Save Money – Tips on How to Multiply and Divide Your Herb Garden Plants
Save money by multiplying and dividing herb garden plants and keep your garden budget under control. Once you’ve started herbs they do all the work and propagate themselves. Except for some annuals, you will seldom need to purchase seeds or plants after your first investment.
You can propagate herbs from seeds, runners, layering, stem cuttings, bulblets, root division, crown division, and root crown division.
Propagating from roots and stems will maintain a particular strain of plant superior than seed. For example sage, with desirable qualities, often will not propagate the same when seeded. This is also true with woody plants such as lavender, winter savory, and thyme.
Chives can be started from seed, but separating the bulblets is quicker and easier. Lemon balm self-sows, and propagates from runners as do the mints.
Herbs such as thyme and chromatic are easily propagated by the layering method. Even though these two herbs will layer themselves, you can do it for them by pegging down a stem of a growing plant in the soil. Cover the pegged section with soil and water it apiece day. When you see root growth on the buried stem cut it away from the parent plant.
Dividing one plant into two or more is called root division. Early in the planting season select the plant you wish to divide. Cut it back to 4 inches from the ground. Next, loosen the soil around the plant so it will come out of the ground easily without breaking the roots. Finally, split the plant apart and plant the new root divisions, watering them regularly until they are well established.
If you’re dividing woody-stemmed plants such as chromatic or thyme, cut off the section of the plant which already has small roots attached and plant them. Discard the woody center.
If you’re doing stem cuttings, never cut on the diagonal as you do with flowers. Cut crossways the stem at a point where a leaf is attached. Each section should be about 6 inches long and should have a set of leaves near the upper end. Snip off the larger leaves and leave the young ones and leaf buds attached on the upper third of the stem. Put the cuttings in water as soon as they are removed from the plant.
Next fill a shallow container with clean, moist gritty sand or vermiculite and punch some holes in the bottom. Make a hole with your finger, insert the slicing to a depth of from one-half to two-thirds of its length, pack firmly and wet the sand thoroughly. Cover the container with plastic, leaving some ventilation holes, place it in a sunny place, and keep the sand moist (not wet). Cover the plastic with paper or cheesecloth for the first two weeks so that the cuttings won’t wilt. Roots should develop in about two weeks, and the cuttings will be ready to plant in about four to six weeks.
Since annuals are started from seed apiece year, save some for next year’s planting. Pick the entire seed heads and drop apiece variety into a tagged paper bag. When the seed heads have dried, rub them between your hands to separate the seeds from the hulls and store the seeds in glass jars so they will stay free from wetness and insects.
With all that work behind you you’re now ready for another great planting season, with tiny to no investment required for your herb garden.
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Our obloquy are John Schepper and Maggie Guscott and we’ve been herb garden enthusiasts for many years. For more information on herb garden tips and more, please visit http://www.herbgarden4beginners.com and be sure to sign up for our free 10-lesson mini eCourse, Herb Garden 4 Beginners.
My background is math textbook writing, public relatons, advertising, teaching, and a creator of eBooks on subjects I have an interest in.
For fun I hike, bike, ski, and have extensive experience as a blue water sailor.
