Potting Shed Tales - Cuttings

(No this isn't my potting shed, it's at the Lost Gardens of Heligan see post - but I can dream!)

I was reading through Carol Klein's Life in a Cottage Garden yesterday and she writes that it's the perfect time for taking cuttings from Nepeta or catmint, so off I went with my secateurs to have a go. 

Now I'm a cuttings novice, in fact this year is the first time I've really had any success. In the past, things have either died instantly, lived but steadily looked more and more weak and miserable until I gave in and composted them, or have grown into bizarrely shaped specimens that I frankly wouldn't give garden space to! 

But this year - aahh this year has been different. It all started with my mad white Phlomis in the spring. It is beautiful and I love it but it has become very leggy and needs cutting back severely. My fear of loosing it pushed me to take 4 cuttings - not with much confidence or enthusiasm. But blow me if they didn't all take and now look very healthy! Now I can prune it slightly more happily - although I'm not good at vicious pruning unless it's something I'm secretly trying to get rid of!

That success made me more determined to have a go. So I took cuttings of my leggy white Cistus and my dark purple Osteospermum. The Cistus died instantly (not as fool proof as my Mum implied!) but the Osteospermum are looking good.

My garden suffers from a teenager with a football so there are constantly bits hanging off my plants. I have a beautiful, startlingly cerise Geranium that has been particularly picked on this summer, so every time the football does it's worst I have been putting the bits in water to root and now I have 3 good little plants for next year!

Yesterday I started my Nepeta and I have my eye on a pale lilac Osteospermum growing in a building site wall just up the road.

My cuttings have all been potted into a good seed compost, with a covering of Vermiculite. I keep them in a sheltered and bright corner, with not to much sun, and I've made sure that they haven't dried out. Only the Geraniums were started in water first, and only the Cat Mint has been dipped in rooting hormone (I kept forgetting to buy some) so it will be interesting to see if they are better than those without.

So now I'm a bit of a cuttings convert, mind you I have to get them all through the winter now - wish me luck!