Taking Cuttings to Multiply Your Plants

This week on the Gals Who Grow podcast, we’re talking all about taking plant cuttings and turning one favorite plant into many — for free! We all love free plants!  

From easy propagation tips to the plants that root best, we’re sharing how to multiply your garden, houseplants, and flower beds without spending extra money. Grab your snips and grow along with us! 

https://www.instagram.com/thegalswhogrow/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Monica with Lulu the A Field. And I'm Cassie with Coppertop Gardens. And I'm Bailey with How Home and Garden. We've been cultivating our gardens and farms for years now, but something really special was sowed when we met and began working together.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Our shared passion for growing the best local flowers and food has made us realize the impact it's had in not only our own homes, but also in our local community.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

We are the gals who grow, and we can't wait to inspire you to grow too.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Gals Who Grow Podcast. We are here this week and we're going to talk about cuttings and how we do all that in our gardens.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Yay! Yeah, Monica and I are here. We were just uh talking about how uh far we've come from recording because when we used to record, we were on different recordings and we would have to clap in order to align them. Dude, it was awful. We've come so far. We have come very far. So I hope if you guys have any suggestions for podcasters, of course, send them our way.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

But we want to hear your suggestions. We've had a couple from some uh faithful listeners, but we're always open for more suggestions.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

I'm really proud of us though. It has come an evolving place.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

You are watching these gals who grow, grow a podcast in real time. Real time growth. Like if you go back and listen to the first episode and the sound quality. Oh my gosh. And guys, the effort it took us to get that far. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

And you would think that we were like seasoned podcasters if we had taken a photo of ourselves there because we had like, oh, we had these recording arms and like cute, you know, like all of us sitting there, just like we were trying to put foam on Monica's walls.

unknown 1:51

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

And now we just sit around a little device and talk. And try less, and it'll be better.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

Mon's friend was like, oh, I thought you guys were just gonna use your phones. And we were like, oh, you can do that.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Oh no, we all invested in these very insane recording. Like, yeah, we literally have like vocasters that are now sitting not used because of the device.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Oh my god, I straight up forgot those existed.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

Yeah, that's how we started.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

We have a little like pocket podcaster machine now, and it's so much better. So, anyways, if you're thinking about a podcast, hey, we got some dancers. We can help you.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Yeah, we're getting there know things. Yeah. Yeah. Soon we'll be doing a podcast on podcasting. No, we won't.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

All right, how about those cuttings? Yeah, all right.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

So this is some stuff I hope one day I can say I get it. Because I am a struggler with cuttings. Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

I I I have a lot more luck when I can do it when it's the low care time, which when I say that, it's before it gets hot out. Okay. It's when it's still raining. So, like spring is when I get the best results for cuttings. And that's why we're doing this episode now because I think you'll have the best luck if you try now.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

But before we get that far, what is a cutting?

SPEAKER_02 3:28

A cutting is I don't have like a dictionary here.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

What do you how would you explain it to somebody?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

So a cutting is when you want to propagate or start another plant from one of the plants that you have or a friend has. And it can be the the ones I'm thinking of right now are woody cuttings. Um, but you can take cuttings of house plants. House plants. You can take them of your own seedlings, like once they get to a certain size. So if you want to double your seedling um quantity, quantity dahlias. Yes, you can take cuttings of tubers um or of like sprouts.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

We'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Yeah, you could do that. Yeah, yeah. Um, so basically the ones that I'm thinking of that came to mind for me were right now is a time that I go out and look at my like woody shrubs. And if I want another one of it, like, so for instance, my parents are leaving my childhood home literally, like this week. So it was very, very like okay, what plants do I want that my parents have? And my mom has these beautiful oak leaf hydrangeas that line her fence, and I will post a photo of this because I think it's one of the prettiest, like please do, because it's gorgeous. Yeah, and she literally bought one shrub at Walmart years ago.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Uh uh. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

