Propagating Exceitement

Winter seems to have been colder this year, and it continues to linger. I survey the ground outside, still covered in snow, and I long to see green once again. I entertain myself by watching videos online of gardens in the warmer seasons. It is a good way to learn new things. Watching a video led me a nice surprise.

Back in August, I gathered the seeds from the two tree peonies I planted in 2023. I carefully followed the instructions about scarring the seeds and putting them in a potting medium in a plastic bag. I placed the bag in a dark closet and forgot all about them. Six months later, a video I was watching reminded me that I still had the seeds in the closet. Not only had I forgotten about them I did not even know in which closet I had left them. I eventually found them and to my delight, saw that they had not only sprouted, but many had developed a nice root structure.

Andrew helped me plant the seedlings into peat pots. Surprisingly, there are 42 seedlings.

It would be wonderful if they all survived, however, I am not so optimistic. I have mixed success with seedlings. My friend Tim is a master at getting things to sprout and reach plant stage. He can seemingly just look at a seed and it will sprout and grow into a nice plant. My track record is not as good. Still, if even a fraction of them survive we will have some lovely new tree peonies. They should be white and red in color.

The pink color and the slowly developing leaves are encouraging. The average cost of a tree peony is $60 to $70, so to have a number of them growing raised from seed represents the potential for a significant savings.

Not only am I trying to propagate tree peonies from seed, I am also trying one from a cutting. A few weeks ago, we had some Norway maples cut down. They are terribly invasive and each year I try to get rid of more of them. When the crew cut the maple, near the oriental garden, they broke a branch off of one of the tree peonies. I took it into the house, trimmed it, soaked it in water and then applied rooting hormone. I put it into an enclosed environment of two clear cups to see if it will root.

The cups are wavy in texture, so it is not the best picture, but you can see a little pink where the bud has slightly opened. It is still too early to tell if this will take root.

In 2019, I planted a climbing hydrangea. It languished year after year. Everyone has told me climbing hydrangeas take years before they start growing. Suddenly, last year it started growing, sending up shoots 3 and 4 feet in length. I have it growing on the trunk of a large maple tree. In late summer, I took some cuttings from the hydrangea. I followed another YouTube video of how to propagate hydrangea. It has been more than 6 months. The cuttings have roots visible inside the cup and still retain a little green. They are dormant, as I keep them in a windowsill in the basement, away from direct light.

These cuttings look healthy and very promising.

I have one more experiment I monitor. Back in October, deer attacked one of the rhododendron plants. They knocked a sizeable branch off the plant. I trimmed the branch to leaf clusters, applied rooting hormone and put them in a bucket of sand. They have been outside the entire time. I do not know if they will root. They seem to still be alive. Rhododendron leaves react to severe cold by curling inward. A process known as thermotropism. Interestingly, the leaf clusters I have in the bucket have continued to do this over the winter, at the same time as the other rhododendrons. My fingers are crossed.

It may be months or years, before I know if my experiments are successful. In the meantime, despite the snow, I have hope for beautiful plants come spring, and the real possibility my propagation experiments may be successful. Each day, I am like a curious child going to look at my plants to see if anything has changed. Life is indeed a miracle, and seeds allow us to fully experience all parts of the miracle.