Spring may feel like a long way off, but autumn and winter are the perfect time to plan your garden for brighter months ahead. Pruning and taking cuttings should be done now to guarantee a successful harvest when the warm weather finally returns.
Now that the cold weather is finally here, it's time to start deadheading plants properly and collecting cuttings to propagate them. For the same reason you'd take houseplant cuttings, garden cuttings are an easy way to multiply your plants and make your garden fuller on a budget.
If you're new to using sustainable garden ideas, Monty Don is here to explain hardwood cuttings and how you can ensure your garden doubles in size next year.
Monty Don's hardwood cutting advice
When it comes to taking cuttings and making the most out of our gardens, Monty is always there with some of the best advice to help us through the process.
In his most recent monthly blog, the gardening expert speaks about the benefits of taking hardwood cuttings. He says, "Hardwood cuttings are easy to take, slow to grow roots but a remarkably straightforward way of creating new shrubs, bushes and even trees from existing favourites. Fruit bushes, roses, any flowering shrub or tree are ideal for this method of propagation."
If you already know how to take hydrangea cuttings or other flowers then the method will come to you very easily. Should you have never taken cuttings before, Monty stresses the simplicity of the whole process.
"Unlike growing plants from seed, cuttings always ‘come true’ - in other words are exactly like the parent plant so it is the best way of reproducing favourite plants as well as being almost totally trouble-free and needing no extra equipment or shelter," he explains.
Before you start, make sure you're armed with the essential gardening tools and get your gardening gloves on to protect your hands. From there Monty says it's time to start cutting.
"Cut a 12-24 inch length of straight stem the thickness of a pencil of this year’s growth, and divide it into lengths between 6 & 12 inches long," he instructs. "Cut straight across the bottom and at an angle at the top so you remember which way up to plant it and to provide an angle for water to run off."
Once you've done that, he says you'll need to strip any remaining leaves so you have bare, straight stems. He adds, "Either place the cuttings so only one-third is above soil level in a deep pot filled with very gritty compost (4 or 5 can fit into each pot) or outside in a narrow trench backfilled with gritty sand to ensure good drainage."
It's then just a matter of letting the cuttings do their thing. You'll need to draw on your patience, the same kind needed when planting tulips, as the cuttings won't need planting out until next autumn.
Monty says after watering them well once a week a good percentage of the cutting will make young plants ready for potting up or planting straight out into your garden. Then the real magic starts.
Products to help get the job done
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Pruning and taking cuttings are just a couple of jobs that will need to be done this season. Several spring bulbs need to be planted now and of course, general gardening maintenance needs to be completed to stop any unwanted pests coming into your garden.