And all she does is she would cut off a piece of it and then stick it into the ground. And literally, like, that's all it takes, is like she would do it at a time when it would be wet out. She would, if it wasn't wet out, she would go and water them. And the area that she puts it in is like a lot of leaf mold because it was you know, the leaves collected next to their fence, so it was sort of loamy soil. But truly all she did is she would cut right above a leaf node, so right where a leaf is coming out, and then cut off the bottom stick of that because you don't want anything that would not create roots. So you would cut up to the next leaf node, then you remove any leaf growth or anything, and you want these when they're like, you know, not a lot of leaves on them, because you don't want it to have to support a lot of green growth. You want it to be growing because right now in spring is the time where they want to put out new growth. So that can be root growth or leaf growth. But if you remove the little leaf buds that are coming out and then stick it the right side up, it has to be the like the end that was pointing up has to be pointing up, the end that was pointing down into the soil. And you can stick it into the ground, stick it like you can stick it up as much as like six inches, right? Like, and that I usually try and get it sort of deep because the more stick you get underground, the more space it has to create roots off of that. So as many, like if you can get at least like two sets of leaf nodes in the ground, you have a better chance of it getting root growth and being able to take off from there. So, like, I took a whole bunch of cuttings off of my mom's oak leaf and I stuck them into the ground out in my garden, and I have some in pots out front that I just was gonna see, and then I'll transplant them somewhere else. I've just been watching. But the ones out back are still green, they're looking good.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

I put mine in the ground and I checked them yesterday, and none of them look dead. Yeah. So I'm like, that's what I did. I was like, okay, if Bailey's mom just shoved these on the ground, that's what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

And that's all you really have to do because the thing is, just don't disturb them because the roots are really like while they're trying to grow underground, they're sort of fragile. So if you keep pulling out the stick to see does it have any roots, then like you might be pulling. So as long as it's still looking okay, just let it go.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

And you have to trust the process, you have to trust the process.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

And part of it is that it needs to get water, but you don't want to be like drowning it, and you don't want to like the the ground soil stays like a good moisture where pot soil can get sort of dry fast or you know, too wet, or you know, which can cause them to mold, because that's one of your biggest concerns with it, is you can cause it can mold if you like get it too wet. So I think right now, before it gets too hot, because when it gets hot, the soil dries out too much and then they don't create roots. So right now is like the ideal time. You can do this with roses, you can do this with lilacs, but you also don't want to do it when something is in flower. So lilacs are a hard one because right now they're about to bloom, so it's not really a great time for them. As soon as they're done blooming, cut off the spent blooms and take a cutting of it. And it should be able to root from that.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

And back to your not disturbing the thing, like you know if it's starting to root itself, if you start seeing top growth again. Because it won't put out gonna put out new green growth up top if there are no roots. That's just not how plants work. Yep. So that's your sign. Don't pull it out, just wait for the green.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yes. Okay, so question when you put the rooting in the ground, are you putting it like so there you're putting it in dirt, not in grass? Yeah. So I'm like thinking of a spot where I could build a hedge, but it's grass right now, so I need to like put some leaf mold down to let it die.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

The thing is, you could also not have to remove like a whole garden bed. You could just remove a circle and put your shrub in and then remove the grass around it once it roots.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

As long as you're not planning to like tarp it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

No, what I was thinking is just putting like a strip of leaf mold down so then I can kill start the process of killing, but also feeding that soil beneath it. And then so do you have what's around it when you put it in the ground? Do you put like mulch? Do you just leave it bare dirt?

SPEAKER_02 9:48

I leave it bare dirt. It's bare dirt out there. Right now it's weeds, honestly. Um I just cut a hole in the ground in my grass and just look at that.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

See? Well, I have an oak leaf hydrangea plant that I'm like, wait, you should make more of. Because yours is beautiful too. Yeah, yeah. I think it's like the same. Yeah. As your it looks very similar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Your leaves are, I think, are a little bit more pronounced, and they seemed a little smaller to me, but it might have just been the size of your plant.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So what's interesting is the other day I was pruning a rose. I got one ro one whole rose pruned.

unknown 10:24

Woo!

