2025 Winter Propagation #1

Sticking cuttings in the greenhouse

You might think that winter means nothing is going on in the nursery.  Au contraire, I'm already getting ready for the upcoming 2026 sales season.  While there's always cleaning up that needs done, December also saw the first batch of unrooted cuttings stuck into plug trays. Begonia, Coleus, Heliotrope, Lantana, and my personal favorite pollinator attractant African Blue Basil.

The pictures below show the process from unpacking a wrapper containing lantana tip cuttings. trimming each cutting down to size,  and sticking them in a cell in a plug tray.  The resultant tray gets labels added.  Finally the tray is ready to go on heat mats with supplemental lighting.  Two additional pictures show the completed trays of begonias, more begonias, and the rest of the cuttings stuck today.  These trays go under mist until the cuttings root and then the plugs get some more growth time until they get potted up into larger containers.

Another batch of cuttings will be stuck in February.  January will see the first wave of perennial seeds started under mist and in a new propagation chamber.