Thursday 12th October 2023
As a follow up to the Wicking Bed Workshop, FLAG and GCP again hosted a number of community members and design students from SLATE Studios at the Old Fire Station in Glebe. Attendees were treated to a delicious lunch followed by a workshop with Darren Martin from Community Greening on Propagating Plants.
We started our workshop with a check in on how the plants in our wicking bed are doing. Our lettuce had fallen victim to the resident possums but our kale is starting to look great!
Darren gave us some great insight into how important gardening can be for many people.
He said, “A garden is not just about food or growing it’s also about healing… for some people it’s like their church”. Darren also highlighted how important it is to observe and take note of your plants, in planting and gardening there is not a one size fits all approach! Darren suggested, “Learn the language of plants. Your plants talk to you. If you listen, you’ll get the message. If you don’t listen, you won’t hear their language. If you stop, engage and interact with them you will”
Darren then gave us a great demo and lots of helpful tips for propagating your own plants. We were all lucky enough to take some home with us.
Some cool things we learnt from Darren about propagating plants:
- You can pick the genetics of certain plants you want to replicate when you choose to propagate, but be careful because this can cause you to lose genetic diversity and all your plants may be susceptible to the same viruses.
- Some plants are easier to propagate than others… for example, succulents can be grown from cuttings or a leaf!
- You want to look for nodes on the stem of the plant, the node is where the roots will grow from when we propagate.
- When you take your cutting, take from the best plant material (no pests or unhealthy parts of the plant if possible!)
- Some people use a rooting hormone to help propagate plants, but Darren shared his secret tip that Capilano honey works just as well!
- Another one of Darren’s top tips was to plant double what you want in case they don’t all survive. For example… if you want 10 plants, propagate at least 20 just in case. You can always give them to your neighbours if you end up with too many.
Check out some photos from our workshop! Everyone was excited about getting to take home their own pots and propagated plants!
For more information about propagating plants, see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGq5a9-a_TQ
