Free Plants: Starting shrubs from healthy clippings

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A newspaper ad about a house that was being torn down has lead to a new project, starting shrubs from clippings. I went for interesting wood and any salvageable stone, banisters or windows. I must admit I found some interesting items.

Wonderful bushes that were going to be destroyed also surrounded the house. I thought about digging them up but hauling them would be a lot of work so I asked if I could clip them before the house came down.

My plan was to start small shrubs with cutting and liquid growth hormone. These shrubs will take a new to get to a useable size. I will plant some near the house and in the perennial garden area and the rest I will sell.

Yesterday I took up 15 plastic bags and went to work. There were azaleas, two varieties of rhododendrons, weeping cherry, Yew, a low evergreen pine ground cover and a shrub that I will identify later today with the use of my catalogs or local greenhouse.

I started by clipping off healthy green growth on the shrubs in sections that were six to eight inches long. I put the clipping into different bags for each type of bush. I collected 10 bags in total and figure this will start around 1000 shrubs.

Tonight I assembled my planting beds. They are made of salvaged wood and are 12 inches wide by twenty inches long and 4 inches deep. I filled them with left over sand from when the swimming pool went in. So far I have no additional money for my project. But I needed liquid growth hormone and found some at Wal-Mart on sale for $5. This will be more than enough for the project.

Tomorrow I will strip down the cutting and start on the first step for getting the cutting growing. Check back to see how this project develops. Clippings take about 3 month to develop nice sized roots so this is a late fall and early winter project.

Tags: free plants, start your own plants from cuttings

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 6:22 am and is filed under gardening tips, raised bed gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.