Your parents probably tried to instill the virtues of sharing when you were in your formative years. The reasoning is that it’s a nice way to treat your peers and it teaches you to be unselfish and thoughtful. When it comes to gardening, sharing plants through propagation isn’t just a friendly gesture but is actually beneficial to your plants and an economical way to expand your collection. Propagation forces you to take a few minutes and give some individual care to a plant that may have been neglected otherwise. It also involves cutting back a plant that may have become unruly, or digging up a plant that may be too big for its current space. Economically, it provides you with a number of plants you didn’t have a few minutes before, which you can then use to expand your garden or trade with friends for new plants. There are many different ways to propagate new plants from your own plants. The following are a few simple methods to get you started.
Offsets
Some plants will literally do the work for you by producing little plantlets or offsets from the base or the stem of the “mother” plant. For instance succulents and cacti will often produce miniature versions of the parent plant around the base, which can be removed and planted in a new container of soil, or moved to a new place in the garden. Spider plants (Clorophytum) and strawberry plants will send off shoots containing small plantlets that can be pinned down to some moist soil, where they will grow their own roots. You can fashion a pin by bending a paper clip into a “u” shape. [see instructions on side]. Once the plantlet has produced its own roots, the shoot attaching the plantlet to the mother plant (an umbilical cord of sorts) can be cut, leaving you with a new plant that can be given away.
Division
Division involves pulling up large, overgrown plants and breaking them apart at the roots to produce several plants. Spring is the best time to divide indoor plants. Since it is the beginning of the growing season plants will just be coming out of a rest period into a huge growth spurt and could use the extra space in their pots. The best way to prepare for division is to water the plant the day before so that the soil is compact and easy to extract from the container. The following day, carefully remove the plant from the pot onto a surface covered with newspaper or sheeting. Smaller plants can be pulled apart by holding the plant in both hands and gently separating the stems and roots that have become entangled in one another. If the plant will not divide through gentle tugging it is better to use a knife or pruning shears to get the job done. Torn stems and roots can introduce diseases into the plant and prevent a quick recovery. Remember that propagation is similar to a delicate surgical operation. Open wounds can invite all sorts of diseases and pathogens into a plant that has just undergone a sensitive procedure.
Mid summer is the right time of year to divide garden plants such as irises after they have finished blooming, or spring flowering bulbs with exhausted foliage. Fall is the best time to divide most other garden plants. Perennial plants have had a full growing season to expand and become too large for their space, and the cool fall air is a relief from the scorching summer sun. The procedure for dividing outdoor plants is similar to indoor plants with the exception that you will need to dig the plant out of the soil instead of simply tilting a pot. Be sure to dig around the plant, taking care to avoid cutting off roots and hurting the plant. If a plant is really large, use a shovel to cut through and divide the roots instead of a pair of shears. Once you are through dividing the plant, put one piece back into the original hole and plant the rest elsewhere or put into pots to give to friends. Fertilize and liberally water the new plants to ensure that the plant settles in with strong root growth before the cold weather sets in.
Cuttings
Making new plants by rooting small pieces of larger plants is a lot easier then it seems. As a technique, it works on quite a lot of plants such as geraniums, fuchsia, hydrangea, and wisteria to name a few. There are a variety of ways to go about this task. It can be as simple as placing some stems of basil or mint from the grocery store into a container of water. Remove the lower leaves and snip the ends off with a sharp pair of pruning shears for a clean cut before you put the stems in water. After a time the stems will root and you can easily plant them in some soil indoors or out. This method can also be used to root stems taken from catnip or other plants growing wild in fields or abandoned lots.
Softwood Cuttings
Although most gardeners have rooted cuttings from the more popular plants such as geraniums, pinks or coleus, few experiment with bushes, vines, or larger perennials. Early to mid summer is a great time to propagate new plants from stem cuttings. Choose shoots that are semi-mature with a hard, woody base that is still soft enough to cut through with a pair of shears, and which has a soft tip with new growth. Cut ½ inch or so below a node, on an angle. The cutting from base to tip should be about 4 inches long. Remove the lower leaves to create a stem. Dip the fresh cut end into a dish of rooting hormone. Rooting hormone is a product that promotes root growth, and often contains fungicides that discourage the stem from rotting before it has the opportunity to produce roots. It can be purchased in powder or gel form. If powdered hormone isn’t coating the stem end properly, lightly moisten the end of the cutting. Fill a small container with some potting soil. Make a hole in the soil with a dibber, a pencil, a stick or even your finger. Place the cutting in the hole, being sure to avoid removing the rooting hormone. Gently press the soil down around the cutting and water thoroughly.
