It is not necessary to buy new plants from the nursery every time, you can clone your own plants at home by vegetative propagation which means growing plants using methods that has nothing to do with growing from seeds.
There are many ways to reproduce another plant or grow an offspring from the mother perennial plant that you love.
Some of these propagation methods are tried & tested by me but few I have yet to experience.
Division
This is probably the easiest way to multiply what you already have in the garden. So look around your garden and see what you have that you can dug out and rip apart and pop them elsewhere in the garden.
Take a fork or a shovel & pop out the whole clump and separate them into smaller sections & you can pot them up or directly pop it into the ground.
Not only division is an easy way to multiply your plants but some plants also benefit from division as you don’t want them to be overcrowded and fight for nutrients, water and sunlight.
Examples to try with are Aloe Vera , peace lily or anything that grows in clumps.
The ideal time for division is early spring before everything starts to grow so we don’t damage the new fresh growth.
Cuttings
This is the most commonly used method.
Take a cutting from an established plant , preferably a soft hardwood cutting, should be approximately 6 inches and try to take a cutting that has atleast 4 nodes ( this is the place or the bumpy parts from where the new leaves emerge) from the top leaves.
You need to make a clean cut under the 4th node and remove the extra lower leaves leaving a few on the top.
Keep the cuttings moist in a container with wet towel because if they dry , they are no good.
We can use rooting hormone to dip the cutting and if you don’t have one you can try turmeric instead.
Make a hole in the media or soil and put the cutting in , try not to move too much. Keep it in a shaded area for a few days slowly acclimating to full sun.
Now water and wait to see new growth which could take days or months depending on the plants.
For plants like mint and basil , you can put them in water and let it root before you plant them in soil but the above method is best for woodier cuttings.
I personally tried this method with Moringa, Cuban oregano, Bougainvillea
Grafting
This method I have personally not tried but essentially what you are doing is taking different parts of different plants and you’re trying to fuse them together so they grow as one plant.
In order for grafting to be successful, you have to make sure that the scion or any of the upper parts that you are using to fuse onto a root stalk are compatible.
Grafting method is used so you can get some of the best quality or variety of fruits that you want to grow.
Best time for grafting is when the plant is still dormant.
Layering
In this method we are trying to get the parent plant push out roots in the section that we want to turn out into a new plant.
Layering is the easiest to try if you have plants that are growing tall branches and are bending towards the ground , you can let the tall branch touch the soil and put some weight like a stone , basically you want the branch to have consistent contact with the soil and after a month or so you will see roots emerging from the part that is touching the soil and then you can cut from there and you have a new baby plant. We can also scratch the point from where the branch touches the soil just to wound a little bit and cut after the roots emerge from there.
Not all plants will respond from layering but no harm in experimenting with hardly any efforts.
Try all of the above methods if you want to fill up your space in the garden cost effectively.
