Millie propagates some of her favourite native plants and gives us some good tips for keeping cuttings happy in cool weather. Subscribe 🔔 http://ab.co/GA-subscribe
Millie gets stuck into some autumn propagation of a couple of native species. Propagation is rewarding anytime, but in late summer and autumn, you can get lots of plants for very little work! In the warmer months, cuttings will form roots quickly, but they also require more attention, so if you’re a lazy (or busy!) gardener, the milder weather can be a winner.
Sowing Violet Seeds:
Millie is trying to establish a hedge of the native tree violet, Melicytus dentatus, a thorny, multi-stemmed shrub with fragrant winter flowers, followed by a small purple berry. It is great habitat plant and hopefully a great hedge, but in the dry and shaded position it’s in, it has been a slow grower. To fill it out more quickly, she wants to halve the spacings to about 30cm between plants which means she needs more plants!
You can propagate tree violet from cuttings, but she is keen to experiment with growing it from seed.
The fruit are small berries, so to extract the seed you need to clean the flesh off. Fleshy berries can also contain germination inhibitors, which need to be removed. In nature, this would happen as the fruit passes through a bird or blue tongue’s gut or rotted on the ground, so you need to fake it.
Soak the seed in soapy water for a few days and then remove the pulp by pressing into a sieve and rinse well.
Millie makes a simple seed raising mix using 50/50 coir peat and perlite and a small amount of sieved compost.
Scatter seeds over the surface of the mix and then cover to a similar depth as the seed is wide. She adds a thin layer of fine grit to further bed protect them from harsh winter weather.
Seed can take anywhere from weeks to many months to germinate, so keep them moist and keep an eye out.
Fingers crossed by spring you will be pricking out a new crop of seedlings!
Cuttings:
Millie is taking cuttings of two correas – the local Correa glabra ‘Coliban River’ and the Mountain Correa, Correa lawrenceana. This species is a large shrub, which can reach up to 4m high and wide, with many distinct varieties recognised across the east coast but they are all underrated garden plants!
Heading into the cooler months, take pieces of semi-hardwood growth. Follow the growth back from the tip – this will be soft and springy – into the firmer wood.
Avoid any stems that are currently flowering. Snip a few centimetres below a node, the point on the stem from which the leaves grow. Always take more than one cutting, it’ll improve your chance of success and they can be packed into a single pot!
Potting cuttings is a simple process, no matter what sort of plants you are growing. There are just a few steps to follow:
Cutting Mix – Cuttings need a good supply of moisture, but also lots of oxygen to allow roots to form. Millie is using a simple mix of 50:50 peat for moisture and perlite for oxygen.
Preparing the Cuttings – Tidy the cutting up, re-pruning just below a strong node. Remove the lower 1/3 of leaves.
Planting the Cuttings – Pushing the cuttings into the soil risks damaging the base of the cutting where you hope to form roots. Instead, use a dibble to make holes and gently slide the cutting in.
Maintenance – In the cooler months, you need to keep your cuttings consistently warm and moist. If you have a hot house, use that. Millie puts her cuttings in an old esky, with a piece of picture frame glass as a cover.
Results – Check regularly for signs of new growth, but more importantly roots. They are ready to be potted up or planted out when you see roots coming out of the drainage holes in the base of the pot.
