Free plants for your garden
I’m an avid gardener and have been for years. Various plants from our garden have made their way into my nature inspired botanical jewelry range. You can see some of these here.
I absolutely love saving money too and I’m sure you do as well. This blog is about how to get free plants from other plants. Some of your friends may even oblige and help you out with this too by giving you cuttings from their plants or shrubs.
Materials, equipment, plants:
- bottles, vases, narrow necked containers. I love using my vintage bottles for this as their colors look lovely on window sills while the cuttings are developing their roots. (Like most people who collect sea glass I have a love for old things, especially vintage bottles. You can see some of my sea glass jewelry here.)
My vintage bottles with their cuttings
- Rooting hormone (you can get away without this but it may take longer).
- Cuttings from plants. I’ve been successful with basil, rosemary, Russian sage, impatiens, fuschias of all types, succulents, African violets, geraniums, tomatoes, hydrangeas. I’ve heard you can do it with roses too.
- Potting soil (for when your cuttings have roots), pots to put them in.
Potting soil specifically for succulents, I usually use Miracle-Gro potting soil for my other cuttings that aren't succulents.
Process:
- Snip your cutting with sharp scissors, making sure you get the fleshy part of the stem and not the woody part. This helps it root easier. If you are doing a succulent, wiggle a leaf loose or snip the top off a stem that's starting to stretch out.
- Place cuttings into bottles or vases with a fair bit of the stem in water. Sometimes the cutting grows roots from the side of the stem and not just where you cut it.
- Watch the water levels and make sure you top them up. The rooting can take anything from 2 weeks to a month depending on the season.
Finishing up:
- Once the roots have grown about 1 centimeter they are ready to be planted out.
Succulent with roots ready to be laid very gently on top of the soil with the roots just into some soil so that its leaves can develop
- You can plant them into pots with potting soil or direct into the location in the garden where you want them. It’s easier to keep an eye on them from a watering point of view if they are in pots.
These fuschias made their way into a women's shelter garden that I helped establish a few year's ago. We had to get creative and establish an entire back yard with practically no money.
I hope I have inspired you to try this. It’s certainly a great way to get some new plants for your garden or container pots. If you get really successful at this method you can give friends African violets or succulents for birthday or Christmas gifts. If you think you don't have a green thumb, just give it a shot and try it. Besides you've nothing to lose, it's practically free!
Believe it or not but this gorgeous fuschia was grown from a cutting.
This one was also grown from a cutting from a friend's garden.
