Propagation: Notes From a Country Garden

We learned about five years ago how to propagate plants. I had always known how to put starts in water to root them. That works well with wandering jew, ivy, and coleus. Then we tried stem cuttings. This has been very successful with geraniums. Last Sunday was propagating day in the greenhouse. This year we also tried it with fuchsias and begonias.

Find a healthy stem cutting off the plant.

Dip the end of the stem in root hormone powder (found in any garden department of a store).

Place it in a small pot with potting mix added.

You can place a little plastic tent over it to create a little greenhouse. In the spring we don't find this necessary. We placed each plant in a sunny window.

Watch it and keep the water moist.

When it forms roots, move it to a bigger pot.

I especially like to do propagating of variegated varieties of geraniums that I enjoyed the season before. I also have success with scented geraniums.

A good resource book I find helpful is Seeds and Propagation by Susan McClure, from the Hands-On Gardener series by Smith and Hawkin.

Lily followed me around the greenhouse Sunday afternoon and was my little helper.

Celebrating National Poetry Month: #8

When I Am Asked

When I am asked
how I began writing poems,
I talk about the indifference of nature.

It was soon after my mother died,
a brilliant June day,
everything blooming.

I sat on a gray stone bench
in a lovingly planted garden,
but the day lilies were as deaf
as the ears of drunken sleepers
and the roses curved inward.
Nothing was black or broken
and not a leaf fell
and the sun blared endless commercials
for summer holidays.

I sat on a gray stone bench
ringed with the ingenue faces
of pink and white impatiens
and placed my grief
in the mouth of language,
the only thing that would grieve with me.

Lisel Mueller, “When I Am Asked” from Alive Together. Copyright © 1996 by Lisel Mueller.