PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY CUTTINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 868, 11 January 1930, Page 26

PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY CUTTINGS

The propagation of plants by cuttings is a method resorted to when a variety cannot be raised from seed. This is often the case among hardy perennial plants of hybrid origin. It is often found that cuttings of soft-wooded plants and succulents are liable to damp off. For this reason it is best to insert them in pots of silver sand, under a glass covering, to strike. Take a large pot and half fill it with crocks broken up fine. Then fill it to within an inch or so of the rim with clean silver sand. If this has been previously sterilised with steam or by baking, so much the better. Insert the soft, and hard wood cuttings, too, for that matter, around the rim, with their ends touching the pot side. For some reason the very fact of touching the pot side seems to assist them in rooting. After inserting the cuttings, give them a good watering and cover with a glass frame. A small frame may be made by taking a large case and removing the bottom and top. A sheet or sheets of glass can be placed over the top and the flower pots or pans placed inside. Dahlias, carnations, begonias, coleus, fuchsias, verbenas, pansies, geraniums, violas, etc., strike readily from cuttings, particularly from those inserted in the autumn. In the glass-house gloxinias and begonias strike from leaf cuttings. The stem and greater part of the leaf should be placed in the soil, and well watered. Hard vrood plants, such as shrubs, are most difficult to propogate from cuttings, but are worth trying.