Gardening mad science part two

 you have your plants growing in the garden, happily tucked into the compost you made which such love. now what?


Cloning is a interesting pass time, most people asscoiate this with marijuana, but there are a vast array of plants that can be propagated through cloning.


The set up to do so can be as simple or complex as you want, there is a surprising amount of materials available for it. most of which can cross over into hydroponics as well. the principles are simple take a piece of a plant and suspend it in a grow medium and it may eventually root.


You can go crazy with this process if you really want to spend the money and get Aeroponic cloners and other super high tech fanciness. but realistically all you need is some water, honey and time. there are rooting hormones available which can speed this process up  but I haven't had the drive to use anything like that yet.

The first step is selecting the plant you want to clone. In this case I'll be doing basil, rosemary, mint and a lavender plant. I have never tried anything other than saving my poor tomatoes that had a case of root rot, the process is roughly the same for most plants and even trees can be cloned using similar methods(to include roses and grape vines)

To take the cutting you select a stalk that is as close to the size of a pencil as allowable. Using a sharp cutting device(I like Fiskars products personally)   make a clean cut and once the plant section is cut free dip the cut end in honey(honey is antibacterial) and Remove all but a few leaves on the top.

Fill a container with enough water to cover the stem and change it at least every other day. When the roots have formed transplant it into soil and give it a good watering.


This concludes the first official plant mad science post, sorry for the lack of photos as I am doing this post retroactively as my cuttings have been in the rooting tank for about three days now.