Ya'll are inspiriing me to try propagating again... I'm having a tough time settling down to seeds when this is so much easier.... sometimes, lol.

When I'm doing a lot of propagating I have to set everyhting up, yada yada...but it's so much easier for m just to stick some cuttings in a glass of water in the kitchen, so if it'll root in water, that's the way I go. I've never had problems with the roots transitioning to soil.....

I'm rooting cuttings of a Phlox called 'Wanda.' It is awesome. It even blooms while rooting in water. If you don't have that plant, get one!

Any idea which mail order nurseries carry phlox 'Wanda'? I can't find it locally.

Maybe someone on this thread would know. I didn't find in either plant database I checked.

The thread "Phlox 'Wanda'" in Perennials forum

Thanks Rick, I'll post there and see if anyone knows how I can get my hands on it.

Just curious what propagation experiments are lurking out there as folks anxiously await spring...? Since last checking in here, I harvested almost every Coleus, Perilla, Persian shield branch in the yard, so the window sills are full of those cuttings in bottles and jars. The most recent plants to suffer multiplication attempts here... Portulacaria afra, Thanksgiving cactus, individual succulent leaves, various cane Begonias, Tradescantia pallida & zebrina & spathacea.

Then there's a bunch of unrooted succulent "pieces" I got in trade a couple weeks ago, Sedums, some African violet leaves, Haworthias, Sempervivums, Aloe, Streptocarpella, a couple different Rhipsalis, really cool tiny plants - or will be I'm sure.

There are heart-leaf Philodendron vines sticking to and yes, literally climbing the walls. Maybe that's where that cliché comes from? Smart plants, going toward the door. I don't think it shows in the pic, but some of these roots are firmly attached to the wall, especially the vine in the middle.



More wall-climbing Philo:



This pot of T. pallida is getting really stuffed from being continually broken and repropagated all winter.



Sans pups must escape!



Dracaena marginata that never got moved from a cup of water.



Some Callisia fragrans flowers, wish everyone could smell these!



Cuttings I got in trade (not the pots, just the plants.)

Hi there Purple!

I'm mostly a food-grower, so rooting in my windowsill now are Romaine lettuce, celery, spring onions (OK, they already had roots, but still do best if put them in water for a while before planting), and pineapples, all from grocery store leftovers. Free food always seems to taste best to me

I've propagated rosemary by putting an 8-12" branch into a 1 gallon pot of soil, buried about halfway. I pinch the very top so that the new growth will branch, strip off all the leaves that would be below the soil, and dust with rooting hormone. It takes a couple months to start putting on new growth, and you almost want to give up, but I've had 100% survival with this method and enough patience. Rosemary has rotted on me when I've tried to root it in water with rooting hormone.

I'm curious for pointers on Christmas cactus (thinking it's similar to your Thanksgiving cactus, but I see JB has done it too). There's a gorgeous one in the building where I work, and I could probably sneak a piece without anyone noticing.

Thanks for the tips on the Rosemary tips! My Mom's huge shrub has plenty of material to try again. I will when it's a little warmer out there.

Free food DOES rock! Ever plant carrot tops and/or celery stumps? Potato eyes? My son loves these experiments. I think if we did it at the right time, whenever that is, we'd get some food from it. Lots of cool foliage so far though, which has given itself back to the soil. I'm still kinda clueless growing veggies down here (I'm from OH until a few years ago.)

Yes, you should be able to get a plant from a borrowed section of the office plant. When you remove it, twist it until it lets go. Laying on the surface like this, it's cool to watch the roots come out and go down into the soil.

Just lay them on the soil?! That seems foolproof enough. Do you know if they typically bloom the first year from cuttings?

Yep, I have a celery stump in my windowsill now... no roots, but plenty of top growth, so I'm optimistic for it. Potatoes are still in the dark, growing out their eyes for a few weeks before planting time, and I'm about to start some sweet potato slips.

I haven't planted carrot tops - I thought they'd go to flower rather than put on a new root, but that might be an experiment worth trying. I start my carrots from seed, and they are fairly slow to mature... getting to harvestable size quickly is one of the main things I like about non-seed propagation for veggies.

We're in a similar zone despite being so far apart, so feel free to ask if you have veggie-growing questions. I love growing in zone 8 - just enough chill for most plants that need it, but mild enough to grow food 12 months a year without huge efforts of protection. I'm on the Edibles forum, and will happily answer tree-mails

Thanks, your generously shared info is appreciated! Do you find that growing some things in a lot of shade when it's a little too hot helps some? My tomatoes never did croak last year until frost. Did well on lettuce and spinach the year before. I'm really excited about veggies this year. I think the soil is finally getting good, will see...

I hope someone else will come in about how these progress. I'm pretty new to them myself, but am having a great time with these cuttings that go so fast with the visible roots. Here's the same pot, the first pic was from 2/9. It's been so cloudy here lately, I think they would be doing even more if there had been more sun for the same amount of time, and I may be erring on the side of caution by not watering often enough.



