SAVE POTS OF MONEY!
Taking cuttings now is a sound investment for the year ahead
We have 86 containers planted up in our garden. Then there are a dozen house camellias, azaleas or succulents plus specimens for summer displays, re-planted each October alongside spring bulbs and flowers. I’m not nerdy enough to count the individual plants but numbers run into the hundreds. and I’m proud to boast that apart from eight new varieties added to my collection — all those summer plants were raised at home.
SHOESTRING PLANTS
I GREW some from seed but most were from cuttings taken from the garden this time last year and bulked up over winter.
The rest were taken from big stock plants which spent the colder months in our handy 15 ft by 8 ft greenhouse. It would be dishonest to crow about our young plants costing nothing.
heating a greenhouse to a minimum 3c (37f) is costly and there are pots and compost to pay for. But if I’d bought all my summer half- hardies f rom a garden centre the cost would have been a lot higher.
If you’d like to raise your own plants, now is an excellent time to start. Shortening days and cooler nights cause changes in a plant’s hormone system and that makes rooting more rapid than at other times of the year.
If you start off tender varieties in august and September, the offspring will develop into large mature specimens by planting-out time next May.
CUT AND COME AGAIN
NEWLY rooted cuttings will continue to grow throughout autumn and again from early spring. That will enable you to take further cuttings and increase your stock of young plants. But non-hardy types need protection from the cold so a greenhouse or conservatory is vital for many of them. Small numbers can be kept on well-lit windowsills.
heated propagators make rooting faster and easier. They use little energy and the cheapest cost roughly £20. Narrow ones for windowsills are about £30.
you will also need spotlessly clean 7 cm (2½ in) pots or trays and rooting medium. I use a 50/50 mix of general-purpose potting compost and water-absorbent Perlite.
I set my propagator heat at 18-20c (64-68f) and keep the compost moist but never saturated. Perlite helps with that.
GATHER FRESH SHOOTS
Take cuttings from healthy, pest-free plants. Snip off the youngest non-flowering shoots, none more than 7cms long. Carry them in plastic bags to prevent wilting and label clearly.
Remove the lowest leaves from each shoot and cut cleanly across the spot where the bottom leaf was attached to the stem. Put a few cuttings in each compost-filled pot but do not let the leaves of nearby plants touch them.
you’ll know when roots have developed because the plants will start to grow. When that happens, pot up individual plants f or over- wintering. Cuttings taken now will mature by spring.
Take twice as many cuttings as you need, in case of failure.
and remember, your entire plant collection may only take up minimal space in winter, but plants will become huge before it’s safe to move them outside next May. This means you will need to ration the space you have.
Don’t ruin plants by overcrowding, though. Instead, buy or build a cold frame and move some into it. a frame, with a layer of fleece under the lid will protect them from frost, even if temperatures drop to -2c (28f).
If moved into the frame before late april, these plants will be at risk. But if the greenhouse is too full, the damage may be greater.