Susie’s Garden
There are many cost-effective ways of increasing your plant stock – and this is the time of year to start thinking about it
There’s something immensely satisfying about producing your own plants, whether it’s from seed, cuttings or division.
One method of propagation that is less common is layering, but it’s easy and you can use it for lots of shrubs and climbers. It’s something that is best done in autumn or spring so now is a good time to try.
What you are doing is encouraging roots to form along branches that are still attached to the parent plant, rather like strawberry runners. It’s a way of propagating those shrubs that don’t take well from cuttings such as dogwood, hazel and cotinus (smoke bush). It works best with shrubs that have flexible stems that can be bent down to ground level. Make a slanting cut under the stem where it is going to be inserted into the soil, cover it with earth and hold it in place with something heavy. Once it has rooted, which can take up to a year, the layer can be severed from the parent plant. I find it particularly useful for creating new honeysuckles. In the greenhouse, the cuttings that I took six weeks ago are now ready to pot on. I love how easy it is to propagate this way too. I just take a three-inch piece of plant, strip off the leaves and push it into a gritty compost. I did this with thyme and rosemary for cooking, as well as some tender plants that I wanted to “back up” before winter – cherry pie plant (heliotrope), ornamental sages, argyranthemums and perennial wallflowers.
It’s also a time for saving seed. You need to choose a dry day and to collect only the seed, not the chaff.
I find a good method is to lay a large sheet of newspaper in the wheelbarrow and shake seeds out of their seedheads on to it. This is great for plants that produce a mass of seeds like aquilegia, lychnis, campion, mullein and tree lupin. I then use the fold of the paper to guide the seed into a bag. It’s important to use paper bags or envelopes to store seed because they are breathable. Don’t forget to label them!