Plant Propagation for Home Gardeners

Agriculture and Natural Resources FSA6024 Plant Propagation for Home Gardeners James A. Robbins Professor and Horticulture Specialist ­ Ornamentals Arkansas Is Our Campus Visit our web site at: http://www. uaex. edu Many home gardeners wish to... More

Agriculture and Natural Resources FSA6024 Plant Propagation for Home Gardeners James A. Robbins Professor and Horticulture Specialist ­ Ornamentals Arkansas Is Our Campus Visit our web site at: http://www. uaex. edu Many home gardeners wish to reproduce special plants in their land­ scapes or start their own vegetable and bedding plants. Plant propagation is the controlled reproduction of plants using a variety of methods. These methods can be broadly grouped into sexual and asexual (vegetative) methods. Sexual propa­ gation is focused primarily on propagating plants by seed. Seed propagation offers some advantages in that the technique is often economical and efficient and lends itself to longterm storage. The primary disadvan­ tage of seed propagation is that many seeds do not come “true to type,” so the offspring are not exact copies of the parent. Asexual propagation tech­ niques include cuttings (e. g. , root, stem, leaf), budding or grafting, layer­ ing and division. Less