Plants For Free

The likelihood of creating new plants from leaf and stem cuttings
will be greatly increased if you use a compound called rooting hormone.
Rooting hormone will increase the cutting’s ability to create a root system.

There are a variety of rooting hormone products sold at lawn and garden shops
and nurseries but knowing how to make your own rooting hormone will never leave
you rooting for hormone off season. I apologize for the awful pun.

Items you will need to make your own rooting hormone:
1. The Yellow tipped shoots of a weeping willow tree soaking in water.
2. The shoots should be soaked for 24 hours prior to making your rooting hormone.
3. The cuttings you are going to use.
4. Potting soil to place your cuttings into
5. Plastic wrap to cover the container.

Strip the bark from the soaking willow and allow stems and bark pieces to soak for 24 hours in a a bowl of water. Use enough Weeping Willow so that the bowl density is half bark and stem and half water. After 24-hours make your cuttings and water with the water in your Weeping Willow soupy mix. Cover the plants with plastic so that they do not lose moisture and keep warm with bottom heat if you can.

Heating mats work well for providing bottom heat.

That’s it. It’s very simple, cost effective and there are zero chemicals used with this method. Go organic when you root plants and trees and you won’t be sorry.

Today I am doing softwood cuttings of evergreens.  I am going to post picture in a bit.  It’s August now so the evergreens are starting to harden off and become hardwood.  Softwood is new growth from this season.  Hardwood is when the shoots age and begin to turn brown and grow a bark covering.

I have taken a number of cuttings from around my landscaping and I’m using rooting hormone and mist to root them in sand.  Soon it will be time to also take hardwood cuttings.  For hardwood, once the weather starts to cool, you can root them in sand with hormone.  Just spray a couple times per day and keep them out of the direct sun.  When it starts to get very cool you can use bottom heat to root the hardwood cuttings. I will explain all of this later with pictures.

My next post will be about the various methods of propagating free plants and trees using various methods.  I will go into each method of rooting, and growing plants from seed.

I was on the way out this morning for coffee when I noticed overgrown landscaping at the coffee shop. They have beautiful landscaping plants there but they are all overgrown.

I asked the owner if he would mind if I trimmed the bushes and trees for free.  It’s early August here and a perfect time to make soft wood and hard wood cuttings.   He walked outside with me and asked how much I wanted. I told him that I would do it for nothing.  He looked at me like I was nuts but knows that I’ve been going there for years. He told me to have at it.

I ran home and grabbed my cooler with some ice and my clippers and went back and trimmed the landscaping for him.

I am now going to dip the cutting in rooting hormone and and root them.

I figured I would share this with you.  This is a great way to get free plant cuttings from premium plants and trees.  Ask the owners first but more often than not you will end up with free cuttings which, once rooted, will become free plants.

How are you getting free plants?  Let us know!!

Welcome to my very first post.   I created this blog so that I could share all that I’ve learned about getting plants for free.  Over time I’ve learned how to get free plants from seeds, cutting, grafting and budding.  I’ve used that knowledge to create a nice little side business that makes me an comfortable side living.

My wife doesn’t work and she helps me tend to my plants so that I can do my day job which is Worm Farming. Not kidding!  There will be more about me later.

I just wanted to introduce myself and start the ball rolling here.  I’m not going to go nuts and tell you that I’ll post every day but I will try to post weekly.  I’ll put as many pictures and videos up that I can and I’ll link to the best information and products as I find them.

The point of this blog is to get all of the information about growing plants for free out of my head.  I always wanted to write a book. This is the next best thing.  Please join me as we explore the work of  getting plants for free.