Gardeners' World's Carol Klein reveals how to grow new plants from special place for free
Gardeners' World expert Carol Klein has informed viewers how to cultivate new plants for free, using nothing more than their roots.
The 79-year-old gardening guru, a long-standing fixture on the beloved BBC programme, explained that with some careful snipping and pruning, it's entirely feasible to propagate new plants from their roots.
In the most recent episode, Carol enlightened viewers about the two distinct types of cuttings horizontal and vertical and showed them how to apply these techniques at home.
Starting with Anemones, the presenter later demonstrated that the same method could be applied to Geraniums as well.
Carol remarked: "You can grow new plants for free from parts of the plant that you never ever dreamed of, roots in that case and also from leaves. There are two kinds of root cuttings and these I like to call horizontal," reports the Express.
Detailing the process, she continued: "All along these roots there are nodules and, every so often, up will come a brand new shoot and that is going to make a whole separate clump. So, we're going to exploit exactly what the plant does in nature and use it to our advantage. I'm going to cut it into bitesize pieces just about an inch long that's all you need."
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Carol also enthusiastically shared her gardening expertise on propagating plants, underscoring the importance of the right soil mix.
She said: "It's full of really good compost, lots of extra grit always when you're trying to take cuttings of whatever kind it's a good idea to incorporate more grit because it makes the whole mixture more open more free and draining."
Her method for ensuring the cuttings flourished involved a specific environment, revealing: "I'm going to put them in a nice warm place reasonably bright but out of bright sunlight. Keep it reasonably well watered. As soon as you see new shoots coming up, hesitate, wait another couple of weeks because the shoots will come up first and then the fibrous roots, the feeding roots come later.
"So, a couple of weeks after that take them out individually, pop them on and then keep growing them on and eventually put them out in your garden."
Carol also delved into the innovative approach of vertical cuttings, especially with the Acanthus plant. "Instead of going across you go up and down. All I'm going to do is take these roots off," she shared.
Her advice extended to other plants suitable for vertical cutting, adding: "There are several plants you can do this from, Anchusa is one of my favourites with those brilliant blue flowers and big thick roots. Verbascums. All those perennial verbascums... there are all sorts of gorgeous hybrids of them.
"So you want these cuttings to be maybe a little longer than the ones that were horizontal, maybe about an inch, inch and a half. The key bit of information that I haven't given you is that you should always plan these cuttings the right way up and the right way up means exactly the way they grew in the ground."
"So always the bit that's closest to the soil is the top of the cutting and the bottom of the cutting is always the bit that's going downwards. Now I'm pushing these straight down until they're completely flush, and the top of the cutting is flush with the compost. "
She went on to explain: "Then, all that remains to do is put some grit on the top of them. A nice warm place out of brilliant sunshine, make sure that they're reasonably well watered, and you'll have a whole load more acanthus plants."