Spring is a great time for what? PERENNIAL PLANT PROPAGATION! OK, I get excited about making new plants and I wanted to share a little of what I've been working on in the garden. Spring really is a great time to take cuttings of your perennials, in fact it might be the best time. If you have never tried propagating a plant perennials are a great place to start. They root very fast and will give you an instant sense of satisfaction of doing something amazing! If you would like to read up on how to propagate plants through cuttings take a look at one of my previous posts: The Basics of Cuttings.
Here's what I've been working on:
Salvia nemorosa ('Caradonna' and East Friesland')
About a week or so ago I took cuttings of two kinds of Salvia nemorosa, 'Caradonna' and 'East Freisland'. I took internodal cuttings (which means between the nodes, crazy right?) that were about 3 inches long with 2-4 leaves each. I applied rooting hormone to the cut end of the stems and stuck them in a container of sand and watered. After 7-10 days they have all rooted. I put six of them into pots but the other 9 are waiting until I have time to put them in their new homes. (Look here for an updated tutorial on How to Propagate Salvia from Cuttings)
I couldn't resist adding some more salvia so I made 7 cuttings of our 'May night' Salvia nemorosa. If you find a long stem you can make it into two or more cuttings by making your cuts just above one of the leaf nodes so that each cutting has a pair of leaves.
Perovskia atriplicifolia (Russian sage)
Just recently I took 9 cuttings of our 'Longin' Russian Sage (the one without the plant patent) and placed them in a small sand filled container. Russian sage is deer resistant and does well in Tennessee.
Echinacea purpurea (Coneflower)
I also took some cuttings of a coneflower. It was a discount plant last summer and didn't have a good label on it. I took a basal stem cuttings of the coneflower.
That makes 15 salvias rooted, 7 more salvias started, 9 Russian sages started, and 6 coneflowers started. Believe it or not I can probably use all these plants (and more) somewhere in our garden!
For more on plant propagation check out this posts: Plant Propagation for Home Gardens. Also I highly recommend the book below. I've used affiliate links to Amazon but I have used this book for several years and find it a valuable resource for my plant propagation addiction!
