All the Dirt on Gardening

Agastache Many of your favorite perennials can be multiplied right now to make more plants for our gardens. Right now in re-purposed strawberry clamshell containers, I have cuttings from Anise Agastache, Nepeta Walker's Low, Salvia elegans, Lavender and I'm about to start Setcreasea pallida and Huskers Red Penstemon.  Prepare a planting container with moist sand, vermiculite, perlite or sterile potting soil. Take stem cuttings about 4-inches long and remove all but the top few leaves. Make holes in the rooting medium and stick the stems into the hole. Firm up the sand, etc. around the stem. Roots will grow where you removed the leaves so be sure there is a leaf node at the very bottom of your cutting. Nepeta cuttings with tiny roots Shrubs that flower in the spring should also be multiplied at this time of year.  Branch cuttings taken in the spring for the purpose of propagating more plants are called softwood cuttings. Softwood is not the new tender growth shrub...

Taking cuttings from favorite plants now will extend the season of fun in the garden, giving you a project during the cold months. Easy-to-root perennials include: clematis armandii, coreopsis, salvia, geranium, coleus, begonia, Mandeville, rosemary, sage, Joseph’s coat, sweet potato, figs, etc. Cuttings both replace and increase the plants in your garden. For example, even though Pineapple sage and Mexican sage both return every year, the plants I grow from fall cuttings expand the amount of hummingbird nectar available next spring and fall. Generally speaking, true annuals, started from seed, will not overwinter from cuttings, including zinnias, lettuce, and marigold. Fiskars has the right tools for the job! The number of cuttings you should start is based on the amount of windowsill space or lighting you have available. Most of us can make room for a dozen pots or rig up something outside. One veteran gardener puts a single light bulb inside a container made o...

Easy propagation method. When the variegated ivy put out a long shoot of growth last fall, I tucked one end of it into a shorter bowl filled with vermiculite. Both bowls sat on an east facing windowsill over the winter and were watered infrequently but at the same time. Both containers dried out between watering. Today, I cut them apart. How easy is that? VOODOO LILY When Brent and Becky's Bulbs had their end of the season sale, I bought a Dragon . It was planted in a large pot and stayed in the garden shed over the winter. Here is its bloom as of yesterday. Paghat says, "Dracunculus vulgaris (aka Arum dracunculus) is variously called the Dragon Arum, Voodoo Lily, Ragons, Snake Lily, Black Arum, Black Dragon, Dragonwort, & Stink Lily. In Greece it is called Drakondia, the dragon or serpent being the long spadex inside the enormous maroon-lipped spathe.It is native to the Balkans, to Mediterranean Europe, Greece, the isle of Crete & the Aegean Islands, all the...