Can you grow a whole new plant from a single cut stem? You snip four healthy stems from a geranium and place them in jars of distilled water. The jars sit in direct sunlight for two to three weeks. Within 10 to 14 days small roots appear on the cut ends. These are adventitious roots (roots that sprout from a stem instead of the normal root system). Once the roots grow you transfer the cuttings to pots with soil. The potted stems look just like the original parent plant. This process is called fragmentation. It is a type of vegetative propagation (growing a new plant from a non-seed part of a parent).