Planting Ideas

COLD winds, freezing showers, dark evenings... it's not the gardener's favourite time of year. But Connect's expert, Nell Williams, says it's a good time for contemplation. And she's got some tips on propagation to inspire you...

December and January often prove to be the gloomiest months for the gardener, with short, wet and cold days. But, along with the Christmas and New Year festivities, winter provides a chance for us to sit back and review our horticultural triumphs (and the occasional disaster!) of the previous months.

But while planning what to grow next year from seed is a good way to spend an evening in the warm, there are other methods of raising plants for your garden or allotment. So, in order to inspire everyone to start dreaming of next year's flourishing gardens, I will be looking at some of these methods in this article.

Propagation of plants
This provides the gardener with the opportunity to increase the number of plants in their garden.

There are various different techniques for doing this, depending on the type of plant and the time of year. These include seed sowing, cuttings, layering, division, grafting and budding.

Most of these methods require very little specialist equipment. Plastic trays/boxes that mushrooms, plums, grapes, etc, come in from the supermarket, can be used as mini-greenhouses with the clear plastic trays inverted over others (clear or coloured) filled with compost. Unheated propagators can be purchased, or you can use electrical ones, which provide bottom heat - useful for germinating seeds such as chilli peppers and aubergines, which require that extra warmth, or for helping root cuttings of certain plants.

For taking cuttings, a sharp pocket knife is required, and a pair of secateurs can be handy, although scissors can be used instead.

The most common propagation technique is seed sowing. This is the cheapest way of raising plants, and is generally the easiest method.

A basic rule of thumb is to sow seeds under their own depth of soil above them. This means tiny seeds are sown on, or near, the soil surface, while larger seeds are sown more deeply. Seeds are sown in prepared beds or in pots and trays in the greenhouse or propagator. In general, seeds sown in temperatures below 7 C or 45 F will not germinate. Seeds with a hard seed coat should be soaked overnight in water before sowing to help germination.

Plants grown from seeds saved from your own plants can vary from the parent plant and will not be identical or necessarily even similar.

Cuttings, however, will be genetically identical to the plant from which they have been taken. Cuttings can be taken from the leaves, stem, or root of the plant, depending on the species.

More common and easy to do are stem cuttings. These tend to be either softwood, taken in the summer, or hardwood, taken in the winter.

Where you take the cutting from is important - this is to do with plant hormones responsible for leaf and root production in the plant. When you take a cutting, make sure you cut back to just above a leaf joint or bud on the parent plant. New growth will come from here and if you cut too far, the tissue will die back to the nearest bud, creating a breeding ground for disease.

The same principle applies to the cutting itself. Roots will grow from the lowest bud, so cut to just below it. Softwood cuttings are taken from late spring to early summer using the young shoots, which, because they are soft and will lose moisture easily, need to be kept damp. Plastic sandwich bags over the pots of cuttings are good for this. To help prevent them rotting, sharp sand or grit should be added to the compost to help it drain easily and prevent it becoming water-logged. Bottom heat is often a useful addition to help rooting, as is hormone rooting powder.

Take cuttings approximately 7cm long, remove the lower leaves and cut the stem diagonally below the lowest leafjoint. Dip in rooting powder if you wish and insert into compost in the pot.

When removing the sideshoots of cordon tomatoes, these can be popped in pots to root to give you more tomatoes a bit later in the season. This is only really feasible if you have a polytunnel or greenhouse to extend your growing season.

Cuttings taken mid-summer to mid-autumn are referred to as being semi-ripe. The process is the same as for softwood cuttings, but the length of the cuttings taken is 10-15cm. Useful for herbs such as rosemary and sage, hardwood cuttings are taken in the autumn with one-year-old wood.

This technique is most useful for fruit bushes and hardy shrubs. Cut 20-25cm lengths with a straight cut at the base and a diagonal one at the top - this makes it easier to work out which way up they should be planted.

Gooseberries and red and white currants need a short trunk, so rub off the lower buds. Using a spade, make a slit in the ground, put some sharp sand in the bottom and insert the cuttings up to two-thirds of their length. Press down the soil with your boot.

Layering is used for plants such as blackberries, which root readily where stems touch the ground. This is done in late summer. Peg down the shoot tip into a hole made in the ground and cover. Leave till the late autumn and then separate from the parent plant.

Division can be used to increase perennials such as comfrey and is done in the spring or autumn. Dig up the plant and divide into sections, each containing roots and buds. Replant these sections.

Grafting and budding are often used for propagating fruit trees. Root stocks are available from specialist nurseries for this purpose, but it's a more complex technique, so it's worth getting a book from your local library, or purchasing one, so that you have the diagrams and instructions to hand.

JOBS IN THE GARDEN FOR DECEMBER AND JANUARY

Digging if the weather permits;

Continue pruning dead and diseased wood from shrubs and trees;

January - sow broad beans, plant shallots in weft drained soil;

And finally...New Year's Resolutions -it's that time of year, so it has to be done! I tend not to make specific ones regarding gardening because when I fail to achieve them it can be disheartening. Gardening should be fun rather than something you feel pressured by, and I therefore tend to be rather vague with a simple do better than last year' promise (much more achievable, I find!). However, one thing I am determined to do is sow salad crops in more variety and regularly to provide salads throughout the year. They are some of the easiest seeds to sow and vastly over-priced with a limited range in the shops - I'll keep you posted as to whether I succeed! And as a further resolution, I intend to get a better photo of myself taken for the top of the page!