Flower Gardening Tips on Propagating in the Flower Garden in Summer
Our flower gardening tips are for the time of year when you may wish to increase the number of certain types of flowers in your flower garden. One method is layering and this can work well with carnations. Another can be simply taking cuttings from plants in your flower gardens.
Carnations tend to become “leggy” if they are kept many seasons and produce fewer and smaller flowers than younger plants. We can use layering to propagate new carnations.
With a sharp knife, kneeling beside the carnation plant in your flower garden and taking a young shoot, note a joint in the stem and remove the leaves below this. Then taking the knife, make an incision partly through the stem slantwise so that you have a piece of the stem as a “tongue”. Essentially, you will cut the stem in such a manner that you have cut a sliver of the stem, below the joint, away from the rest of the stem. But do not cut it off the stem. Indeed, you should have what would look like an upside down ‘V’ below the joint.
Now place this cut ‘V’ under the soil with the “tongue” sticking down more into the soil than the rest of the stem. Use a small stick or something else as a peg to hold this area in the soil. You have not cut the shoot off the mother plant at this point.
If the job is correctly done and our flower gardening tips followed, in about six weeks, the ‘V’ area will have rooted and can be removed then or at any time during the early autumn. Plant this new “plant” wherever you wish your new carnation planting to be within your flower garden.
You might also at this time of year wish to try an experiment in taking rose cuttings. Crimson Rambler or Dorothy Perkins, if you have one of them, roots very easily. A stem of your rose bush in your flower garden that has borne a bunch of flowers should be selected, as that will probably be in the right stage to grow well. Very young, soft stems should never be chosen.
Taking a stem that has borne flowers cut it under a joint making sure to take about eight inches for the whole length. Now simply put the cuttings into a jar of water. I use canning jars or what have you. It can remain this way some time and then be planted in a pot or outside in a spot in your flower garden. Depending on how long you left it in the jar of water, be careful when planting in soil, as the roots are far more brittle and fragile when grown in water.
Our last of the flower gardening tips for this time of year has to do with displaying or showing the fruits of your work in your flower garden. In most of the US, there will be county fairs that could be fun to attend or even participate in. You or your children may be able to show off some of your flowers from your flower garden in some of the open classes and even win a ribbon or two. You may even wish to think of having your children participate in gardening classes in 4H (time to sign up for this is usually in the fall though the projects are completed in summer with showing at the fairs). State fairs should be starting within the next month in most locations as well. Here you would be able to see flower, and vegetable, displays from all over your state. What better way to show off the fruits of your flower gardening efforts than in a place where all can see?