We planted seeds and made cuttings. It was part learning day and part club service, since we are required to propagate 10 plants for the Master Garden Tour plant sale.
Just like in the fiber hobbies, the prospect of getting the raw materials for free made people a little crazy! When the teacher brought out this huge basket of seeds and said that we could choose any seeds we wanted to try AND we could take some seeds home, it created a frenzy! A group of 40 adults all crowded around the table trying to get some goodies before they were gone!
Now, think about it. Have you ever bought a seed packet? Even the fanciest packages are less than $5. Most of them are something like $1.49 and contain dozens, sometimes hundreds of seeds. But somehow, the idea of a few free seed packets if you just got up there before they were all gone... And, as the teacher reminded us, even if someone else got the package that you wanted, seeds are great to share! The package ALWAYS has more than you would want to use. (She spoke with experience, telling us of her seed greed when she planted so many seeds that she had to spend 3-4 hours each night for a week transplanting the hundreds of seedlings in to pots!) She even brought little envelopes for us to take a few of what we wanted and leave the rest of the package for someone else to share. I have to say, I don't think it changed our behavior!
In fact, when it came to the cuttings, the same thing happened. But someone who was crabby (a 7 hour class is seeming to do that to some of my fellow students!), loudly suggested that we go up to get our cuttings table by table. Well, by the time the last table went up, the teacher had to implore us to cut our cuttings into small pieces for planting and bring back what we didn't need. "You only need one node under ground and 3-4 leaves," she kept saying. They finally did get enough cuttings for the last table. But once again, it was amazing to see the frenzy for something that any one of us could get for free just by taking our pruners the next time we went on a walk, or trading yard waste with one of our gardening neighbors. But you should have seen the frenzy!
So, what did I plant? Here is the list, with pictures of examples. By seed I planted
Agastache foeniculum, "anise hyssop,"
Melianthus major, "honey bush,"
and what she started us all off with, Dolichos lablab 'Ruby Moon,' "scarlet runner bean"
My cuttings are:salvia (she thought salvia bicolor and I can't find a picture that matches what they look like we will both have to wait and see what they look like when they grow!), a fuschia paniculata
and a stachys that I think she said would have apricot flowers-maybe stachys coccinea
Right now all I have is dirt in pots and dirt with sticks in pots. (Ok, it's really not dirt. It is seed mix and cutting mix). I will post pictures of my success/failure as a plant propagator in a few weeks!Almost forgot! I continued my raffle winning streak by winning a gardening pin with some seed packs and an aeonium that looks something like this:
Last week I won a houseplant and three little starts of lamium (a ground cover plant with silver and purple in its leaves). $10 spent on tickets and 4 great prizes!
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