How to Make a Private Garden Nursery

Garden plants are becoming increasingly expensive, so gardeners are looking for cheaper ways to build their stock. There are lots of ways to do this. Garden clubs are springing up in towns, cities and villages everywhere and the members often trade plants. In the spring many yard sales offer perennials for one dollar or less. These are certainly good ways to add plants to a garden. But many gardeners are beginning to maintain their own private nursery beds as well..

Easy to Propagate Nursery Plants

It’s easy to propagate nursery plants. If the gardener has some space in a protected area, she can raise her own garden stock. One lavender plant can quickly become the mother of enough lavender to edge the border along the drive. A favorite climbing or shrub rose could also be a good candidate to take cuttings.

Most gardeners plant in masses. It is considered to be more effective visually than a single variety that simply disappears in the chaos along with all the other single plants in the garden. These gardeners are buying three or five Nepata, for example, rather than one. They have just spent a fortune on five plants when they could have had them for free. Nepeta is a plant that propagates easily and quickly. And there are many garden plants that are easy to propagate.

If the gardener has a small nursery space, taking 10 or even 100 cuttings from the plants she already owns will save her huge amounts of money with great rewards in the garden.

Nursery Bed Location

The nursery bed should be protected from strong sun and strong wind. Dappled shade is best when the cuttings are placed. Consider a low picket fence around the area or anything that could be used as a windbreak.

Soil should be be treated as it is elsewhere in the garden to give the cuttings a clean healthy start. Lighter soil is best over heavy clay in this bed, so work the soil and amend with other soil mediums to lighten it if necessary.

Try to stay away from manure at this point. It’s heavy in nitrogen and could actually burn the cut tip before it has a chance to root. To avoid this, prepare the ground in mid-summer, add compost and manure to lighten it and let the bed lay fallow until the following summer. This will give the soil in the bed plenty of time to neutralize.

Propagating Nepeta in the Nursery Bed

The method of taking cuttings to place in a nursery bed is quite simple and it works for many plant varieties. Some plants will require slightly different handling than others and the gardener will quickly learn what works and what doesn’t work. Much has been written about propagation, but using the Nepeta example, here is the quick method.

1. This is a big bushy plant and the gardener can take hundreds of cuttings from it.
2. Take the cuttings from new growth in spring at a length of about three inches.
3. Remove the lower leaves to about half way up the stem.
4. Dip the tips in rooting hormone. Rooting hormone is available just about anywhere garden plants are sold.
5. With a twig or even your finger, poke a one inch hole in the soil of your new nursery bed, stick the cutting in gently and firm the area around it.
6. Sprinkle lightly with water and keep the area moist, but not drenching as the cuttings take root. When the cuttings begin to show signs of new growth, gently lift one to verify.
7. You’ll have new Nepeta plants in as little as four weeks. Albeit small plants, but they are vigorous and will fill in quickly. You can move them at this point, or simply let them grow on until the following spring.
8. Nepeta will grow in Zone 4 -10, offers tall spikes of purple florets with gray-green foliage.

Keeping a nursery bed is one of the most valuable spaces in a garden. The gardener’s reward is in being able to pick her plants from the nursery in her own back yard, rather than handing money to a cashier. She’ll have more plants to trade with friends, giving her even more varieties to propagate in her nursery.

References

• Reader’s Digest Encyclopaedia of Plants and Flowers, Reader’s Digest, 1985
• Harrowsmith Illustrated Book of Herbs, Patrick Lima, Camden House, 1988