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Um it always starts with one, you know. The the branch, the lower branches had started to like touch, clearly touched the bottom or touched the ground. Like they had they had dropped down, yeah. And they're growing new growth from there. You did a cutting without trying.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

Look at you. You do know how to do little cutting.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Well, Anne is making me think of the l those little like cutting balls that I got. Yep. I've never tried them.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Air layering. Yes, is what those are for.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

People do that with hydrangeas a lot, right? Yeah. Or any like woody, scrubby.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Air layering is sort of like doing a cutting but in the air. Um, so you basically remove the outside bark on a section of a shrub or something with a thickness. You could do it on a tree. You could literally start a new tree. And you basically remove the outside layer, and then you'd put like moss or or like very like, I don't know what spag-like sphagnum moss is like truly what I've seen. And they like fill this like ball pocket plastic thing that then wraps around clean shell. Yeah, that wraps around the where you've removed the bark, and then you just leave it, and it basically starts making roots on its own because it's you're like imitating it touching the ground, and that's where it starts to create. But it's still attached to the mother plant plant. Yeah. And then what you do is after a while, like it takes a long time. Like, roots take a while. So like it could take like a whole season, but you could then remove the ball, cut off from the mother plant, and then plant out the roots into the ground.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

So I need to try that.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Um I literally, I was gonna say, I take tree starts that way. My mom had a trunk of a magnolia that was in her garden that she had cut down, and we wanted the magnolia. We dug out the trunk, and it's literally like a dead trunk with tiny little magnolia cuttings basically at the bottom. It's now a shrub out there, and it just had its first bloom.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

That's so cool. See, free plants. Free free plants. See, the fact of the matter is that plants just want to grow. They do. And if you give them the correct environment, they will do that for you. Have you ever done Snapdragon cuttings?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

No, but I want to. Do you ever have? No.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

Oh my gosh, I cannot believe this. I know.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Okay, well, I think about it every year.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Yes. You should. She literally asked me if I was gonna do it when she saw them.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Oh my goodness. Okay, so if you guys, so our listeners, if you are worried or scared about taking cuttings, first off, it's not scary. But second of all, snapdragons are like the easiest way to get into cuttings. Yep. So when you're growing them from seed, um, they get they grow pretty quickly after they get started, and usually they get too tall and they're not ready to go out yet. You will um trim off the tops for two reasons. One, it makes them shorter for your seed starting room. Two, it helps them start branching so that you get more blooms later. But the tops that you cut off, you literally can just fill a new tray of dirt and poke those down into the soil, put them on your grow rack with a humidity dome, usually. Um they will root and then you have a whole secondary tray of the same Snapdragons. Okay, question.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Do you use rooting hormone?

SPEAKER_03 14:04

I have literally only dipped them in cinnamon and I've never had an issue.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Okay, that's why I've I know the cinnamon, so why do we use cinnamon?

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Um, it's a natural antifungal, people will say. Um, but I just don't have rooting hormone, and I wasn't gonna buy it specifically for something experimental because it was some I was like, well, I saw other people do this, I'll give it a try.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

I also used rooting hormone in the past, and I to be honest with you, I don't I didn't see a huge difference between I think it's just maybe not necessary.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

Yeah. For at least for the home gardener, not necessary. Like I've literally used cinnamon I bought from Sam's Club, and it's just fine.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

But not cinnamon sugar. Not cinnamon sugar. Because I've totally done that before on academics, but cinnamon. I got an entire 72 cell tray of Snapdragons for free. Okay, this is where I always get hung up on cuttings. Yes. Is humidity dome is a must.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

And they say heat mat for a little bit. Oh, okay. Because it helps just with the roots to get stimulation going and have them form it. So I was always confused on what's happening on the root.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Some people say heat mat, some people say no heat mat. I'm always confused, like, what's the temperature?

SPEAKER_03 15:20

I've always done a heat mat and a humidity dome for your snaps. For anything I'm cutting.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yes. How how much water is in the soil? Like how moist is it?

