Frugal Tips

Next time you are in a garden and see a plant you admire, ask if you can take a cutting. It's an economical way to add to the beauty and diversity of your garden.

Gardening can be a rewarding and frugal hobby, but a trip to the garden store can sometimes be dispiriting. The cost of new plants can add up quickly.

Rooting plant shoots allows you access to an almost unlimited variety of plants at no cost.

The process - known technically as asexual propagation - is both simple and miraculous. A shoot is clipped from a plant, and is placed in potting soil where it grows roots and develops into a mature plant genetically identical to the original.

Summer is generally the best time to grow a perennial plant from a cutting, and morning the best time of day to do the clipping. Using a sharp knive or shears, clip a four to eight shoot from the mature plant. Avoid woody old growth but also avoid immature green shoots. Label the shoot - if you are going to be taking shoots from more than one plant - and place it immediately in water.

Once home, recut the shoot on an angle, and place in potting soil or the equivalent (avoid highly fertilized soil). Place the plant in high shade, avoiding both direct sunlight and deep shade. Keep the plant moist but not soggy. Be attentive but patient, and wait for the roots to grow.

Many gardeners use rooting hormone, but you generally can avoid this expense unless your cutting is of hardwoods. Most other plants root just fine without it.

Among the plants that do well with cuttings are aster, azalea, boxwood, camellia, chrysantemum, dianthus, gardenia, geraniums, honeysuckle, hydranger, jade plant, lavender, penstemon, roses, rosemary, salvia, veronica and willow.