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We have been gardening for five years and, as all gardeners know, propagation is the wonderful transition every gardener makes, sooner or later.   You have enjoyed planting seeds of flowering plants, snuggling in shrubs and groundcovers, and planting roses.  Now comes the time when you want more of what you have, you don't want to keep paying big bucks for them so you create them!  

So this page is dedicated to us, some new gardeners, all aspiring plant propagators.  The methods are simple, direct, and fun! Cloning plants is not only very feasible, as nursery plants can sometimes be high-priced, but very satisfying.  To take cuttings, or to take leaves of plants and coax them to grow and flourish is the ultimate accomplishment.  Planting your new 'babies' in the spring or fall, and watching them mature into wonderful creations is the highest reward!  And creating "new" varieties is almost magical!

There are countless sites dedicated to plant propagation, and many personal websites that highlight personal gardens.  Trust me, once you start visiting these sites, you will almost not want to leave your computer for the great outdoors!  But then, you will certainly want to check on your beautiful, new plants in the garden, and ensure your current 'nursery' of cuttings is moist and happy!

My very first success with rose cuttings happened this summer.  I took a cutting of my Jane Austin rose in the early summer of 1997.  I had only read about this and did not follow any technique, just took a cutting from an active branch, trimmed it, and stuck it in sand where our makeshift 'nursery' was then located, placing it beneath a larger plant for shade, and kept it moist throughout the summer.  I protected it with mulch over the winter, and actually forgot about it.  Then comes spring of 1998.  A small bush with not many leaves emerged and I casually wondered what it was.  I figured I would be able to tell later when it was larger.  About mid-season, around the end of May of 1999, I was checking on the gardens, and stopped by this little nursery.  Most everything held in the nursery had been planted elsewhere, so the morning glories and strawberries had claimed this little sand pit.  Wow, the little rose cutting had grown into a little shrub, all green and healthy!  When I checked on it that June, she had her first bloom, a perfect Jane Austin rose, light peach and fragrant with a multitude of tight petals. 

 I shrieked in delight which brought my husband running!  I could absolutely not believe it!  She was perfect, gorgeous and I cloned her!  Since then, she has four more buds ready to bloom and believe me, she is my most precious rose!   If you always remember to just meet the plant's essential needs, it will do what it was meant to do, to live and grow abundantly in grace, beauty, and charm! A word of caution here: patented roses may not be cloned.  You have to have special permission and, I believe, pay a fee for propagating the rose.  Be sure and check this out.  These also should not be sold for profit.

Click on the water lily for page 2 of Propagation

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