BEDDING PLANTS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 115, 8 February 1935, Page 18

BEDDING PLANTS

For Next Year To ensure sufficient stock for filling the flower beds next summer, begin propagating the various plants by cuttings now. These should be taken from partly-ripened shoots of the current season’s growth, as such will be fairly firm. With most bedding plants, cuttings are nodal; i.e., the shoot is taken off just below a node or j.oint. But antirrhinum, fuchsia, and pentstemon are best propagated by “heel” cuttings, the term indciating shoots pulled off with a piece of the parent bark, and trimmed neatly to form a good heel. In eithef case, firm, short-jointed cuttings are always to be chosen, for when the growth-is soft decay is liable to set in while rooting is in progress. The length of qach cutting should be about three inches. The cuttings should then be inserted round the sides of small pots, for in this position they get more air than in the middle, and the roots are induced to push downward rather than spread outward. Firm insertion is necessary. All clay soils should be avoided, as this presents too much resistance to growth of fragile rootlets and its particles are so small and so closely knit that there is no space between them for the air which roots require. A reliable compost may be made up of old cucumber bed soil, dried a little, then chopped up, sifted and mixed with a liberal quantity of sand. When inserting the cuttings see that they are not suspended in the hole: in other words, do not leave an air-pocket between the base of the cutting and the compost below. If a little sand is first dropped in the hole and the base of the cutting rested on this, the danger will be avoided. When all have been put in. give each pot a good watering through a rosed can, then place the pots iu the frame, keeping this closed affd shaded for a few weeks. The following table shows what cuttings to take and how to root them:—