but keep an eye on it and don't let it dry out all the way.
Pretty Cthulhuian, huh? You just submerge that in some water, changing it every week or so, and after a couple weeks it puts out roots. 
You can let them get several inches long if you like, it helps the plant get started. 
But part of spider plants popularity is their cockroach-like survivability and I've found that an inch or two of root is plenty. Then you just take a small pot half full of dirt and put the rooted node gently on top. 
Cover it with more dirt, 
water it thoroughly and put it in a sunny, but not too direct, spot.
That's it, pretty soon this one will be putting out babies of it's own.
This, my friends, is the first step towards propagating a tree in water. Not too far fetched, I know. Heh. I am going to blog it's progress over the next several months. First though, I'm going to give a quick overview of how I do this whole thing.
Heh, plant photography is a bit different than food photography. I've had the best luck with branches that have 4-5 leaves, around 5-6" long. I cut off most of the leaves, leaving the two at the top. Then you just put it cut side down into a cup full of water and put it in bright indirect light. And wait. There's a lot of waiting. But within a couple weeks you'll see little white roots. I'm keeping it in front of a south facing window, next to it's mother. 
They get some late afternoon direct sunlight, but not too much. Ficus benjamina don't want too much direct sun, but some isn't bad. If the leaves start looking bleached the tree is getting too much.
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