My addiction to plant propagation has reemerged from it’s winter slumber. It’s Spring which means it is time to get many kinds of cuttings ready for growing. It’s still early and many of the plants I’d like to propagate still don’t have adequate foliage but agastache, catmint, and salvia are ready to root! In my garden I planted two Agastache foeniculum ‘Golden Jubilee’ plants in the fall. Agastache is also known as hummingbird mint and has the square stems of other members of the mint family. If you are ever in need of an easy plant to propagate that almost never fails look for a member of the mint family!
I took several two to three node cuttings dipped them in rooting hormone and placed them in wet sand. I also added several cuttings of ‘Walker’s Low’ Catmint (<- check the link to see how to propagate catmint) to the same container. It always amazes me how little space it takes to propagate so many plants.
In addition to the agastache I also took cuttings of salvia ‘Caradonna’. ‘Caradonna’ is a beautiful purple flowering salvia with dark purple stems. I was able to fit 20 into this small cleaned out mushroom container.
How to Take Cuttings of Agastache and Salvia
The cuttings I take generally have 2 to 4 leaves at the top of the plant and are around 4 inches in height. Stem tip cuttings work very well but so do other cuttings from the stem.
For these cuttings I treated the ends with rooting hormone then placed them in a moist rooting media. In this case the media I used was sand. Almost any clean sand will work just fine. This is playground sand that I had laying around for my kid’s sandbox!
The agastache and salvia cuttings should root in about 4 weeks but could be faster or shorter depending on their growing conditions.
Results of Propagating Husker’s Red Penstemon
And here’s an update for you. I mentioned a while back about the easy way to propagate ‘Husker’s Red’ penstemon and here is the result:
I have quite a few ‘Husker’s Red’ penstemon growing all over the gardens. By making a few more extra plants I can insure that I’ll have it around. ‘Husker’s Red’ will also propagate by cuttings.
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You make it look so easy to "propagate" (just now learned the word). I will need to walk around my friends yards to see what I can find to give it a try. I obviously dont have any plants to give it a try on. Thanks for the great info. Will have to try some mint plants this year.
I love all of your propagation tips Dave. Agastache is a new plant for me this year, I started some from seed, they are up but slow…I also have one I ordered and it should be here soon. Any tips for growing them would be great.
Dave,
You are the master! I know I will be visiting this page many, many times this fall when I try to propagate my agastache (I am also trying to learn from you proper capitalization in the plant world — do you capitalize the plant only if you are including the full botanical name?)
Great propagations, Dave! Two of my favorite plants — deer proof, rabbit proof and vole proof.
Okay King of Propagation, You have convinced me to give it a try! I have read so many of your post on this method of acquiring “inexpensive” plants, but my memory is lacking. I hunted back a bit, but with a slight headache today, I don’t have the patience for hunting. I must ask a few questions that I am sure you will laugh at as you have surely mentioned this in other post. Anyway,
Question one: Where do I find Root Hormone?
Question two: Will any sand work?
Okay, stop laughing at me now and just answer my 2 silly questions 🙂
It has been a long time since I was in TN during this time of year. I was so pleased to see the Cherry Trees all over the place! It was breathtaking…
You are a thrifty gardener with all those free plants you propogate. Congrats, your new Husker's Red is looking good. 🙂
Dave, I found and picked up some root hormone. The question remaining is, what kind of sand?
The Hamiltons,
Definitely give it a try! Mint will root very easy – just be sure to keep it in a pot!
Darla,
One reason I like growing cuttings more than seed is the speed. It seems like cuttings go much faster!
Sarah,
You should try some this spring and get it established by fall. When the full botanical name is given it should be Capitalized and italicized. It's part of Bionomial nomenclature established by Linnaeus. In general lower case is fine when you aren't using the whole name.
Cameron,
Those things are so important here!
Skeeter,
I read your second comment already but for anyone else who might read this you can find rooting hormone at the big box stores or any nursery that sells garden supplies. As for sand rough builders sand is probably best but I've used play sand fine for years now! And no, those aren't silly questions!
Racquel,
I'm happy with it!
Great info Dave. I just plop them in water. That does take longer? I must try that. I'm thinking I may need to propagate a rose that my brother brought me. How do you do that?
Lola,
With roses you need to maintain the moisture. I saw one tutorial on rose propagation that used 1 gallon plastic bags with about 3 cups of medium in it. The roses were cut and treated with rooting hormone then placed in the bags. Then the bags were placed in a shady location. It's sounds very easy but I haven't tried that method yet. He also recommended to take cuttings from stems that had just finished flowering.
Thanks to you, I am going to give this a try 🙂