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- It’s the ideal time right now to start taking cuttings of all those
plants that you need to increase your collection. It’s got to be one of
the lowest cost options in the garden and it’s pretty easy too, if you
start with the fail-safe plants.
- Try taking short side cuttings, no longer than 10cm (4") with a heal
at the base. That’s achieved by tugging the shoot downwards until it
breaks away from the plant. In early summer this sort of cutting material is
too soft and just snaps, but after recent heat it matures and makes good
cutting material. Strip half the leaves and thrust into a sandy striking
mix.
- Unless you are a seasoned propagator, I’d recommend you start with
plants that strike easily from cuttings such as lantana, plumbago, correa,
laurustinus, fuchsia, and I could go on and on, but best you try a few easy
varieties and some of your own choice.
- I was recently renovating my father’s grave and noticed some roses that
I’d put there months before in a vase as cut flowers, had developed roots.
So I took them home and planted them, where they have grown to flower in
less than two months. Now no one would suggest that this is an orthodox
method of propagation for roses, but there you have it. It worked, so don’t
be put off trying anything in plant propagation.
- Most climbers will develop roots quickly when taken as cuttings at this
time of year from short side shoots too. They also grow easily from seed,
but that takes a lot longer and the results can be quite variable. That’s
the best feature about cuttings; you get exactly the same plant from the
cutting as the one you took it from. No variation on flower colour or size.
- A word of caution on taking conifer cuttings. If you want short stocky
plants take stumpy lateral cuttings, but if you want a tall pencil pine,
take the slender tip cuttings, even if they are poking out from lower down
on the parent tree. The tips even when taken from a shrubby plant will
develop strong tip dominance and grow upright.
- There is a tomato glut at present in local gardens by all accounts and
lots of folk are busy bottling, preserving and making a plethora of sauces
and chutneys to consume the surplus, but don’t forget to eat some fresh
and leave the seeds in the product. The reason being that the yellow stuff
that surrounds the seeds has recently been identified as a valuable agent to
prevent thrombosis and hardening of the arteries.
- Noticed how your lawn has put on growth recently, even though you may not
have fed it in ages? All that recent rain a week ago helped, but you can
assist even more by feeding them now that moisture levels are up and the
high soil temperatures will aid the uptake of organic or water soluble
fertilizer on you lawn, probably faster than at any other time of the year.
- While you are at it, feed your citrus and any other fruit trees too, but
not with lawn fertilizer. The lawn product is formulated to be high in
nitrogen and low in potassium, while fruit trees require a more diverse
nutrient mixture and certainly rely less on nitrogen. If you think you have
too many specialty bags of fertilizer in your garden shed, use the tomato
fertilizer on your fruit trees and just add some extra superphosphate.
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