A lop-sided pot with pieces added to the naked side:



Some pieces in another lop-sided pot:

Shade works well for leafy plants in the hot weather, but generally not for fruiting or root veggies. Lettuce goes into full shade in May, and even so I have to stop harvesting by July because it gets bitter, and then it's replaced by more heat tolerant greens - Swiss chard grows 12 months a year for me, and Malabar spinach is a tropical that can take a lot of heat. With light frost protection, I can grow lettuce and spinach over winter, as well as many herbs, while most alliums and brassicas don't even need covering. Plants that really love the sticky southern summer include a lot of traditional southern cuisine favorites - sweet potatoes (I grow them in large bins to save the effort of digging them up), peppers, okra, zucchini, and melons. Tomatoes do OK here - I don't get the intense heat that keeps people from growing them in the far south in summer (not sure about your area, but places like Texas can't do midsummer tomatoes), but they tend to be disease-prone in my garden.

This is getting pretty far from the topic of propagation, so we should probably continue the conversation elsewhere. I run a Cubit site on urban farming if you want to chat there (it's been quiet lately, but I'll respond to new posts), or else we could start a topic in the Edibles and Preserving forum. I could talk veggies all day, but don't want to step on the toes of the folks here to read about propagation.

Hi Bit, I like the blue hair, several years ago I did a summer of Pink hair!! Would show a photo but that's for somewhere else too I guess!
Purple, and Bit - I've found any of those Thanksgiving, or Christmas type cactus are very easy to propagate, one thing I'd say is to place the leaf (stalk) on moist soil, not wet, just moist and then don't water until you see a good amount of roots! As soon as you see roots you can plant it, and water as usual.
I went to a seminar last friday (Pacific northwest's Flower and garden show) and the presenter said that well established, pot bound cactus like this could easily bloom several times per year, maybe even having some blooms on the plant all year round! Hasn't happened with mine yet!
I had 2 raised veggie beds in my apartment building's south facing yard, but no one helped me to care for them, and I felt like I was having to water all the time!! So this past autumn as I was taking out the tomatoes, which didn't do great, but not poorly, I decided to make these beds Sempervivum beds (hens and chicks) and now I'm obsessed with these little plants, I had no idea there was such a variety!!
Avoid the Sempervivum forum unless you want to become an addict!
Cheers

Thanks for the tips, Greg! (I just did a double-take - your surname is one letter different from a Greg I know offline.)

One question, when you say "As soon as you see roots you can plant it, and water as usual.", I'm not sure what you mean... if the cutting is laying on top of the soil, its new roots will grow down into the soil... so what do I need to plant? Do you pile soil up to cover the roots, or something more? Sorry if this is a silly question... I'm a novice at growing things I can't eat

The one at my work has been blooming nonstop since I started in November... I won't be surprised if it is a year-round bloomer, though I know any plant I start off of it will take a while to get to that state.

I've always thought hens and chicks are adorable, but don't have any in my garden. I'm slowly expanding my collection of succulent, easy-to-propagate houseplants - I have Aloe, Kalanchoe, Hoya and hopefully soon a Christmas cactus... maybe some Sempervivums will find their way in one day

Bit, you're right I was unclear...I usually use the same large pot for all my succulent cuttings, so don't plant in that pot. The roots may grow along the surface of the soil, if you're going to be using that same pot to plant you can lift the cutting up and plant it, once there are long enough roots (I hope this makes more sense!) Also, I lied, here is my photo of pink hair! And finally, hens and chicks look great in a veggie bed!

Here is a mini vertical green wall that I'm working on!

Cheers

Love the hair! I've done pink, but don't pull it off as well as you - too rosy a complexion (well, when I'm not masquerading as chard), so it all blends together

Thanks for clearing that up about the roots. I won't be starting a lot of cuttings at once, so I think I'll try to keep it in one pot, but I can pull it out and rebury it if the roots seem not to be going downward.

That's a great Sempervivum bed! So many colors! What are your plans for the stone face? With that chicken wire veil, it almost looks like it's waiting for a climbing plant to decorate it.

I like your avatar photo by the way...you do chard well! I'm not sure, I sort of like having it show as it is, since its concrete and bright...and it makes the whole thing look sarcophagus ish, which I like...these are mostly all semps of different types so there's lots of colors! I never knew they came in so many colors until being on here starting last Nov. so I've been semp obsessed since a bit before then, I thought I'd get onto ATP and get some winterizing suggestions for the semps I had, and next thing I know, I'm going coo coo!! Anyway, fun to meet you Bit, and we know where to find each other, me in succulents and semps, you in edibles!
Cheers

Ooo, Greg - I can see your roots. No, the other ones!

Hey Bit bit - long time no see! Glad to see you're still blue, lol.

I'm trying to get back into propagating, especially succulents (which everyone says is super easy, so of course, I pretty much suck at it). Slowly but surely trying to get my collection back up after a set-back when I moved back to Phoenix, AZ from Tennessee.

More soon!

Funny Sheryl! One thing I do is keep trying different types until I find one that likes my living conditions! And then one can propagate lots of the same things, but have success!
Cheers

>grin<

Try and always leave 'em laughing....

Anywho, your sarcophagus is lovely, you goth, you. How many different types do you have in there?