It’s time to pop out and take a few softwood cuttings. My main motivation for this annual task is to hedge my bets. Cold winters can kill off many of my staple plants. Penstemons, rosemary and salvias all tend to be a bit tender if we have a long cold spell. We live in the low weald of Kent which is a flat area sandwiched between the hills of the High Weald and North Downs, a frost pocket, tempretures in the winter of 2009/10 stayed below zero for a couple of weeks. During this time I lost rosemary, penstemons and Hebes, to my delight I only lost one of my heavily mulched dahlias. So since this time I’ve always made an effort to take at least 5 cuttings of each potentially tender plant. This generally results in lots of new plants that can bulk up your own stock as well as new additions for your friends.
Here’s how I take my cuttings:
First of all select non flowering stems as your cutting material. Cut approx 5-7cm and pop in a plastic freezer bag to reduce moisture loss
Fill a 9cm pot with compost and then water
Using a very sharp knife or secateurs (to get a clean cut, reducing the chance of rot), remove all but the top 4 leaves and reduce the size of the stem
I use a chop stick to make a hole at the side of the pot and then pop in your cutting
You will fit five or so cuttings to a pot. Always remember to label, I’ve learnt this the hard way!
Todays cuttings. I’ll pop them in my conservatory. In a few weeks I’ll start to see growth on the cutting, at that stage I’ll know they’ve rooted. After another week or so I’ll them divide them in to individual pots. By next spring they’ll be healthy new plants.
