This is a thread for us to tell of our propagation and horticultural failures so we and others learn from it. No judgement, only open discussion of how we can improve. I’ll start it off I’ll admit that I’ve just potted quite a lot of bulbs into probably far too small a pot. Lots of them had rotted and so I thought well too much soil over the winter! So I potted them close to the actual size of the bulb but then woke up the other night in fear of most bulbous plants get really large in one season and the pot will not have enough feed or be sturdy enough to hold them so i’m probably going to have to repot them all. I think how I’ll avoid this next time is pot them in the autumn into fresh soil and not the spring to check on what’s going on down there. What do you think?

Today is a gorgeous sunny early February day and I’m potting herbaceous plants in preparation for their growing buds to emerge. All containerised stock needs potting once a year to refresh the feed and honestly get rid of the worms (how are they in every single pot!?) whilst I’m doing this I’m getting rid of any squidgy rhizomes and dead roots to give the plant a healthy environment and thinking of how much I have of that stock to either divide and pot individually or remember to prop later on. Now that the weather is warming up you can be assured that when you pot especially if potting up the plant is going into the growing season to fill up that space and take up the feed.

As a propagator there is not much to do at this time of year, except planning for the upcoming season of course. So that's why root cuttings are an important propagation technique to help spread your work load throughout the year, as whichever plant you can take a root cutting from you can probably take a cutting or collect seed from but those are usually busy times in the year, so you might as well leave it for a winter job. The other benefits of doing root cuttings is avoiding pest and disease that might be in the plant during the growing season, you can get a lot of material from just one plant and they are easily maintained; just place in a cold frame (somewhere out of excessive winter rain and wind), keep moist and wait for new shoots and roots in spring. Herbaceous plants you can do root cuttings from: Phlox, Echinops, Alcea, Papaver orientale, Anemone, Asclepias, Astilbe, Eryngium, Kalimeris and Paeonia as examples. Shrubs you can do root cuttings with (any that sucker): Syringa, Rosa, Rubus, Ficus, Rhus and Campsis as examples.