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May 2007
Since now is the
time for planting seeds outside and increasing plant yields, I thought I’d
recount some of my stories about plants and seeds.
Last year I bought a very small cardamom plant from Poyntzfield nurseries.
It needed a lot of careful nurturing by my mother in its first few months.
She kept it in the kitchen with a plastic bag over it and watered it
regularly as its leaves kept going brown and looking decidedly sick if it
were left anywhere cold or in a draught. Once it was well established and
repotted, I brought it home and stuck it on the floor in front of the
south-west facing French window behind the patchouli plant. It is thriving.
A couple of months ago, I decided to try propagating it by chopping through
some side shoots and roots and giving them their own pots. I made two "new"
plants and all three never turned a hair at the violence. The mother plant
is putting up new shoots where the cuttings were taken. I probably could
have taken some more, but I didn't want to greedy!
My aloe vera plants get very long, straggly and very unseemly after several
years. I got so fed up with having to prop two of them up, I decided to chop
off the very end which still looked healthy and see if they would grow with
no root system. They did. Both are still alive and reasonably happy.
Interestingly, part of the stem of one of them was also still green, so I
stuck that in the compost as well, just to see what would happen. The leaves
on this plant section are decidedly on the way out, but it has thrown up a
completely new baby at the base, so I shall have a new plant thanks to a
stem section which I was just going to throw away.
I'm trying to grow a whole load of heel cuttings from my aunt's purple sage
plant to make new plants. Last year I harvested some leaves when she was
"otherwise engaged" and it made the best sage vinegar I have ever
encountered. The cuttings were taken with her permission, so we shall see
what happens. I've also taken some orange thyme heel cuttings and it will be
interesting to see how those turn out.
I'm always worried about losing my pineapple sage to the frosts, so this
year I over-wintered two cuttings on the kitchen windowsill. They bolted
about two feet high and both of them flowered. One plant then threw up a new
shoot at the bottom and the original stem died back. On the other plant, one
of the side shoots was losing all its side leaves, so I put the tip in water
until it rooted and then potted it. When the weather went really warm, I
repotted the two larger plants and put them all outside on the patio where
it's sunny and fairly sheltered. The fascinating thing is that all three
plants immediately shot out new leaves covering their entire main stems. Now
they look like vigorous bushy plants. (Of course the original plants
survived the winter in perfect condition and are now growing back!)
Next to the pineapple sage plants is a large pot containing a balm of Gilead
shrub (I have the tree at the Sanctuary). This plant is the first generation
seedling from the original plant which died off last winter after two years.
(Do other people keep genealogies of plants?) It was looking very straggly,
so I decided to give it a haircut at the beginning of April. There weren't
quite enough leaves to make an infused oil, but it seemed a shame just to
throw all the "branches" away, so I snapped the tips off six of them and
stuck them around the edge of one of the pineapple sage pots. Four of the
cuttings seem quite healthy and two have disappeared. This weekend I'm
intending to pot them up, so I shall have four new plants -again from
material I was just going to throw on the compost heap.
Interestingly, I have taken both a pineapple sage and a balm of Gilead
seedling into work as I was trying to develop a selection of perfumed herbs
on my windowsill to help with stress. Both died because they weren't watered
over a holiday, so I shan't repeat the experiment. I now have six African
violets instead which bloom regularly and make me feel happy!
My last story is one which has made me laugh. Four weeks ago I planted some
runner bean seeds from plants I grew last year and some butter bean seeds in
ordinary soil - hoping to grow a “three sisters” garden this year. Two
runner beans emerged followed by two of the butter bean seedlings (I
think!). In one of the other pots some large leaves emerged which looked
vaguely familiar but I didn't consciously put a name to them. I had to laugh
when I realised they were milk thistle seedlings yet the soil came from part
of the garden where no milk thistle plants have grown in the past and I know
I didn't plant any seeds in those pots! |