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There are a variety of reasons for harvesting your own seeds; some personal, some environmental. Perhaps you have a variety that you like and you are concerned that seed companies may discontinue stocking it. You saw some wildflowers while on an outdoor hike that you’d like to grow in your own garden. You have a heritage variety and you want to continue growing it in future years. You want to trade some of your seeds with some of a friend’s seeds, you want to grow organic seeds, or maybe you just want to save money and avoid buying new annuals next year. Whatever the reason, you don’t need to be a botanist or a farmer to do it. If you can grow plants, you can produce your own seeds. There are however, a few things you may want to know before you get started.
Plants either have all the parts to pollinate themselves, (called self-pollinators) or they are aided in accomplishing this by insects, the wind, or human intervention (cross-pollinators). Self-pollinators are commonly referred to as ‘perfect flowers’ as they contain all the parts to successfully pollinate themselves. The comparatively imperfect cross-pollinators produce all the parts to pollinate, but not all in one place. Parts are divided between blooms or are ‘self-incompatible’, identifying their own pollen as foreign material. Pollen must find its way from one plant to the next. This method is preferable for the survival of the species because it ensures that the plants produce genetically diverse seeds– seeds that contain different genetic information or traits then the original plant. This enables the plant to better adapt itself to the environment it is in, or acquire traits that will help it become more disease resistant. Self-pollinators on the other hand, essentially produce clones, which makes them more susceptible to any problems that may arise.
Open Pollenated, Heirloom, and Hybrid
Before long a seedpod will replace the spent flower. Don’t remove the seed head right away: leave it on the stems as long as possible, letting it ripen within the pod. Seeds are generally ready when the pod turns brown, dries out or cracks open. If you notice that the seed pod is prone to cracking open on it’s own (snapdragons, violas, pansies), attach a lunch-sized paper bag around it using an elastic or string, catching the seeds as they fall. When the seeds are fully ripe, cut the stem at the base of the plant and shake the seed head inside the bag to dislodge the seeds from the casing. If some seeds are lost to the soil they will come up on their own next year. This is called self-seeding, and many annuals reproduce themselves this way.
If the seed heads are not fully dry and ripe when you cut them off, either hang the stems (with the seed cases) or lay them flat to dry on a newspaper or paper towel pad away from direct light. Make sure that all seeds are completely dry before removing them from the pods: if you package them before they are fully dry they will go moldy in storage. This is the simplest way; it’s easier to dry the whole seed head then a bunch of loose seeds. When the pod is dry, extract the seeds by carefully crushing or breaking open the seedpods. Separate crushed debris from the seeds by sifting everything through a fine mesh screen. The debris will fall through and the seeds will remain on top of the screen. Some seeds such as those from marigolds or black-eyed susans can simply be pulled from the seed head.
Seeds from fruits and vegetables should be collected when plants are at their peak, before they are over-ripe and decay has set in. Some vegetables such as beans are the exception and should be harvested when the pods are dry. Seeds from most fruits and vegetables are incased inside a wet environment (the part usually eaten). In the case of very wet pulp such as tomatoes, the seeds can be washed from the pulp and then laid out to dry on newspaper or a screen. The same can be done with pumpkins, squash and other soft pulp vegetables. In the case of harder pulp fruits and vegetables they are simply opened up and the seeds removed manually.
Storing Seeds
Store seeds carefully by placing envelopes inside large glass jars with a bag of silica or powdered milk. These products absorb excess moisture. Reuse the tiny bags of silica gel that come inside new shoes–dry them for a few minutes at a very low temperature in your oven. Alternatively, make a tiny package of powdered milk by pouring a pile into the centre of a piece of breathable fabric or tissue paper. Pull the corners together and close it up with a piece of string or elastic to create a sachet. The best jars for storage are wide mouth mason jars used for canning. They have the proper airtight seal that is essential for long term storage. If you store the jars in a cool, dark place the seeds should last from a year to a few years, depending on the type.
