New plants for free (Copy)

Collecting your own seed, propagation and splitting is a great way to get new plants. Especially rewarding is growing your own plants from seed you have collected yourself. What is great is that collecting your own seed has the added benefit that the seeds will already be adapted to your soil and climate.

How to collect your own seed

Easily the most rewarding method and 100% free. This will make you feel like you are winning:) Use a paper bag to shake the seed head into, or it might be easier to cut the seed head off entirely. Do this when the seed head turns brown (for most plants this will be in late summer or Fall). Poppies are really easy to gather the seeds of. Some seeds are super tiny, so it helps to sort them on a white paper sheet.

Buying seed (and plants)

I have learned that some sellers provide mislabelled seeds (the wrong plant or the wrong color). I try and avoid buying seeds from Amazon for this reason. Here’s a few places to avoid so you don’t make the same mistake.

Make it stand out

How to propagate

All plants are a bit different in the details (when / growing medium etc), but a lot of propagation involves the same thing. Basically, snip off about a 3’ shoot of new growth that doesn't have a flower. You can pop this into a ziplock bag to conserve moisture.

You’ll want to remove most of the leaves because this will stop the plant drying out and losing water. The shoots where leaves grow is where the roots will grow from, and it’s called a node. You can do this with your hands or tools but you’ll want to sterilize your tools (you can do this with hydrogen peroxide) to stop disease spreading.

You can use a pencil to create a hole for the cutting before you push it into the potting mix. Using rooting hormone will speed up this process but it’s not necessary. Push your cutting into the soil so at least 1 set of nodes is submerged. If you want, you can put four cuttings round the edge of one pot (because the edges of a pot will lose moisture last).

The length of time it takes for the cutting to grow roots will vary, it could be a few weeks or a few months. You can tell if it has roots by giving the cutting a little tug, if you get some resistance, roots have started. Pot it on when a healthy root system has formed.

Here’s a few video that shows propagating and splitting..

How to split a plant

Some plants are really easy and obvious candidates for splitting, and the method is pretty straightforward. Most grasses can be split, but don’t do this in cold weather (grasses like being moved in warmer weather).

Dig up the whole plant, and using your hands, or tools, gently prise a section of the plant off. Plant the new plant in a hole and water. Super easy. This video does a good job of explaining the process.

Here are a few videos to watch. They both do a good job of explaining this process. Here and here.

Good

Holland Bulb Farms

Bad

Amazon: Ive had a pack of seeds be fine but it’s hard to avoid Chinese Seed sellers, which in my experience tend to give badly labelled and incorrect products