You are throwing plants away!

[Silentrunning]

How many plants do you throw away in a year? You say - none? Recently I have started saving the clippings off of most of the plants I prune. It is amazing how many survive when you put the clippings in soil or water and plant them as soon as a root starts. Attached is a Ficus I started from one leaf last month. Since I have several Ficus bonsai plants I trim off hundreds of leaves each year. I will now start propagating them instead of throwing them in the compost. The same can be done with many plants you trim. I will update this as I experiment with other plants.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Thank you for this very aware point.

 

[alp]

@Silentrunning Wish it were that easy here. You must have a lot of moisture and warmth in the air. Well done! You could sell them soon!

 

[Owdboggy]

Trouble is you end up with hundreds of plants, all of which take up room and need watering etc. Been there, done that, now having to either plant them out or throw them away if I cannot sell them at the final sale of the season.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

have so many. have lots of babies, have to find places. not worried about the pruning.

 

[alp]

Trouble is you end up with hundreds of plants, all of which take up room and need watering etc. Been there, done that, now having to either plant them out or throw them away if I cannot sell them at the final sale of the season.

The watering bit is what worries me. Essex is like a desert! It doesn't matter how people say you can add moisture to the compost by adding organic matter. When I look at the dry compost, I feel like reporting myself to the Society for the Protection of Plants!

 

[Owdboggy]

And with a lot of plants the compost may be as wet as you can get it, but they still dry out as they like a damp atmosphere. Primulas and Meconopsis are notorious for that.
Despite living in a supposedly damper area than Essex we, most years, only get half the national average of rainfall. We are in a rain shadow.

 

[alp]

@Owdboggy Living in rain shadow is annoying for a gardener! We need rain. I remember a lady from Snowdonia telling us the same thing. The atmosphere here in Essex is just too dry.

My plants flower earlier than those in the gardening programmes!