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Propagating Flowering Plants
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Here, you’ll find discussions and four complete step-by-step demonstrations showing how to reproduce plants vegetatively, beneath each of the following titles:
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- Propagating Plants is Easy, Fun, and Rewarding
- Propagating Perennials
- Division
- Cuttings
- Layering
- Bud Grafting
- Seeds
- Step-By-Step Instructions
- Planting Root Divisions
- Growing Cuttings
- How to Root Stem Cuttings
- Air Layering Flowering Plants
- How to Air Layer Flowering Plants
- Bud Grafting
- How to Bud a Graft onto Rootstock
- Planting Collected Seed
- How to Plant Collected Seed
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Propagating Plants is Easy, Fun, and Rewarding
Double your garden’s flowering plants by using these quick and easy methods to divide, root, layer, or take cuttings from existing plants.
We’ll demonstrate four popular methods most gardeners use to propagate new flowering plants:
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- How to Root Stem Cuttings
- How to Air Layer Flowering Plants
- How to Graft Buds onto Rootstock
- How to Plant Collected Seeds
We’ve previously demonstrated how to divide fibrous- and tuberous-rooted plants [see: Thinning and Dividing Flowers]. The offspring plants of root division should be planted in the same manner used for seedlings and young plants grown in grower containers [see: Transplanting Seedlings].
Remember, the methods used to propagate true bulbs and other bulbous plants are different than these used for most flowering plants.
Refer instead to the bulb propagation section to lift, divide, and reproduce bulbous plants [see: Bulb Propagation Demonstrated].
Propagating Perennials
It’s easy to multiply your perennial plants to transplant elsewhere in your garden or swap with friends.
First, take a moment to understand each reproduction method demonstrated:
Division
Root division is a nearly foolproof method for creating multiple plants quickly. Division involves digging up the host plant, carefully separating the most vigorous new buds or root divisions, and replanting them in amended soil.
It works with plants that grow in clumping habits such as daylilies, grasses, coralbells, phlox, and delphiniums. Some fast-growing plants including Shasta daisies require division every few years to keep blooming and grow vigorously.
Note that there are no annuals or biennial flowers listed. They only grow from seed in home gardens, though cloning techniques are frequently used by commercial growers to vegetatively reproduce exact copies of parent plant materials.
Cuttings
You can propagate most plants that have stems or branches with leaves by taking stem or wood cuttings.
Cutting involves pruning a vigorous stem, dipping it in rooting hormone, and placing it in moistened rooting medium to sprout roots.
Cuttings are the right method to reproduce many perennials, including chrysanthemum, delphinium, pinks, and sage.
While this method is sometimes less successful than division and takes longer to produce plants, it avoids digging or disturbing the host plant, and it produces many more exact copies of the parent plant than is possible with root division.
Note that some plants are patented by their growers and should never be reproduced in this fashion. To do so is unethical and violates international plant patent laws that fund the development of new and improved plant varieties.
Layering
Burying a healthy stem while it is still attached to a parent plant often produces roots at a leaf axil or junction. Once the stem or vine forms its roots, gardeners cut its connection to the parent plant. They make two cuts, pruning the stem on each side of its rooted section.
This process of growing a rooted stem, which becomes a new plant identical to its parent, is called layering.
More commonly used for shrubs, most flowering perennials that have flexible branches with leaves on them are suited to propagation through layering. While layering often takes longer than either divisions or cuttings, layering avoids disturbing the host plant.
Bud Grafting
Bud grafting involves cutting a tear-shaped piece of the outer layer of a flowering plant’s stem containing a nascent—undeveloped—bud.
Next, the cut piece is grafted into the stem of another plant that will bear different varieties of flowers on a single plant.
Bud grafting is an advanced reproduction technique, often used for woody plants like roses, peonies, azaleas, rhododendrons, and hibiscus. It’s fun to try, but takes some time to master and get predictable results.
Seeds
Some species resist vegetative propagation entirely or frequently fail to grow after division, cuttings, or layering. A few examples of these hard-to-reproduce plants are balloon flowers, bleeding-heart, false indigo, monkshood, and peony. To reproduce these plants, collect their seeds after they form following flowering, and plant them to grow new plants.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Planting Root Divisions
Several different methods of thinning and dividing flowering plants in the garden or grown in containers may be found demonstrated in other sections of this website [see: Thinning and Dividing Flowers and Transplanting Seedlings].
Some plants struggle to reproduce when their roots are divided. The demonstrations below shows other propagation techniques suited to many different flowering plants.
Growing Cuttings
Take cuttings from flowering plants that have branches with leaf stems and leaves.
Take cuttings in spring or summer, water plants 24 hours before beginning, work on a cool, overcast day
Gather your tools, rooting hormone (available at nurseries and garden centers), materials, and implements, then follow these easy steps:
How to Root Stem Cuttings
Take cuttings 4–6 in. (10–15 cm) long, selecting branch tips with leave but without flowers.
