How to take cuttings of tender perennials
TAKE cuttings of tender perennials now, and you can make sure your favourite plants will live on next year even if the parent plant doesn’t survive winter.
Colourful salvias, fuchsias and penstemons are all prime candidates, as are verbena, diascia, osteospermums and phygelius.
Cuttings taken in late autumn are called semi-ripe cuttings, and those taken in spring are softwood cuttings, but they are essentially both the same methods.
Take a clean pruning knife or secateurs and a clean plastic bag into your garden early in the morning when the plants are fully hydrated, and cut a non-flowering shoot just below a leaf node then put it in your bag while you make more cuttings.
Always choose a healthy stem and include at least three sets of leaves on each cutting, although the lower leaves can be stripped off to make it easier to insert into the pot.
Make sure the cuttings don’t touch, because you need plenty of air to circulate to avoid fungal diseases
It is the leaf nodes that are important, rather than the leaves, because this is where the plant’s hormones will get to work to produce new roots.
That’s why it’s always worth dipping the bottom of the cutting in rooting powder or liquid to increase the number of hormones working on the node, but if you don’t have any the chances of success are still good.
Fill a large pot with compost and push three to five cuttings around the edge, depending on the size of the pot.
A slight grazing of the stem stimulates new growth, as the plant’s hormones rush to repair the damage, but this only works properly if the cutting is new so get it into the compost as soon as you can.
Make sure the cuttings don’t touch, because you need plenty of air to circulate to avoid fungal diseases.
Then water them gently and put a clear plastic bag over the pot to create a warm, moist environment and put the pot somewhere with plenty of light but not in direct sunshine.
Take the bag off to let in air if it looks too humid inside, and don’t let the bag touch any leaves or they will just rot.
Often the cuttings will grow just as well without a plastic bag as long as they are kept in a warm, light position and the compost remains moist but not wet.
Take lots of cuttings, because you are unlikely to have 100 per cent success, and don’t limit yourself to tender perennials if you have spotted something else you like growing in your friend’s garden.
Just make sure you take those cuttings soon – before the end of September at the latest – to give rooted cuttings time to get established before winter.
Repot them into individual pots once you can see signs of growth, then keep tender perennials inside and hardy perennials somewhere sheltered outside until the risk of frosts is over.
By the time you are taking softwood cuttings next April they will be ready to go into bigger pots, and can be planted into borders once they are big enough to survive being nibbled by slugs and snails.
