e two methods may seem worlds away, they are actually the same method, just done at different levels. For our purposes "cuttings will do nicely.

You will need a "Mother Plant", that is a plant that you want to "clone" and don't mind chopping into pieces. You will also need a "rooting medium" and there are a lot of different thoughts on this. I like using a mix of peat and sand, which is about three quarters peat, and one quarter sand, but yo

Sex in the garden? What the .....? Did I go to the wrong place? No, no, no! Not the kind of sex in a garden that you would expect from some movie inspired by a D. H. Lawrence novel. No, what we are talking about is plant reproduction. So, now that I have your attention................

How do you get new plants at a low cost, and have fun doing it? Well, it is known as propagation.There are two forms:

Sexual
Asexual

The first method is the one we all know, you take a bag of seed, learn all you can about seedbed preparation, plant, water nourish and then watch them flourish. Simple, straightforward and rewarding on levels that non gardeners cannot understand. This process can be used to produce large quantities of non woody plants like grasses, vegetables, and flowers, and can be done in a variety of ways, from intensive greenhouse culture, to tilling the soil, and dropping in the seed.

But, what if we wanted to produce a quantity of slower growing woody, or herbaceous plants, say, some extra crepe myrtles for a fence row? What would be the best method? It would take a long time to produce them from seed, and the results would rarely be consistent. How can we speed the process up and get the consistency (uniformity) we are looking for? That is where the second method comes in.

Asexual reproduction can be used with the vegetable and flower types of plants as well. The method usually involves removing a portion of a stem from a plant, and inserting the larger end, that is the end closest to the base of the plant into a planting medium. There are other, more tedious methods in use, such as "tissue cultures" which involve taking a few plant cells, and growing them in a petri dish like situation, but that is a science all to itself. Although these two methods may seem worlds away, they are actually the same method, just done at different levels. For our purposes "cuttings will do nicely.

You will need a "Mother Plant", that is a plant that you want to "clone" and don't mind chopping into pieces. You will also need a "rooting medium" and there are a lot of different thoughts on this. I like using a mix of peat and sand, which is about three quarters peat, and one quarter sand, but yo

method is the one we all know, you take a bag of seed, learn all you can about seedbed preparation, plant, water nourish and then watch them flourish. Simple, straightforward and rewarding on levels that non gardeners cannot understand. This process can be used to produce large quantities of non woody plants like grasses, vegetables, and flowers, and can be done in a variety of ways, from intensive greenhouse culture, to tilling the soil, and dropping in the seed.

But, what if we wanted to produce a quantity of slower growing woody, or herbaceous plants, say, some extra crepe myrtles for a fence row? What would be the best method? It would take a long time to produce them from seed, and the results would rarely be consistent. How can we speed the process up and get the consistency (uniformity) we are looking for? That is where the second method comes in.

Asexual reproduction can be used with the vegetable and flower types of plants as well. The method usually involves removing a portion of a stem from a plant, and inserting the larger end, that is the end closest to the base of the plant into a planting medium. There are other, more tedious methods in use, such as "tissue cultures" which involve taking a few plant cells, and growing them in a petri dish like situation, but that is a science all to itself. Although these two methods may seem worlds away, they are actually the same method, just done at different levels. For our purposes "cuttings will do nicely.

You will need a "Mother Plant", that is a plant that you want to "clone" and don't mind chopping into pieces. You will also need a "rooting medium" and there are a lot of different thoughts on this. I like using a mix of peat and sand, which is about three quarters peat, and one quarter sand, but yo

pping in the seed.

But, what if we wanted to produce a quantity of slower growing woody, or herbaceous plants, say, some extra crepe myrtles for a fence row? What would be the best method? It would take a long time to produce them from seed, and the results would rarely be consistent. How can we speed the process up and get the consistency (uniformity) we are looking for? That is where the second method comes in.

Asexual reproduction can be used with the vegetable and flower types of plants as well. The method usually involves removing a portion of a stem from a plant, and inserting the larger end, that is the end closest to the base of the plant into a planting medium. There are other, more tedious methods in use, such as "tissue cultures" which involve taking a few plant cells, and growing them in a petri dish like situation, but that is a science all to itself. Although these two methods may seem worlds away, they are actually the same method, just done at different levels. For our purposes "cuttings will do nicely.

You will need a "Mother Plant", that is a plant that you want to "clone" and don't mind chopping into pieces. You will also need a "rooting medium" and there are a lot of different thoughts on this. I like using a mix of peat and sand, which is about three quarters peat, and one quarter sand, but yo

an be used with the vegetable and flower types of plants as well. The method usually involves removing a portion of a stem from a plant, and inserting the larger end, that is the end closest to the base of the plant into a planting medium. There are other, more tedious methods in use, such as "tissue cultures" which involve taking a few plant cells, and growing them in a petri dish like situation, but that is a science all to itself. Although these two methods may seem worlds away, they are actually the same method, just done at different levels. For our purposes "cuttings will do nicely.

You will need a "Mother Plant", that is a plant that you want to "clone" and don't mind chopping into pieces. You will also need a "rooting medium" and there are a lot of different thoughts on this. I like using a mix of peat and sand, which is about three quarters peat, and one quarter sand, but yo

e two methods may seem worlds away, they are actually the same method, just done at different levels. For our purposes "cuttings will do nicely.

You will need a "Mother Plant", that is a plant that you want to "clone" and don't mind chopping into pieces. You will also need a "rooting medium" and there are a lot of different thoughts on this. I like using a mix of peat and sand, which is about three quarters peat, and one quarter sand, but you can use the media you prefer. It needs to retain enough moisture to allow the cutting to never dry out, but not so much that it rots, moisture is critical. Depending on the difficulty that the plant has in producing "adventitious roots", You may need a little IBA, indol butaryic acid, or rooting compound. The instructions for its use are usually found on the label. Some plants produce quickly and easily from mere untreated cuttings, such as willows. Some are nearly impossible outside the most extreme, perfect conditions such as deciduous oaks.

Make sure that you have a way to keep them watered frequently, the soil cannot completely dry, or you will lose all your hard work.Speaking of work, I have to do some now, so I will have to do this in at least two parts. Come back next time, for the second part of our continuing mini series, "Desperate homegardeners" or Sex in the garden.