What did I do this summer?
I propagated plants! Propagating is a great way to increase your landscape plants cheaply.
What could be better than cheap plants? This was the first summer I seriously experimented with rooting cuttings. Some plants can be propagated by division, some by stem and tip cuttings and others by root cuttings. What I did was mostly the stem and tip cutting types. Stem cuttings are pretty much what it sounds like: a section of the plant stem. The tip cutting is just as self explanatory: a section of the stem tip. The stem tips tend to be green wood and contain auxins that help to stimulate growth in the plant. In the past I have toyed with rooting willows and several easy to root house plants. This year I expanded my repertoire. I continued to do some willow cuttings, mostly for a deciduous hedge row to define our border, but I "branched" into some other plants as well. Here is what I found:- I found that Euonymous 'Emerald Gaiety' is extremely easy to root. The branches of this euonymous actually form aerial roots and may be propagated with nothing more than simple cup of water.
- I found that butterfly bush tip cuttings root fairly easily in sand by applying rooting hormone to the base of the stem cutting.
- I found that spirea is also a simple to root plant with rooting hormone. You do have to be careful with damping off as this did happen with a couple of my trials.
- I also found that I don't need to buy too many verbenas next year! Once these plants get going they take off. They root very easily and and quickly become a 2' diameter mound of delicate little blossoms. Verbena often is treated as a tender annual depending on your zone. Both types that I experimented with were successful in rooting.
- My favorite this year was rooting the dwarf English laurels. I was able to make 4 of these plants easily with rooting hormone in a sand/peat mixture. I plan to make several more cuttings of these!
- Mums are another one that I found are extremely easy to root using mostly a peat mixture and a little rooting hormone, although I doubt the hormone was a necessity. Asters have worked this way also.
I'm still waiting on a few cuttings that are slower to root like a couple cherry trees, pyracanthus, some purple leaf plums, and a sweet gum but hopefully these will grow as well as the other plants have. Even with the drought conditions in Tennessee this year these plants were successful. Lots of plants can be propagated through cuttings so pick one and experiment!
What could be better than cheap plants? This was the first summer I seriously experimented with rooting cuttings. Some plants can be propagated by division, some by stem and tip cuttings and others by root cuttings. What I did was mostly the stem and tip cutting types. Stem cuttings are pretty much what it sounds like: a section of the plant stem. The tip cutting is just as self explanatory: a section of the stem tip. The stem tips tend to be green wood and contain auxins that help to stimulate growth in the plant. In the past I have toyed with rooting willows and several easy to root house plants. This year I expanded my repertoire. I continued to do some willow cuttings, mostly for a deciduous hedge row to define our border, but I "branched" into some other plants as well. Here is what I found: