Growing your own plants from seed is very rewarding and considerably cheaper than buying seedlings or plants from the shop. The first thing you will need is a box or tray approximately 3 to 4 inches deep, 12 to 14 inches wide and 20 to 24 inches long.

Once you have your box it will need to be filled with a suitable seed raising mix. You have two options here, either buy a bag of seed raising mix from your local nursery or make your own. A good medium would be 80-85% washed river sand and 15-20% peat moss. Fill the box nearly to the top and then firm down using a small board.

Rows can now be made across the box. They should be one quarter to half inch deep and 2 inches apart. Pressing a piece of cane or dowel into the soil is a quick and easy way of creating rows.

The seed should be distributed 8 or 10 to the inch in the rows and then be covered. Move the box to a warm shaded place.

It is important to water regularly during germination, however the soil should be kept moist not wet. If the water starts running out the bottom of the box you’re over doing it and the soil will become waterlogged. If this happens the seeds could rot and fail to germinate.

If you can cover the box with a piece of glass this will hold the moisture, creating a microclimate, which will hasten germination. Once the seedlings germinate the lid can be removed and the seedlings can gradually be introduced to stronger light – next to a window would be ideal.

When the plants are one inch to an inch and a half high they should be thinned to one or two inches apart in the row, so as to give them space enough to make a strong stocky growth. If you wish to keep the plants that have been thinned, they must be planted two inches apart each way in boxes similar to the seed box.

When the weather becomes mild the box of plants should be set out of doors part of the time so that the plants will harden in preparation for transplanting to the garden later. It is recommended to give the seedlings a good watering just before transplanting so that a ball of earth will stick to the roots.

By raising seedlings in this controlled climate of germination they will be hardier and flourish. You’ll also have the added satisfaction of having done all the work yourself.

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Did you know that you can grow an entire garden starting with just one plant? It’s true. By buying and caring for just one small plant, over time and with the proper care, you can end up with many, many more… all at no additional cost. It’s done with techniques known as propogation, and dividing.

Many common indoor and outdoor plants can be multiplied easily using basic dividing and propagation techniques. And once you know how it’s done, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been doing this before now.

Dividing Plants

Dividing a plant simply means to break it up into smaller pieces. This is often done when a plant becomes too large for a container it’s growing in, or too large for the garden space it’s planted in. You can divide a plant almost anytime though, as long as it is healthy and not too small.

To divide a plant, you’ll need to dig it up out of your garden first, Clean the roots off a bit with water so you can see them well – you can clean the soil off the roots by simply rinsing them gently with a watering can.

Once the roots are clean, it’s usually fairly easy to tell where you should divide the plant at because often it looks like you have two or more plants all growing together to begin with. If this is the case, then simply pull the plants and their roots apart into multiple pieces.

If the plant doesn’t have an obvious place to divide it though, don’t worry, it’s still easy to do. Just use a very sharp knife, and cut the plant into pieces from the base through the roots. Be sure you’re leaving plenty of roots for each section you’re cutting off, so the plant can continue growing healthy and strong.

Once you have the plant pulled or cut into multiple smaller plants, then you just need to replant them in separate spaces. You can still have them all in the same garden bed if you’d like, just space them apart as if you’d bought multiple plants at the store, and care for them as you normally would.

Taking Cuttings

Another way to get multiple plants off of one is to simply take cuttings. My mom used to do this with her houseplants actually, when a stem got broken off. She’d simply place the broken stem into a glass of water and sit it in the kitchen window. Within a few weeks new roots could be seen, and she’d plant it into a new pot of it’s own.

You can often do the same thing with outdoor plants too, and you don’t always have to wait for a stem or branch to break. Go outside and cut a branch off one of your plants. Try to cut it several inches from the tip and just below a leaf. Then pinch off at least the bottom three leaves on the branch, and place that into a glass of water. Sit it in a window which doesn’t get too hot, and refill the water in the glass every few days.

You can also just place the cutting into moist vermiculite, and you may find the new roots developing faster.

Use either of these techniques regularly and you’ll soon find yourself overflowing with many beautiful plants.

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