Seed catalogs provide glimpse at winter’s end Plant propagation an area worthy of studying

Is it possible to receive too many seed catalogs? I think not! They’ve been arriving since mid-December and have been amassing in a basket beside my desk. Squirreling away seed catalogs is like banking comfort for those long winter evenings when nothing is quite as satisfying as fancying a summer’s garden through lush, sensuously illustrated catalogs.

Seed catalogs sell hope, really. They arrive at a time of year when the landscape is gray and relatively barren. They allow us for a time to forget – or better still, see beyond – the seasonal lifelessness to a period of greater abundance, hope and liveliness. In this season of nature’s rest and dormancy, our attention can be easily turned to propagating, multiplying, being fruitful.

Technically speaking, growing plants from seed is considered sexual propagation. But that’s not the only way to mass-produce plants for the home garden. Asexual propagation – multiplication of plants through stem, leaf or root cutting, division and layering – may be a gardening task easily undertaken during the growing season.

Successfully propagating any plant, whether through sexual or asexual means, requires a certain amount of knowledge about the unique needs of individual plants. For the scientist, plant propagation can be a complex study of the interactions between the growing environment and the internal physical and chemical makeup of seeds, plant tissues and growing media. It can be an involved and intricate process that requires mechanical and technical manipulation of plant material and the growing environment to result in healthy offspring of a particular plant.

Perhaps there is no need for the home gardener to get mired in the complexities of modern plant propagation, but the study of multiplying plants certainly is interesting and has progressed rapidly over the past century. When propagating plants, we don’t usually think about what is happening on a cellular level in our plants. Certainly, as gardeners, we benefit in innumerable ways from increased technology made available as a result of the commercial horticulture industry. If nothing else, technical information, media and equipment tailored to the needs of gardeners makes propagating seeds and cuttings relatively easy.

Starting herbaceous plants from seed may be a bit less involved than starting our favorite shrubs from cuttings, but don’t be intimidated from undertaking the task. Plants grown from seed show traits from the mother plant and the plant that pollinated the mother plant. Thus, sexual propagation introduces a new set of attributes to each offspring. Comparatively, asexual propagation – propagating plants from cutting, for example – has clear differences. First, the offspring will result in a genetically identical plant as the parent. Second, in many cases, growing plants from cuttings will more quickly produce a specimen that is of an appropriate transplanting size.

Of all shrubs, perhaps the most sought after is the rose. In fact, recently a reader wrote to ask about propagating roses from cuttings. While volumes have been written on the topic, for gardening purposes, the process can be pared down to a few simple steps.

When growth starts in spring, softwood cuttings may be obtained from the parent plant. Softwood cuttings are 4- to 6-inch clippings of the current season’s growth, and may be taken from early spring to late summer. Only healthy, disease- and insect-free plant material should be used. Cuttings are inserted into a well-drained growing medium comprised of perlite, vermiculite or a very light peat-perlite-vermiculite combination. Cuttings should be misted with a spray bottle and kept damp, not soaking. Air circulation around the stems should be maintained, but the cuttings shouldn’t be allowed to completely dry out.

Rooting should begin within two weeks. When adequate root development has taken form, the cuttings can be placed in their permanent location or can be “lined-out” in the garden, as a commercial nursery would do, until a more mature specimen has developed.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, RR1, Box 2120, Montville 04941, or e-mail them to dianagc@ctel.net. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.