SPEAKER_03 15:32

It's it's moist, but I You don't want it sopping. No, because uh they don't have roots, so it's literally just plant matter you're putting in the soil. So you do have to kind of be careful to not over soak the soil.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

What is the mix of like perlite, vermiculite to compost?

SPEAKER_03 15:53

I literally put it in the same stuff I start my seeds in, which at the time was the Vermont compost stuff mixed with half seed starting stuff from the store. So it loosens it up quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

I actually just read this in the book that I'm reading. The Mike's backyard nursery book. So what does he do? What does Mike do? He uh well it's bad. I can't remember. Um I wanna say, I wanna say it was like a a four to one ratio. Yeah, I mean it's probably probably it needs to be a four to one meaning meaning like four potting to one vermiculate vermiculite ore.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

I'm not gonna lie, my I've just potted some things that I think that are in like 50-50 because I was really just trying it. I was running out.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

I don't think you can have too much pear. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

It's I did vermiculite and I yeah, it's it's 50% vermiculite, 50% potting. I'll see. I mean things are things popped up, so like I'll I'll transplant them soon and I'll see.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

I don't get too fancy. I just mix my compost, whatever I have that year, with a seed starter and that's it. And this year And you put it under lights. Under lights, on a heat mat. I cover it for like a day or two or three, whatever, and then I take it off because you don't want, you know, fungus issues with that. Oh, I'll need to air two on the heat mat. With humidity dome.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

I leave it on the heat mat for like Yeah, because actually one of the biggest issues with cuttings is that they will lose moisture quickly.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

They will. And it is common, at least with the Snapdragons, you take the cuttings, you put them in your tray, put them on the lights, and like you'll come back the next day and they've all flopped over and it looks like they're totally dead. I left them there when that happened to me, and they all popped right back up. It was just like a shock situation.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Yeah. So on Gardener's World, whenever Monty takes cuttings of things, yeah, he always takes out a Ziploc bag, but he calls it like the a polyurethane bag. And he puts it into there immediately after cutting it. And even if he's even if he's going to pot it up right now, he carries it in a Ziploc baggie so that it doesn't lose too much moisture.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Well, when you gave me lavender cuttings, it stayed in that for weeks. Yeah. And weeks.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah, you did give me some lavender cuttings too. Lavender doesn't want to grow in my hair. I will.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

You will get it. It's that I was gonna say, so what are other things that we can take cuttings of that are like Snapdragons where they're like not hard mom.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Tomatoes are a thing. Um tomato suckers that pop out that people tell you it's a big, you know, argument whether you trim them off or not. But if you choose to trim them off, you can turn that sucker into an entirely new clone of your tomato plant. Um just by sticking it in the ground? Yeah, you'll stick it in a pot until it uh roots up, but that tomato sucker has the proper uh DNA inside of it to fruit later in life. Whereas the leaf that comes out below the sucker is just a leaf and won't fruit ever. What? At least with indeterminate tomatoes. Interesting. So only the suckers, if you're gonna prune them off, you might as well pop them in a pot and see if you can get them to root because people do this because tomatoes are so prone to disease. Oh. So you have a backup to replace it if that happens. So it's a good thing to try. Another, it's an easy one to try and just see if it works. And if it works, then you may have saved your tomato harvest for the year.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

So that's another one.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

We always have our tomatoes get so massive. I don't have room to take another cutting.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

I know, I know. I'm doing um mum cuttings right now. Oh, yeah. I took probably so good, like 14, and I think five are still alive. Hey, there's five new plants, Monica. That's fine. So, yeah, it's also a numbers game.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Always, it's always anything, and they're not all going to make it.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

Yeah, a hundred percent success rate is not gonna happen. No, but you did succeed. Yeah, yeah, like you got some free plants out of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Uh, I'm trying to think. I don't I think it might be a moisture. Well, yeah. My girlfriend who farms up the road said maybe it was a moisture too, they were too wet. Yeah, and they were moldy. Um I didn't put them on a heat mat though.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