At the bottom of the cutting, cleanly cut the stem just above a leaf axil or node, the place on the stem where a leaf attaches.
At the tip end, cut just above another leaf axil.
Use care in making the second cut to retain a leaf group attached to the cutting.
Strip off all the leaves on the lower 2 in. (50 mm) of the cutting.
Dip the cut bottom end of each stem into rooting hormone, up to its stripped leaf axils.
Use the handle of a garden trowel to make holes in soil medium 2–3 in. (50–75 mm) deep and 2 in. (50 mm) apart.
Plant one cutting in each hole and firm soil around its stem.
Water and allow the container to drain.
Cover or enclose the entire cutting container in a large plastic bag, positioning stakes to prevent the bag from touching the foliage on the cuttings.
Seal the bag.
Set the container in bright indirect light, where temperatures are between 65–75°F (18–24°C).
Beginning after 2 weeks, uncover the container and check plants for root development by gently uncovering and examining them for sprouts.
The rooting process usually takes 2–4 weeks.
When roots fully emerge, the offspring plants are ready for transplant.
Air Layering Flowering Plants
When a single-stemmed plant becomes tall and lanky, air layering is the best method for propagation.
This technique enables you to get a large plant from a single cutting.
Air layering also is a productive way to thin, prune, or multiply plants.
Read and follow these simple steps:
How to Air Layer Flowering Plants
Select a stem without flower buds, bending it to the soil surface.
Excavate a hole 2 in. (50 mm) deep.
Make a small nick in the plant’s stem near its junction with a leaf axil.
Dust the cut with rooting hormone powder.
Anchor the stem with a small U-shaped metal stake or with crossed wooden stakes.
Cover over the nicked stem, filling the hole with soil.
Water the soil thoroughly and keep moist.
After two weeks, carefully expose the buried stem.
When roots have emerged from the nicked stem, use pruning shears to cut off the stem between the new roots and the parent plant.
Either grow the new plant in place, or transplant it to another garden location or container.
Container plants are also easy to air-layer.
Use one or more secondary pots to hold the layering stems of the parent plant until they root.
Bud Grafting
Grafting—also called budding—is required for many some flowering plants to thrive. For others, it’s a way to grow several different varieties of flowers of a single species—occasionally flowers of several closely related species—on a single plant.
Bud grafting provides the plants with a proven root systems on a healthy plant. Some practice is required for consistent success, but keep trying and you will succeed.
Gather the tools and materials shown, then follow these exact steps:
How to Bud a Graft onto Rootstock
Cut an 8–10-in. (20–25-cm) stem from the parent plant after its bloom cycle has faded.
Choosing a section bearing multiple scions—nascent buds and surrounding wood—found at the site of former leaf junctions.
Work from the top of the parent cane towards its base.
Use a sharp budding knife to make a clean, shallow, tear- or droplet-shaped cut just deep enough to penetrate the bark.
The cut should be about 1-in. (25-mm) long, starting beneath the bud, and tapering away from and below it.
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Allow new plants to sprout and grow through their first season. Lift and store the young plants once their foliage yellows and withers. Replant the bulbs the following season, at a depth one-quarter as deep as for mature bulbs of their species. Repeat lifting, storage, and replanting. Most will bloom in their third year.
On the receiving plant or rootstock’s stem, use the knife point to make two cuts forming a clean, T-shaped junction.
Make the first cut across the stem, just deep enough to touch the wood beneath.
Follow it with a second shallow cut lengthwise from the first cut and downward for 1 in. (25 mm), and about 2–3 in. (50–75 mm) above the plant’s growth point or soil.
At the T-junction, use the knife blade to carefully peel the bark back, opening two flaps still attached to the stem.
Slide the scion into the flaps of the T-cut with its cut side towards the receiving stem.
Set the top of the scion in the T-cut, positioning its bud 1/3-in. (8-mm) below the top of the T-cut’s flaps.
Tightly wrap the graft into the cut with budding rubber or stretchy plastic tape, leaving only the bud exposed.
Planting Collected Seed
Gather ripe seed from your flowering plants and sow it in your garden later in the same season or during the following year.
Retain seed over the winter by placing it in an airtight container and placing it in the produce drawer of a household refrigerator. Soak hard-shelled seed overnight prior to planting.
Always closely follow the recommendations for time of planting and depth of sowing for each species you plant.
How to Plant Collected Seed
Fill a clean bedding tray with sterile potting soil and firm it with your palms.
Sow two seeds in each cell of the bedding tray and cover them to the recommended depth for the species.
Use a spray bottle to gently mist the soil surface with water until it is very moist.
Cover the bedding tray and set it in bright, indirect light in a warm location.
The seed will germinate.
When seedlings sprout, wait until at least two true leaves form above their seed leaves.
Transplant the seedling pairs into pots.