Taking stem cuttings

Alan Toogood describes how to increase many popular plants by softwood, semi-mature or half-ripe, and hardwood or fully ripe cuttings

- Alan Toogood

INCREASING your own plants is one of the most enjoyable aspects of gardening, as well as being the cheapest way of obtaining new stock. Basically, there are two ways of propagating plants. There is the vegetative method, which embraces cuttings, layering, budding, grafting and division or splitting of plants. The other way is to raise plants from seed.

Over the next 12 weeks, I will be discussing all these methods of propagation and giving many examples of garden, house and greenhouse plants that can easily be raised by amateur gardeners. By collecting these articles, you will have a comprehensive guide to the various techniques used in the propagation of a wide range of subjects.

Let us start with the raising of plants from cuttings. These are simply portions of a stem, leaf or root which, when given the correct conditions, form roots of their own and grow into new plants exactly resembling their parents. This is a good way of raising varieties of plants, as well as true species. Often varieties do not come true from seed (see Bob’s column on page 14) and may not have all the characteristics of their parents.

Softwood cuttings 

Softwood cuttings are stem cuttings and, as the name implies, they are prepared from very soft or unripened growth, taken generally between early April and the end of June, before the stems start to ripen.

The base of the cutting should be cut across immediately below a node or leaf joint using a very sharp knife to ensure a clean cut. Do not remove the tip of the cutting. The lower leaves must be cut away cleanly. Cuttings of most shrubs and perennials will be about 3in (8cm) long after preparation, while those of smaller things like alpines may be only 1-2in (3-5cm) long.