So you should try that with your next batch and just see if it helps speed things up. I think it speeds things up to prevent the rotting, is what I think the purpose of that is. Okay. Because like when I've done dahlia cuttings, I always put them on the heat mat. You do. Um, but I don't really think I covered those.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Also, okay, question. Your perennial mums, right? Like the ones that are outside? Yeah. I okay, so this is my feeling about perennials. If they can handle the temperature outside as it is right now, I would almost rather it be out there. Because I like take cuttings and leave it where it is. Take cuttings and put them into pots and put them outside. Because I had my oak leaf hydrangeas. I had some that I just stuck directly in the ground and I had some that I put into my grow room first and I covered with bags, and I was like, this is my insurance. Well, I left them in there for a week. When I uncovered them, there was definitely mold on some of them. So I pulled out the moldy ones and then I just shoved them outside in their little pots. They look so much better in their little pots outside than they they did in my grow room.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Huh.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

And I think it's just like perennials, they can cope with it.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

They don't have a schedule, and yeah, like Mother Nature is better at growing stuff than we ever could be. Yeah, it could be, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

So oh my god, I agree. Take more cuttings and leave them outside. Yeah, literally just put them outside, especially. Did you put a dome over them though?

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Because what about all this rain we're getting today? Moisture, like humidity is good. They like humidity. As long as it can drain. As long as it can drain. That's like it has to be able to drain. Because you can't like and like in the ground, they won't they won't as long as it's not flooding, they're not getting, you know, super, super saturated.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

And with the oak leaf hydrangeas, those are native here. So like they should be able to handle our conditions.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

I mean, little tiny seedlings might be a little bit different, but I don't think it's I think if you put them in like a covered place outside, they would be better for you to like water them in a cover, like on your porch. Put them on your porch, let them go through the temperature swings and like water them, but they're getting air, they're getting like you're just you're treating them like a plant at that point. I don't know. I I that's why I I think of cuttings right now because the temperature and the outdoors can like get things going better than what well and the sun is just like yes, yeah. You can't you can't mimic it as easily in your grow rack.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

So if you will go back to dahlias because I know people love those. Um those are pretty easy to take cuttings from too.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Never done that. You never have? No. Oh my god. Because I can't get them to start. I just got mine to start. Really?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I uh I have taken cuttings from dahlias, but I'm not very successful with them.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

So okay. I will tell everyone what I've done. Um I ha it's not a hundred percent when I do it, I will say that. But so you buy your tubers from the store. Um, you have to wake them up, which means putting them in some soil.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Okay, I did this, but mine dried out so fast, and then I like I was like, Do I water? Do I not water? But then I started seeing them like wrinkle, and I was like, I gotta water. So I just put a little bit of water. Yeah, it's it's tough to get the feel for, I think.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

You mean your tubers, is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Yeah, they like everything. The soil and them started to dry out really fast, and I was like, they're basically in powder right now.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

So then I was like, they'll start rooting, like the tuber itself starts rooting pretty quickly, so it does that part is a little challenging. So okay, maybe it's not super easy, but you wake them up, you put them in like it looks like a potato, like instead of an elongated potato. The neck is the part with the eyes. The eyes are where the plant shoots will come out of to grow the plant. So that part needs to be sticking out of the soil like an inch or so, right? Um, that way you can see what's happening. So then the little sprouts start, and once they come out and they're a couple inches and they've got leaves and everything, you can take a really sharp knife and slice it off at the very base of the stem where it meets the tuber.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

But what if will it what if you accidentally slice it off of the tuber? Did you just kill that tuber?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Be careful.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Like, okay, if you slice the sprout at the base of the tuber. Uh-huh. What if it doesn't grow back from the tuber?

