All the Dirt on Gardening

Lavender plant in Feb. It's time to check your lavender plants for new growth and take cuttings to make new plants. I do this every year. Most winters we lose at least one of our lavender plants and I like to maintain a supply of them for replacements. If we don't need them in our garden, we give them to other gardeners. At this time of year you can use either/both hardwood or softwood cuttings.   Lavender cuttings in moist vermiculite The hardwood cuttings have worked for me but can take longer to strike roots. Cut a 4 to 6 inch long piece of the plant that includes a growing tip. The softwood grows out of the bottom of the plant where it has recently emerged from the roots. Remove the leaves from the bottom half of the cuttings. Put moist sand, vermiculite or perlite into a container and make a hole in it with a pencil or other object - for each cutting. If you try to just stick the tender cuttings into planting medium it will bend. Press cuttings ...

Making more plants from cuttings provides duplicates of your favorite garden specimens and hours of indoor gardening fun. Watching plants take root and grow is rewarding. Hardwood cuttings are taken from trees and shrubs during early winter months and can be grown outside or in a cold frame. Winter hardwood cuttings are not taken from the tips since they are to be grown outside and tip growth is easily damaged. Tip cuttings can be grown inside with heat where the conditions simulate early spring. Some of the many plants that are good candidates for winter hardwood cuttings include: Barberry, Boxwood, Callicarpa (Beauty Berry), Campsis (Trumpet Vine), Caryopteris, Chaenomeles (Flowering Quince), Cotoneaster, Crataegus (Hawthorn), Cytisus, Deutzia, Forsythia, Fothergilla, Hedera (Ivy), Hibiscus syriacus (Rose-of-Sharon), Hydrangea, Ilex (American and Japanese Holly), Kerria, Lagerstroemia (Crapemyrtle), Ligustrum (Privet), Lonicera (Honeysuckle), Osmanthus (Holly), Parthenocissus (Vi...