Opportunities exist for seed-saving
Earmark the shrubs you’d love to replicate now
Opportunities exist throughout the year to raise your own plants, free of charge, from saved seeds or vegetatively from a living specimen. Seed-saving is popular in late summer and autumn. Dividing up existing herbaceous plants begins in autumn and continues until the point of spring. Seed sowing starts in spring just as new shoots begin to emerge from previously dormant perennials. This is a simplified view offered as an introduction to propagation.
Softwood stem cuttings are going begging throughout the garden right now. Most of them are so easy to root and there’s no cost involved other than time. So, what are you waiting for? These thoughts are going through this fellow’s mind as he takes the twice daily walk around the plant borders.
The timing is spot on for softwood cuttings which, given a moist, gritty compost in an enclosed environment that maintains a water cycle, will root quite rapidly. All standing upright and healthy one week after taking them, is a positive early sign. A slight increase in growth after three weeks suggests that root growth has begun.
Collect your cutting materials from the chosen plants early in the morning when their water content is highest, rather than later as they wilt in the sun. Even so, I immerse them in a dish of water for an hour or more before planting.
To guarantee early success try the rapid rooters, tradescantia, fuchsia and penstemon. Make the cuttings eight to 10 centimetres in length and carefully remove lower leaves so that only the top two pairs remain. Ensure that a node (leaf joint) is situated just above the stem base. As the cut heals with a cambium covering, this is where roots emerge.
As we move into late summer and new growth begins to mature, short stem cuttings take a while longer to root. They are classed as semihardwood.
November brings leaf-fall to deciduous shrubby types and fruit bushes. It also heralds the hardwood cuttings season. This involves planting a stem of current year’s growth, upright into the soil and leaving it to root and develop over the following year.
I select a tip piece 15 to 20cms long and push it into the ground until only the top third shows above surface. Make the planting firm and leave the rest to nature. Earmark the shrubs you’d love to replicate now and act when autumn arrives.