Featured Plants:
TREE VIOLET – Melicytus dentatus
ROCK CORREA – Correa glabra ‘Coliban River’
MOUNTAIN CORREA – Correa lawrenceana
Filmed on Taungurung Country | Central Vic
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[Music]
Autumn is such a beautiful time in the
garden of course there’s lots to harvest
food and seeds but it’s also a great
time to do a bit of work and in
particular it’s a great time to get
[Music]
propagating the first plan I want to
propagate is this it’s known as a tree
Violet it’s a local species and it
produces a beautiful fragrant winter
flower I really want to get it going as
a great thick hedge along the front here
but it’s been particularly slow so what
I think I’m going to do is have those
spacings to try and get it to thicken up
and make a hedge more quickly now you
can propagate it by cuting but at this
time of the year the other attribute of
this plant when they mature is they
produce this beautiful little Berry and
it’s really popular with birds and
lizards and skinks but of course this
little Berry also contains seed so I’m
can to sew it and grow some plants to
fill in the
gaps I’ve soaked this seed in soapy
water for a couple of hours and now I’m
just going to wash that flesh off to get
the
seed I’m just squishing the fruit using
the Sie to literally rub away the flesh
to get to the seed and then I’m rinsing
it off to get the soap off but also wash
off any Inhibitors that I can remove at
the same
time
this is a great way to get the seed from
most fleshy
[Music]
fruit now you can buy propagating mixes
but you know me I like to make my own
and I use a couple of basic ingredients
so Coya Pete that holds a good amount of
moisture and perlite well that’s really
good at ensuring there’s enough oxygen
for seed development or roots to form on
your cuttings the one tip about perlite
is if you’re going to use it you got to
use one of
[Music]
these to minimize the dust from the
perite which is the hazard I’ve
moistened it
down I use about half and half of this
and Coya Pete and for the seed raising
mix I’m adding a small amount of sved
leaf mold this will also help hold
moisture but bring a bit of biology to
the
mix tree Violet seeds can take months to
germinate so it’s really important that
you keep them moist right throughout
that time little trick I use I use two
trays instead of one so that offers just
a little bit of insulation if the wind
is whipping around but also the bottom
tray has a bit of newspaper in it that
gets moist and
helps so I just use some of that
mix so I’m just filling the tray and
Firming it
down trying to disperse the seeds as
evenly as I can across that
surface then I just gently apply a bit
of pressure to make sure the soil is
making contact with the
seed then to keep the seeds in place and
keep them nice and nestled and moist
just use a little bit of
[Music]
gravel find the best thing to do with
slow to germinate seeds is almost forget
about them just put them in a spot where
you’ll remember to keep them moist but
other than that leave them alone these
are going to go through the cooler
months which will also help them
germinate then just when you think it’s
too late they’ll do their
thing you might remember that I planted
this garden bed up last year and this
plant in particular has done so well
it’s a local form of Cora glabra it’s
called caban which is a local River and
I’m really Keen to propagate a whole lot
more of it now in springtime tip growth
will root really really quickly if you
keep it sheltered but coming into the
cooler month you need to use this semi
hard wood so I just take about 5 to 10
cm and snip there the other benefit of
this is while you’re taking your cutting
material you’re also giving the shrub a
little
prune I also want to take some cuttings
of this corer it’s the mountain corer
and I reckon it is a fantastic plant it
should be more widely planted because
it’s widely distributed across the East
Coast of Australia it can get up to
about 4 M High which means it makes it a
Fant fantastic screening plant a little
tip is when you’re taking cuting to
avoid anything that’s got flowers on it
because if you take a cutting with a
flower the energy is going to go into
that and not the
cutting this technique can be used to
propagate most shrubs in your
garden to get the cuting growing I’m
making up a really standard mix again
just 50/50 peite and Co
Pete essentially this whole bit of
growth with 1 2 3 four nodes is going to
form the roots and the choots of the new
plant so the stuff that sits above the
ground when you put it in your pot
that’s going to continue to be leaves
but the nodes below the soil level
that’s where the roots will come from so
you need to remove the leaves attached
to the bottom half or 2/3 of the
cutting and then on a soft tip like that
I actually remove it
and then when you come down the bottom
here I cut this quite long intentionally
cuz I like to recut them just before I
put that cutting in so I’m going to snip
it just below the node
there then when you’re putting it into
the pot it’s important you use one of
these could be a stick could be a pencil
but it just makes a nice big hole so
that you can slide that cutting in
without damaging the bottom if you just
push it in you risk damaging the actual
growth just firm it in and then repeat
[Music]
of course you need to keep these quite
warm in Winter and an old esy is perfect
I’ve got some Koya Pete that’s moist in
the bottom and then the bung hole open
so they can drain and then the pots just
go
in
and then to keep them
sealed just got an old picture frame
from the op
shop within 6 or 8 weeks these should
start to form roots and then by
Springtime you can pop them up and get
them out into the garden Autumn really
use a rewarding time to get propagating
so what are you waiting
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for
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1 Comment
Eski is brilliant idea