For the last couple of weeks I have been making plant cuttings and dividing herbaceous ("pretty flowers") perennials in my polytunnel. Even on wet days, you can garden if you have a polytunnel. Do you make cuttings from your plants and shrubs? September is a good time to make new plants. Its very easy and very inexpensive.
I don't buy expensive potting composts. This last batch of plants were potted up with my own mixture of a bucket of grit sand I had left over from my recent paving project and a grow bag (one Euro) from my German garden centres (Lidl or Aldi). You just mix the sand and grow bag together and you have your very own potting compost. The grow bags are bit peaty and the sand makes good drainage. There aren't many nutrients in the potting compost but it will do until you pot on your rooted new plants next spring.
One more very important thing you will need (not always) is a tub of hormone rooting powder. Just get out your secateurs and cut yourself some cuttings. I strip off most of their leaves and dip them in the rooting powder and place them in the pots filled with your homemade potting compost. Then they go outside and get watered every morning. But they won't be being watered today, its raining! Just for a change.
Perennials are even easy to make. Just pull a plant in to pieces with the roots still attached and pot them on in the same way. Do you make cuttings? What's your potting compost recipe?
A myriad of cuttings: Hydrangea, Rugosa rose (great seaside hedge), Gristelina, Cornus (dogwood), Hebe, Hypericum (you will never get witches, if you plant one of them), Osteospernum.... I plant some cuttings in old baths and leave them to overwinter. You can see the pallet side of my compost heap in the background.
More cuttings and my cheap hose pipe that is always kinking on me. The path is made of old concrete pig slats. I should have put plastic bags or membrane under them to stop the weeds, but I never did and I hand weed it every year. I am off to water my polytunnel.
I don't buy expensive potting composts. This last batch of plants were potted up with my own mixture of a bucket of grit sand I had left over from my recent paving project and a grow bag (one Euro) from my German garden centres (Lidl or Aldi). You just mix the sand and grow bag together and you have your very own potting compost. The grow bags are bit peaty and the sand makes good drainage. There aren't many nutrients in the potting compost but it will do until you pot on your rooted new plants next spring.
One more very important thing you will need (not always) is a tub of hormone rooting powder. Just get out your secateurs and cut yourself some cuttings. I strip off most of their leaves and dip them in the rooting powder and place them in the pots filled with your homemade potting compost. Then they go outside and get watered every morning. But they won't be being watered today, its raining! Just for a change.
Perennials are even easy to make. Just pull a plant in to pieces with the roots still attached and pot them on in the same way. Do you make cuttings? What's your potting compost recipe?
There is something very pleasing and tranquil about walking into a poly tunnel with lots and lots of pots and plants growing.
ReplyDeleteYou're right Rachel it is very tranquil and pleasing to walk into a polytnnel full of plants. Even on a wet day you can potter about in the tunnel and sit on the deckchair for an hour or two. A tunnel is essential gardening equipment in a very wet country like Ireland. We never got any heat waves here this summer. Thanks!
DeleteCan you breathe in there?
DeleteNice collection of cuttings Dave. I've got a number of hypericums dotted around which probably accounts for the dearth of witches. The other thing I do about now is potting up self-seeded plants which is great as they are already rooted. Last week I planted up 7 Scots Pine seedlings ranging from 4-12 inches. They had seeded into the gravel footpath. Scots Pine trees are very characteristic of this area along field boundaries. Not sure where I will plant them yet but it would have been a shame to have just weeded them out.
ReplyDeleteThanks Philip. I also make (divide) my perennials and I have lots of them in pots. The great thing about putting them in pots is they can be planted any time of the year and are easy to transport. I layered a Buddlieagh recently. I just buried a branch under some soil and wited for it to root. Then I broke it off the parent plant and potted it up in a bucket with an hole in the bottom. I will use it close a gap in a hedgerow next year. We also find self seeded Geraniums, Ladies Mantle, Valerian and the odd Phormium and Hebe plants that have self seeded themselves. I am sure you could sell your Scots Pine trees Philip. I am thinking of selling my plants at a car-boot sale next year. Thanks!
DeletePhilip, I still look out for how Preston North End have done on a Saturday because of you! You don't comment so widely as you used to. Anyway hi, and Preston have made a good start.
DeleteSorry Dave but noticed that Philip comments here.
I was only looking at Hydrange cuttings a few weeks ago, I love doing cuttings and dividing plants.
ReplyDeleteHi Dawn. You can sell them or give them to friends or swap for new plants. I gave some plants to a friend the other day and they gave them to her mother and she was delighted.
DeleteI'm going to put in some daffodil bulbs tomorrow. Be just like Wales if they flower!
ReplyDeleteIt will Gwil. I ordered some Tulip bulbs online the other day. I think you plant the bulbs four times their depth don't you? Thanks.
DeleteHello Phillip.. just found your blog courtesy of Rachels' blog.. finding new people to share with :)I love gardening too and being self reliant/sufficient as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteI am considering species for a new hedge to replace a lavender hedge which was well past its best, although the lavender was able to take the heat and the frost plus the occasional car backing into it- loved the wave of mauve french lavender flowers and fragance.
I am finding physically hedging harder these days, so have been looking for an informal hedge that will take some punishment - Mediterranean climate lowish and able to withstand a bit of abuse and was considering Rugosa rose but turned off by reports of severe thorns. From your experience are they nasty thorns and do they sucker like HT and what section do you take cuttings from. I once bought some bare rooted David Austin roses (all the same variety) from a specialist nursery and they all grew sideways which wasn't true to form and was told by another gardener that the plants growth was influenced from where the cutting was taken,
Cheers, Elle