There’re many reasons to propagate plants otherwise know as taking plant cuttings. Some of the reasons are.
- Cost: Is cheaper to propagate a few plants from what you already have than to go out and purchase new of the same.
- Plant life expectancy: Many perennial plants live for a few years then die, taking cuttings from those plants extends the species living in your garden.
- Multiplying the breed: Say you only have one type of a specific plant in your garden. You can take cuttings from the mother plant then multiply the breed.
- The good feelings: One of the greatest feelings as gardener or hobbyist is to see a plant develop from seed or cutting into a beautiful spender from the likes of your doings. Those are only some of the reason why it’s good to propagate plants.
The process
- Start off by using a clean plant cutting tool to collect your cuttings.
- Take cuttings which are green, soft not matured yet.
- New growth shoots are best. Here in London, I noticed the plants pop out new growth twice per year. Once after the winter, around April May and later in the year, around July August.
- Remove leaves and stems from the bottom of the cuttings, basically, you want to create a clean stem to stick into the compost.
- Wet the cuttings then dip them in some rooting powder.
- Pop them in the compost then compress the compost around the base, make it slightly tight.
- Pour some water onto your new potted cuttings.
- Let it sit for about three weeks in a nice warm spot, away from the direct sun is best.
One important thing is to make sure the compost is moist/wet all the time. In about three weeks you’ll have some nice cuttings from your mother plants ready to re-pot or spread out in your garden or indoors.
In the photo above, those are cuttings were taken from a daisy mother plant, after three weeks they’ve popped out nice fresh healthy roots ready to be re-potted or plant on in the garden.
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