thevictoriangardener

Dienstag, 1. August 2017

Gardener´s Propagation Week August 2017: Some rose cuttings in bloom!

Dear readers,

it is gardener´s propagation week August and I´d like to show you some more of my rose cuttings. In July I already shared some pictures of rose cuttings that were in bloom at the time. Not all cuttings flowered back then - three cuttings surprised me with some blooms in late July and I would like to share them with you now. The rose cuttings blooming are from cuttings I took last year. Almost all of the cuttings that rooted and survived the winter bloomed this year. I think only two didn´t. So if you take rose cuttings yourself, you can expect them to bloom the following year, which I think is great.

I took some rose cuttings again this year. Unfortunately my success rate is still pretty low-only about 10 percent of the cuttings I take survive. During my garden vacation in England I got to know a woman, who also propagates roses from cuttings and her success rate is about 90 percent. Isn´t that amazing?! However, she does not put the cuttings into pots as I mostly do, but sticks them directly into the ground in her garden.

I also tried myself in propagating pelargoniums for the first time two weeks ago and it seems very easy. The pelargonium cutting I took rooted in only one week, which was quite a surprise for me. I wonder if you dear readers propagated anything recently? As always, I´d like to encourage you to participate in Gardener´s Propagation week by writing a post on plant propagation this week or you could also tell me which plants you propagate at the moment in the comments.

Have a great week!

Lisa

P.S.: If you´d like to see more pictures of rose cuttings in flower, click on following link: https://thevictoriangardener.blogspot.co.at/2017/05/gardeners-propagation-week-june-2017-my.html

Rose No 5: I think this rose could be rosa le vesuve. Soon after the bloom you see in the picture had wilted, the rose produced a new bud and I am waiting for it to open at the moment.

Rose No 5

Rose No 6

Rose No 7

I took some rose cuttings again this year and as you can see in this picture, some cuttings have rooted. Unfortunately, like last year, most of the cuttings die before producing any roots.

I like to plant the cuttings in plastic cups, so that I can see wether they have rooted already or not.

I also tried myself in propagating pelargoniums. I was surprised how easy it is. The cutting rooted after just a week.

Samstag, 1. Juli 2017

Gardener´s Propagation week July 2017: Hydrangea Cuttings

Dear readers,

it is gardener´s propagation week July and in my post I´d like to show you how I take cuttings from my hydrangeas. I tried myself in taking hydrangea cuttings for the first time last year and it seems pretty easy. The two cuttings from last year developed roots very quickly and have grown into little plants already. One of the cuttings has even been blooming this year. Compared to rose cuttings, my success with hydrangeas was much higher. Whereas, rose cuttings seem to likely rot before they develop any roots, hydrangea cuttings don´t seem prone to rotting. Please participate in Gardener´s Propagation week by writing a post about plants you propagate. Please share the link of your post in the comments.
Have a lovely week!
Best wishes,
Lisa

If you would like to try yourself in propagating hydrangeas, all you have to do is take a cutting, which is about 10 cm long, cut the cutting´s leaves in half, stick the cutting into some rooting powder and finally in a small pot filled with moist sowing soil. Finally put a plastic bag over the cutting. If you´re lucky the hydrangea will develop roots and might already bloom next year.

In the following pictures you can see my two hydrangea cuttings from last year. I planted them in one container, but since they have been growing so much I will probably put each of them in their own container. Regarding winter hardiness, even as small cuttings they seem to be as hardy as the mother plant. I had the cuttings outside all winter and although we had an extremely cold winter the cuttings survived without problems. One of the cuttings already produced three blooms as you can see in the pictures. The other cutting is growing vigorously instead of producing blooms, but I am sure next year it will bloom as well.

Donnerstag, 22. Juni 2017

My borders

Dear readers,

in-between my posts on beautiful English gardens I´d like to post some pictures of my own garden today. I was very busy before my holiday and thus haven´t yet posted most of the pictures I had taken of my new borders. When I took over my parent´s allotment garden last year, I created two borders in the garden last September. In the beginning they looked a bit sad and my parents were teasing me, telling me my borders looked like graves. Nevertheless, I had the feeling that the borders would look nice after the plants established a bit. I have already been enjoying the borders in March and April this year when my bulbs were blooming, but of course I was most excited to finally see the roses, peonies, catmint, lavender and many more plants in bloom. When I planted the plants in September last year they were´t flowering anymore and I had to imagine which colour and plant combinations might look nice together and it was lovely to finally see the result this year. I chose different tones of pink, whites, purples and blues and I am very pleased with how the borders turned out. I also tried to include bee friendly plants, which seemed to have worked out too as there are many bees and other insects buzzing around the borders. I am especially happy with the alliums and the catmint. The roses seem fine too and I imagine that they will look even better as they establish into larger plants. However, what I am still pondering about is how I could prolong the season of interest. In late May and the beginning of June so many plants were in bloom and thus I was very pleased with the borders (the pictures are taken at that time). However, now that most roses stopped blooming, the borders are of course not as interesting and colorful anymore. I put some dahlias into the beds and I also have some cosmos and sweet peas which will hopefully bloom till autumn, some roses will repeat flowering and I hope the catmint will do the same, but still I am not sure how everything will turn out and I am thus excited to see how the borders will look throughout the year.I will post about them again. However, for now, enjoy the May and June pictures of the borders!

Best wishes,

Lisa