Happy Spring! Can you believe how fast the months are flying by this year?

Transforming your garden is the best way to kick-start the new spring season the right way. Before splashing out all the dollars on brand new garden plants, consider taking cuttings from your favourite, easy-to-grow plants so that you can cultivate new ones – all at home and without opening your wallet!

Mark Paul, horticulturist and founder of The Greenwall Company takes us through a step-by-step guide on how to grow plants from your own cuttings.

Types of cuttings:

• Leaf cuttings can be propagated quickly and easily and using leaves is one of the best ways to ensure identical new plants. Try begonias, sansevierias or crassulas.
  
• Semi-mature cuttings (half hardened tips) that are three to five internodes long, for example camellias and bottlebrushes (callistemons).
  
• Hardwood cuttings are great for making plants during late autumn and as we approach winter. These can be made from woody offsets such as murraya or grevilleas

What you’ll need:

• A sharp knife or pruning shears
• Recycled pots or other draining containers
• Potting mix, perlite, coco peat and sand
• Rooting hormone powder or gel

Step 1: Remember to sterilise
Use bleach to sterilise them and the containers you are using for potting up the cuttings.
 
Step 2: Cut off a section of the stem
Select healthy growth that’s at least three internodes and make a clean, sharp cut.

Step 3: Reduce the leaf area by 60%
Remove leaves on the under layer of the offset to make it bare and insert into your potting mix. Then, cut every second leaf out or halve the larger leaves. Do not reduce the leaf area of succulent plants like hoyas or carpobrotus.

Step 4: Pot Up Your Cutting
Pot-up cuttings in a moist mix of half premium potting and half sand or perlite. Keep humid by submerging the bottom of the pot in a container of water. Put a shopping bag with a rubber band around the pot and some cooking skewers to hold the plastic bag up over the top of the pot and cuttings, forming a miniature greenhouse. Keep well lit but out of direct sunlight.

Cuttings may take between six days to six months to grow until they’re ready for planting out. Remember to be patient as some garden plants will take a while to grow – but it will certainly be worth the wait! Others may shoot up and surprise you.