Leaf, leaf-bud and eye cuttings

Alan Toogood describes how to increase many popular indoor and outdoor plants from leaves and leaf buds, as well as vines and other climbers from eye cuttings

- Alan Toogood

INCREASING your own plants is one of the most enjoyable aspects of gardening, as well as being the cheapest way of obtaining new stock. Basically, there are two ways of propagating plants. There is the vegetative method, which embraces cuttings, layering, budding, grafting and division or splitting of plants. The second way is for you to raise plants from seed.

I will be discussing all these methods of propagation in the 12 parts of this series, and giving many examples of garden, house and greenhouse plants that can easily be raised by amateur gardeners. By collecting the complete set of articles, you will have a comprehensive guide to the various techniques used in the propagation of a wide range of subjects.

This week, we are looking at the raising of plants from cuttings. These are simply portions of a stem, leaf or root which, when given the correct conditions, form roots of their own and grow into new plants exactly resembling their parents. Last week (AG 11 March), I looked at taking softwood cuttings, semi-mature or half-ripe cuttings and hardwood or fully ripe cuttings. This week, I will look at taking leaf, leaf-bud and eye cuttings.

Cuttings are a good way of raising varieties of plants, as well as true species, because often varieties do not come true from seed – in other words, they may not have all the characteristics of their parents.

Leaf cuttings