Make More Plants From Your Plants

I have a confession to make. I have a plant problem. One that I have had to remedy by learning how to make more plants from the plants I already have.

I can’t be trusted to take a wallet into the garden center of any store. My husband tries to keep me away from the local plant nurseries, but he simply can't keep an eye on me 24/7.... When I go, I try to leave my credit cards at home, but I'm not above tearing the car apart for loose change in the seats as a result.

Do you have a plant problem too?

Well, there is help for us! This year, we’ve been trying to practice a “make more plants from the plants we have” mentality.

What Do I Mean?

If you have been buying perennial plants (those that return year after year) you have all you need to feed your desire to start more flower beds. Most of our green friends have a way to make more of them without planting seeds. Seed saving is great, and definitely one of our focuses on the farm, but it can take a long time. Take lavender, for instance. If you plant lavender seed this year, you will have recognizable plants by next year in the spring. In contrast, if you take cuttings you can have plants in 4-6 weeks.

Easy Plant Propagation

I’m talking about vegetative propagation techniques. Here are some common ways to do it:

Layering: There are many ways to layer in order to get new plants, so you need to look up which one is right for the your particular plant. The technique is really about encouraging stems from a mother plant to take root. Eventually, these new rooted stems can be severed and you have a baby plant that is a duplicate of your original plant. This is a method that is often used with grapevines. You can layer right into the ground to keep extending a row of plants, or your can layer into a pot so that your new plant is ready to take somewhere else. To layer, bend a growing cane (or stem in a shrub that you are layering) down to your pot or the ground. Bury a length of it about 3-4 inches back from the growing tip. The growing tip will become your new plant and the buried portion will root. When the new plant takes hold (this can take 1-2 years) you simply cut it’s off of the old plant.

Common Plants that can be layered:

• Hazelnuts
• Apple
• Blueberry
• Sage
• Lavender

Division: Division is actually necessary to keep plants healthy. If you have tulips or daffodils, they tend to multiply every year. Eventually, they will crowd themselves out and stop blooming. They need us to dig them every few years, break up the clump into smaller pieces and transport them around our property or give them to friends. This is best done in the spring or fall.

Common Plants that need divided:

• Peonies
• Hostas
• Lilies
• Iris
• Black-eyed Susan
• Bee Balm
• Echinacea

Cuttings: Most plants can benefit from a trim from time to time. If you are interested in making more plants, trimming can be beneficial to plant and owner. A cutting that is soaked in a rooting compound can be placed into a light soil or sand mixture and with care will take root within a matter of weeks. These cuttings need to be short. You must remove most of the leaves so that the plant can focus on making roots, and you need to be aware of the nodes to have success. The growth nodes are simply where leaves arise. If you put 1-2 of these nodes below the soil level, they are able to sprout roots instead of leaves. Every plant has a different time of year that is best to take cuttings and they differ on whether you should cut hard wood or green wood, so look your particular plant up for best results.

Common Plants that Make Great Cuttings:

• Lavender
• Rose
• Azalea
• Dogwood
• Hydrangea
• Rosemary

Give it a try! The best time to practice these techniques is either spring or fall. Most plants will benefit from your efforts to extend your gardens for free, and it will keep your partner from wincing every time you look wistfully at the garden center doors in the hardware store.