Harvest This Year's Perennials for Cuttings to Propagate Next Year's Blooms
Growing annual flowers can be a disheartening experience: You shell out a significant amount of money (either on seeds or seedlings) and devote plenty of time to planting, only to witness their demise at the conclusion of the season. To circumvent this, you should propagate new plants every year by taking cuttings.
Propagation offers greater efficiency and selection
There are two compelling reasons to learn the art of propagating from cuttings. Firstly, it's a more cost-effective and time-saving method. Growing additional plants by duplicating an existing plant you've grown yourself or purchased is both faster and less expensive than cultivating plants from seed. Sure, you could grow more from seed, but you run the risk of failed germination and the time it takes to grow. In contrast, propagation can save you weeks.
Secondly, propagation enables you to make deliberate selections. Choose the plants you most appreciate and that are thriving and propagate those. By doing so, you're creating genetically identical plants tailored to your specific garden conditions. Also worth mentioning, you can propagate these plants towards the end of the season, allow the cuttings to overwinter indoors, and nurture them back to life during the spring months. At this stage, you can take cuttings from this newly developed mother plant and have fresh seedlings for your garden in just a few weeks. It's a technique commonly employed by commercial growers to maintain mother plants in their greenhouses throughout the winter.
How to propagate from cuttings
The process is relatively straightforward and often overlooked. Firstly, select a healthy plant that you enjoy. Then, trim a 3-4 inch cutting from the plant. A few tips: Use clean scissors or pruners to ensure no bacteria or disease is introduced into the plant. Before using, sterilize the instruments with vinegar, Lysol, or bleach solution. Once you have your cutting, strip off the leaves from the bottom half.
Dip the last two inches of the cutting into rooting hormone, which can be found at your local nursery. Although cuttings can sometimes root on their own, the hormone stimulates root growth, which is our goal. After dipping the cutting, plant it in your potting mix. I use plug trays, which make it simple to separate and transplant the established cuttings. Keep the soil consistently moist but never waterlogged. Within a week or two, you should notice growth, and within four weeks, you'll be able to transplant the cuttings to larger pots or place them in your outdoor garden.
To save money and time, you might consider learning how to propagate annuals from cuttings at home. By duplicating existing plants, you can grow new ones more affordably and quickly than starting from seeds. Additionally, propagation allows you to selectively grow your favorite plants that are thriving, creating genetically identical plants tailored to your garden's conditions.