SPEAKER_03 25:18

I have never not seen that happen.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Okay. Um, usually not a real fear, don't you? Yeah. Usually it just becomes more vigorous and it grows more. If you cut too deep, if you cut too deep, yeah. So you can you're just cutting the eye. Yeah. Okay. So or some people will say you can cut off a tiny bit of the tuber section, but I usually have just or you can just Then you might cut the eye off. I don't understand that.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

What? I spent too much money on these tubers.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

I cannot just slice them. I have sliced it off at the base with no problems. I have also, some people will be kind of rough with them and they'll grab it at the base and kind of twist it and it just like pops off.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Honestly, yeah. If you see them, if you see people do it in like quick, like mass amounts, they're just like boom. They're not fearful about it off.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Like it's they're much more hardy than you think. It's just, yes, you spend a lot of money on them, so you're like, oh my god, I don't want to kill it.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Well, and the books are like the books and the tutorials in the books are very like precise.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

And they're like clean your knife with hydrogen peroxide and blah blah blah between each tuber.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Make sure you turn around in circles three times after your cut has been made. Sprinkle cinnamon.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Sprinkle cinnamon on your tongue and whisper, I want more dahlias before you deep breath.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah, it takes a deep breath.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

But really, so I did that. I did I stuck the the cutting in the soil on a heat mat in my red solo cups because we're fancy.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

In the the soil.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

Are you touching to the bottom? Pretty much. But so when I do it, when I did them in solo cups, I kind of cut the solo cup down to half size, so like the soil ball wasn't really that deep. Okay. That was only because I didn't have any more trays, so like you don't need to cut your solo cups or cut your solo cup two inches down with a sterile knife. So I did that, put it in there on a heat mat. I didn't cover those with anything, I just put them on the heat mat and crossed my fingers. And most of them worked. I was happy most of them worked because then when I took the tuber later and planted it outside, one of the ones I was most excited about ended up rotting. So like it had come out of the soil like you know it's supposed to, and then a couple days later I walked by and I'm like, why do you look like that? Like it was just super pale, wasn't growing. And so I like barely touched the the one from the tuber in the soil, and the entire tuber just like slips out.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Ugh, it had gotten too.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

And it was like a clear, like you could see through it because all of the like outer skin had come off. Sorry, that's gross. It's not really skin. It's like a potato, guys. But and then I like skinned it. And then it fell on the ground and it was splattered into oblivion. Like it was so rotten, it was crazy. So then I'm like, oh my god. The other ones rot too. That was the only one. So I don't know, but that was it was a variety, and I only had one tuber of that variety.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

It's freaking heartbreaking, too.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Well, I had a cutting of it. I know here comes my cutting. Yes. But I was like, oh my God. I was like, oh wait, I have cutting. So I literally went to the porch where all the things were hardening off and I just replaced it. So like that's why taking cuttings is kind of a good thing because it's like an insurance policy for yourself. Because that's a clone of the plant that you took it off of. Yep. So I am if this is like common knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

I always assume that it would go better with the tuber, like a plant would develop better from a tuber, but my cuttings do better. Not not the ones that I've taken myself, the ones that I've purchased. Because you can purchase cuttings how you cuttings. Um they did so much better than more tubers for making it. They produce so much.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Yes. Like it's crazy, guys. I don't know. Cuttings is like worth looking into worth trying. Yeah. In my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

I will say, whatever you do, just make sure that you don't have too much green growth on whatever you cut.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

I have seen people like take a cutting of a dahlia and then cut the leaves in half. Yes. For sure. Well, cut off all extras except for like what two? Yeah. And then cut them in half.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Literally, Monty Don on any like shrub or anything he does, he like cuts all of the leaves in half with a sterile knife.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

And a half-hyped red solo cup.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Two inches. Drainage holes. Oh, but don't forget the drainage holes. Like gloves and a white coat when you do this. They're gone in the Ockles.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Oh, yeah. Alright, guys, we're gonna turn around three times and see you next week. See you next week. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Bye. Hey, thanks for listening to our podcast. If you want to follow us on social, find us at the Gals Who Grow Podcast on Instagram and follow us on Spotify or your favorite podcast app.