The Four Idols

 

Propagation, oo-oo-oo

Propagation

Propagation's what you need,

If you want to plant a seed, make a rose bush or a reed,

Propagation’s what you need!

If you’d like to make new roots, or grow some tasty fruits,

Propagation’s what you need!

If you want to grow a plant, but think that you can’t,

Oo-oo propagation's what you need!

Do you want to be a propagate-er, Ooooo!!!

For those of a certain age, you may have broken into song. Memories of Roy Castle and the McWhirter brothers on Record Breakers have been (dare I say it?) propagated in your mind!

 

Plants for free!

There are lots of different ways in which plants can be propagated; the most common is by sowing seeds, after all, this is how it is usually done in nature. Because seed production relies on flowers producing seed by combining male pollen with female ovule, the resulting seed may produce a plant with different coloured flowers from the mother plant’s, leaves might be larger or smaller, stems could be taller or shorter. This should not be a problem for most growers, but for a professional gardener or exhibitor it could be an issue.

To produce plants that are identical to the parent plant, you need to make a clone. Some plants, usually for food, are cloned using micropropagation techniques in a laboratory setting to produce large quantities of ‘plantlets’, but you can produce a clone plant much more easily, and for free, by making new roots from the parent plant.

Cuttings can be taken from several parts of a parent plant, which part you use will depend on the plant you want to propagate. The most often used are soft wood or hardwood cuttings from stems, division of below-ground stems (tubers and rhizomes) or from leaf cuttings.

Using sections of above-ground stems is a very effective way to propagate ornamental plants including one of my favourites: roses.

Here’s how:

It is best to choose an older type of rose which is tried and tested, will be able to stand up to disease and will no longer be copyrighted by the grower (it can take decades to produce a new rose type so they wouldn’t be very happy!) Older varieties of rose tend to smell nicer too.

Select a tall strong stem, which is not too bendy, from a flower stalk where the flower is nearly over and the petals starting to fall.

Cut the stem just below a node where a leaf joins stem. This point has a high concentration of undifferentiated or totipotent cells which can divide and differentiate into all types of plant cell and will be responsible for rooting a cut stem. The cutting needs to have a few leaves so that it can photosynthesise to give the new plant energy. If the stem is long, you can make two or even three cuttings providing that each has nodes to root from and enough leaves to support photosynthesis.

It’s a good idea to cut the stem from the plant at a 45^◦ so that you know which end is up, this also makes the cutting easier to insert into the growing medium and ensures that rainwater will run off the cut in the parent plant’s stem. The top end can be cut straight across.

Where the leaves have been removed there should be enough surface area to encourage new cell growth for roots to form. If the rose variety that you choose has thorns (prickles really, but that’s another story), you should remove them to give a larger area where the undifferentiated cells can make new roots.

Dip the lower end of the cutting into rooting hormone powder and insert it into a pot of free draining soil or compost making sure that you have two or three nodes under the soil surface. You can put several cuttings into one pot. Place the pot in a bright place that’s not too hot or the cutting will wilt.

Now you wait.

If your cuttings are successful, in four to eight weeks a new root system will have formed and you have a clone of your rose! It’s a good idea to leave the new plant in its pot until spring when you can plant it in your garden and enjoy a free plant or two!