New plants for old, plant propagation is simple and natural!But many of our original plants are being lost. A hundred years ago, or even less, there were several hundred varieties of apples being grown. Now there are only a dozen or so, and the same with vegetables, and other fruit. That’s why the seed savers of the world are out there growing original plant varieties, to save the seeds. You can now buy many of the early vegetable varieties, from a small but growing number of seed saver supply shops. However, many of the earlier varieties of fruit, flowers, and vegetables can be grown in a home garden, and it’s quite inexpensive to do so. Vegetable seeds are cheap, cuttings can be taken from almost any variety of plant, and many plants can propagate from leaves. There is a perception that taking cuttings is a job for experts only. That’s not quite true, cuttings are easy to take, provided a few simple rules are followed. First, where do you find your plants to take cuttings from? Well, Public Parks are used by many, but you must ask permission. Usually the Management wont mind if you take a small cutting or two. Sometimes they may say, OK, but why don’t you come back next week when we are trimming the roses, and you can get a truckload! Friends with gardens are usually happy for you to take a few cuttings, and may even ask for a few cuttings from your garden. If you see somewhere a particularly nice garden with a really nice plant you would like, ask, because gardeners are very nice people, and love to talk gardening whenever they can!
If the plant you are taking a cutting from has small twigs that will bend but not break, it’s in a softwood cutting, and will strike very easily. If it cracks or breaks it’s a hardwood or semi-hardwood, and will still strike, but may need more care. With many plants like pelagoniums, lavender, rosemary, begonias and others, you just can’t fail! Take a cutting about 4 inches long. Cut on an angle, dip in rooting compound, and shove it in the ground. If you keep it damp, 99% of the time you will have a success. If planting your cutting into a pot, use a mixture of around 50% sand and compost. If you don’t have compost, buy a bag of potting mix. If you have a few large trees and shrubs in your garden, sometimes you can scrape up enough good leafy topsoil from underneath one of them. Sterile soil is a preferred option with pot plants. You will get a better strike rate, because unsterilised soil may carry a fungus disease. You can sterilise soil by placing it on a tray in the oven for half and hour.
Try to take your cuttings on a cool or wet day, or early morning or evening. Plant them as soon as possible. If you can’t plant them straight away, put them in moist bag. One of the best ideas for cuttings is a plastic container, with a wet sponge or cloth in it.
An esky with a wet towel in it is good too. Put another wet towel or similar, on top of the esky as well. I carried cuttings like this in a car for over 600 kilometers once, in hot weather, and they arrived in almost perfect condition. (For those in another country, an esky is icebox that one normally keeps beer in!) Cacti, succulents and other sappy plants should be left a few days for the cut end to dry over. You can sometimes hurry this along by dusting the cut end with sulfur, or even fine dust or sand. With softwood cuttings, take 4 inches of tip, and leave some leaves on it. Take the cutting from the outside of the plant, they are usually more vigorous because they get more sunlight. Cut just under a node, or bud. Remove all eaves except the top 2 or 3. Dip in rooting powder, and plant in your pot. Don’t use pieces of broken pot pieces for drainage in the pot, they could carry disease. Place a clear soft drink bottle with the bottom cut out, over the cutting. Leave it on for a week or two, to provide a warm damp environment to encourage root growth. Semi-hardwood and hardwood cuttings are best taken late in summer, and should be taken as heeled cuttings. Remember, hardwood cuttings are from stems that snap or crack when bent. Dip in rooting compound, and plant. Leaf cuttings are merely leaves that are pinned down with toothpicks on some potting mix until they form roots. Even a couple of small stones will hold the leaf down enough to form roots. Most fleshy sappy leaves will propagate easily like this. With the larger leaves, put a few fine cuts across the veins on the back of the leaf, and sprinkle with hormone rooting powder. Root cuttings are taken from the parent plants roots, dusted with rooting powder, and planted in wet sand. Many plants will simply grow from shoots cut from tubers. These include garlic, ginger, sweet potato, and potato. Layering is merely pinning a plant stem to the ground, with a piece of wire bent to form a staple, covering it with soil, and waiting until it grows roots. It is a very successful method of propagation, the new plants form from the parent plant. You may have to wait some months for it to develop enough roots to sever from the parent. You can hurry the process up by cutting shallow slits in the bark, and dusting with rooting powder, before covering with soil.
Air layering is a similar process except that the branch or stem is scored, dusted, wrapped with damp peat moss, then wrapped in plastic. When you can see through the plastic that roots have grown, cut the branch off from the tree side, remove the plastic and plant the branch. Quite large branches can be propagated this way. Grafting is a process where a cutting is attached to another plant, and that grows into the main plant. Most citrus and many other fruit trees are grafted onto a tough stock. There are a couple of ways of doing this, but the principles of taking cuttings remains the same. You can take a score out of the stock plant and insert a bud cutting, or split a stock plant, and insert and tie the bud cutting in place. Many plants such as ferns, spring onions, and some palms, can be divided. Just wet the soil around them dig them up, and divide into as many plants as you wish. Usually the younger clumps near the outside will grow better that the older center clumps.
Seeds are easy. If you want seedlings started inside to get a head start for summer plantings, use cardboard egg cartons, polystyrene vegetable boxes, or just plain pots. If planting in egg cartons, when ready to plant out, soak overnight in water, break up the carton, and plant carton and seedling together. That way the roots won’t get disturbed. Plant the seed four times as deep as the size of the seed, cover with soil or sand, and wet newspaper if it is cold. Remove the newspaper as soon as the seeds start to germinate. Some people like peat pots, I don’t, I think they break down too slowly, and restrict the roots. Many fruit trees will grow from the seed too. If it is a hybrid or grafted fruit, the results may be disappointing, but the older varieties grow true to form. These include apples, grapes, pears, peaches, mangoes, avocados, and plums. Sometimes you can find some of these seedling trees growing in your compost heap! If you need to water your cuttings or seedlings, it’s better to dip them in a container of water, that way the seeds or cutting roots wont get disturbed. Sometimes it’s better to just mist them until they get established. Snails and slugs can be a problem in some areas. There are many nifty ways to catch them. Put a beer can with snail pellets in it between the seedlings. Make the pull-tab hole a bit bigger so a snail can fit in. Plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes can be turned into snail traps, with a few snail pellets inside to entice them in. Sink a tin can to ground level, and half fill it with beer. Snails love beer, and fall in the tin and get drowned. Grapefruit halves placed upside down in the garden provide a hiding place for slugs where they can be collected during the day. Just experiment, if you have a failure, so what? Just try again, it wont be long and you will be a plant propagation expert! Happy plant propagation, Patrick!
|
