All plant lovers dream of being able to multiply their plants to green their interior, their garden or their terrace. It is still necessary to use the most suitable technique. Between cuttings and layering, let’s see what to choose and how to go about having more and more plants without spending a fortune.
What is cuttings?
Cuttings allow you to reproduce a plant from a stem, a fragment of leaf or root (but this last solution requires a good knowledge in the field). The fragment is first separated from the mother plant.
This multiplication technique suitable for many plants. The ideal time to take cuttings is summer, but it is possible to take cuttings at another time if it suits the chosen species better. Be that as it may, the fragment used must always be perfectly healthy for recovery to be guaranteed.
Cutting a stem consists of cutting a good stem and leaving it in a bottle of water for a fortnight so that it forms roots. All that remains is to plant it in the ground. Can also :
- Cut at an angle under an eye with pruning shears in order to take a branch of a dozen centimeters,
- Remove the side shoots and the lower leaves so that the part of the stem that will be buried is completely smooth,
- Transplant the cutting in a pot or in the ground, the ideal being to offer it a mixture made up of peat and sand,
- Keep the substrate always moist with daily sprays.
As for the cuttings by a leaf fragment, it takes place as follows:
- Take a beautiful adult leaf, perfectly healthy, with its petiole,
- Bury the petiole so that the leaf rests on the substrate, which must be composed of potting soil, peat, coarse sand and perlite,
- Sprinkle the substrate with charcoal powder to avoid the risk of cryptogamic diseases,
- Keep the cutting in a bright room, at a minimum of 18°C and where the humidity is sufficient.
After 6 or 7 weeks, seedlings should appear. This method is perfect for multiplying a Kalanchoe for example, but not only. And more generally, cuttings is the technique of multiplication of many flowering plants, climbing plants, green plants and trees or shrubs, including:
- Cacti,
- eyelets,
- Bégonias,
- Asters,
- Saint Paul,
- Chrysanthemums,
- Lilac,
- Ficus,
- Camellias,
- Oleanders,
- Fig trees,
- olive trees,
- Vine,
- suns,
- Shrubby lavatera…
Do not hesitate to ask a gardening consultant when planning to multiply certain plants in the house or garden.
What is layering?
Unlike cuttings, layering is a plant propagation technique that involves mother plant and cutting don’t be not separated throughout the recovery phase. You can layer almost any time of the year, but the best time is spring. This technique is rather used to propagate shrubs and climbing plants.
The layering makes it possible to clone a plant by allowing new shoots to develop rootlets or rootlets on an aerial part of the mother plant. This is called the rhizogenesis. Layering gives excellent results. This plant multiplication method should be adopted as soon as the cuttings are inconclusive, which is the case on woody plants which layer well on the other hand. Everyone chooses the type of layering that best suits the plants to be reproduced.
Air layering
It is a propagation technique that is used instead to clone certain indoor plants or shrubs that tend to take root with great difficulty. To do this, it is necessary to remove all the leaves that are in the middle of a branch and then to carry out a incision au cutter. Then all that remains is to swaddle this part of the plant in a bag filled with sand mixed with special compost for cuttings, which must be kept moist.
After some time, roots will form in the sleeve. The branch can therefore be weaned and then transplanted.
Cepe layering
We also talk about abutment layering. This is the technique commonly used to propagate fruit trees and rootstocks because they produce shoots very easily. The technique consists of cutting back the mother plant severely during the winter in order to promote the production of new branches in the spring. As soon as they measure 10 to 12 cm, it is advisable to mound all around the mother plant which bears the young branches, with a mixture of loam and river sand.
All you have to do is wait until the following winter for each new branch to form its own roots which will allow it to be separated from the mother plant in the spring. Each branch resulting from layering in clumps can therefore be weaned as soon as it has its roots and then transplanted.
Bow layering
It is also called layering by coating for the branch which one wishes to use to propagate a plant must be kept in the ground. Of course, a low, flexible branch is chosen and the soil must be kept moist (but not soggy) throughout the layering period, that is to say until the roots form. These will allow the twig to develop independently once it has been weaned from the mother plant.
This technique layering by coating has a few variations, namely:
- The long wood layering : this is the technique that is generally used to clone a honeysuckle. A long branch is completely buried without being separated from the mother plant of course, and each of its branches will develop a new plant. This technique is sometimes called chinese layering or flat layering.
- The serpentine layering or snake: the branch is buried in different places to produce several new plants.
- The end layering is rather used for the rapid multiplication of raspberry plants. Only the end of a branch is buried so that it produces roots. It is important to plant a stake to hold the stem in place.
In all cases, a forcing is carried out so that the contact between the aerial part of a plant and the ground is maintained. The substrate should always be moist. Depending on the case, the appearance of the roots requires more or less time. But as soon as these are present, the layer can be separated from the mother plant. This is called the weaning.
Layering is therefore a plant multiplication technique that allows, for example, to clone:
- La Glycine,
- Honeysuckle,
- Ivy,
- Raspberry,
- The Mulberry…
Moreover, in nature it occurs spontaneously in certain plants such as the strawberry plant with its stolons which run along the ground and, on all the parts in contact with the damp earth, roots end up forming. . We can also see a natural layering (that is to say without the intervention of Man) of the lower branches of the Linden tree or of certain conifers.