Plants For Free

Carol shows how to make more of your favourite plants in the first of a three-part series unlocking the mysteries of propagation. This month she explains softwood cuttings

- Carol

Making new plants from cuttings you’ve gathered in your own garden is thrilling. Putting strong, young plants into your garden that have been grow n ‘to order’ is far more satisfying than buying plants and a lot cheaper, too. Being thrifty is second nature to many gardeners, but producing a plant for free – nurturing it as a cutting, potting it up and preparing it to take its place in the garden – is particularly gratifying. In t he process, you learn more about the plant, its nature a nd its needs than you could from any textbook or television guru.

September is the perfect time to take softwood cuttings. Many plants, including shrubs and tender perennials, have produced fresh green growth over summer, which can be used now to make new plants. These types of cuttings root faster than hardwood cuttings and you’ll soon have an army of young plants, ready to plant out when spring arrives. These can also act as insurance for any tender plants that don’t make it through winter.

Why cuttings?

Why not just sow seed? It’s the easiest way to make more plants, it’s almost always successful and you can produce hundreds of plants. Cuttings take more care, you make fewer plants and, unless you’re an absolute whizz, it’s a slower process. But seedlings aren’t clones of their parents. They may well be lookalikes, but the progeny of some plants can vary enormously.