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Soil, Nutrients & Composting | Plant Propagation

 

It All Begins With the Soil

Great gardens begin with great soil. Most folks don’t start with ideal soil when they purchase a new property or decide to try gardening for the first time. Too sandy, too clayey, too shallow, too hard and dry, you name it and we gardeners have dealt with it on more that one occasion.

Here in central Texas a few folks enjoy the benefits of a deep, alluvial soil alongside a river or creek. Others fight the black clay that holds water like a fish bowl when it rains, but dries like concrete when it doesn’t. In summer giant cracks appear large enough to lose a small child playing out in the yard.

Still other gardeners, especially in the western parts of the area, have large rock outcroppings on which only a thin layer of soil remains. These soils lack the depth to hold much water and are prone to drought. There are plants that are designed to grow in such conditions, but most of our garden and landscape plants and turfgrasses are not adapted to such stressful conditions. You might as well spread a 4 inch layer of potting soil on the driveway and try to grow a lawn or flower bed on that thin layer…good luck and you better have a water hose nearby.

The good news is that you need not settle for your lot in life! You can improve your soil and over time turn that parched patch of earth into a Garden of Eden. Most gardeners get it backwards. They buy plants and then come home and look for a place to put them. We should prepare the soil first and then those plants we spent our hard earned cash on will thrive and provide the produce, blooms or other aesthetic benefits we hoped for.

Spend a dollar on your soil before you spend a dollar on your plants and you’ll save money in the long run and have a much better garden to show for it. This section of the website provides information on soil testing, soil nutrients, fertilizing, and ways to make and use composted organic matter to grow a better soil, season after season. So dive in and get the real dirt on building better soil.

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Multiply Your Plants

Propagation is a means of multiplying a plant into many more of the same type. The most common method is by collecting and planting seeds. This is referred to as sexual propagation since the pollen from one plant pollinates the female flower structures of the same plant or another plant of the same species thus creating a living seed.

Another means of propagation called asexual because no pollination is involved, but instead a section of one plant is removed and rooted to start a new plant. Examples of asexual propagation are stem cuttings, leaf bud cuttings, air layering, and tissue culture.

Grafting and budding involve removing a section from one plant and attaching it to another. This removed plant section is called a bud or scion and the plant onto which it is placed is referred to as the rootstock. The scion or bud grows to form the main structure of the new plant. It is chosen because it possesses certain desirable characteristics such as fruit size or quality, bloom size or color, or foliage qualities. The rootstock is often chosen for its ability to tolerate specific soil characteristics, resist disease or insect problems, or give a dwarfing effect to the growth of the scion.

Seed propagation usually results in a new plant that is similar but not identical to the parent plant(s). With asexual propagation the offspring is identical to the parent plant. The juvenile stage which seedlings go through before they are mature enough to bloom or bear fruit is bypassed with cuttings and grafting which is another desirable effect.

While propagation sounds complicated or difficult it is in fact quite simple. There are a number of different techniques which gardeners can use to propagate various plants. This section of the website provides how to information on how to multiply your plants. I must warn you though that propagation is addictive. You will soon find yourself driving through the neighborhood eyeing certain plants that you would like to propagate for your own landscape. Gardening friends will learn to “frisk” your pockets for seeds and cuttings before you leave after a visit to their landscape!

I should point out before turning you loose on the gardening world with this newfound knowledge and skill that some plant materials are patented and may not be propagated and sold without permission and payment of royalty fees to the owner.

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