Leonotis nepetifolia from cuttings

[Lachy]

G'day guys,

During a trip to the local nursery this morning, I spotted a large clump of Leonotis nepetifolia growing as a weed in the back corner. The nurseryman - somewhat bemused, I imagine - let me wield the secateurs and I now have half a dozen cuttings. However, I have little experience cultivating anything from cuttings aside from cacti. From what I understand, this is a pretty tough plant, but if anyone has any advice about growing this baby - particularly from cuttings - I'm all ears. Do I need to strip the leaves down to a minimum until roots form? Any watering, heating, soil or other requirements I should be aware of?

Cheers for your help.

[Vertmorpheus]

Three node semi hard cuttings that are just starting to get internodal branching. defoliate and plant the lower two, defoliate the topmost node as well but leave a couple tiny leaves from the internodal branches just forming. Stick them in some not overly moist mix, shade, and most should take. I don't think they'd be quite as happy with cool overnight temps though, so take a look at your weather. I've had plenty of cuttings take just be snapping woody branches into maybe 20cm lengths, and poking them into the ground beneath the parent bush.

I had to take a machete and then a line trimmer to my towering collection of this stuff, in two months it had taken over nearly 10 square metres of bed space. Contemplated making the mother of all extracts with the trailer load of trimmings, but ended up burning it all int he firepit up the back instead and the whole valley stank like foetid bong fumes for the rest of the day haha.

And Nursery Nevil was grinning at you as you begged for cuts because he spends half his time pulling out thousands of bubby ones from around the place... my garden beds are so heavily self sown with the stuff that theyre on the same list as cobblers pegs, spiny amaranth and amaranth haha. Pretty easy from seed and fast too... they make a good "practice" plant for pruning techniques for more valuable herbaceous annuals. A few dried seed heads crushed (free tip... a quick pass with a lighter knocks the tips off the thorny bits) and sprinkled over say a metre of tray space will give you dozens and dozens forever..weedy stuff.

If you live somewhere thats prone to getting big sappy weed patches popping up at the slightest chance, be very careful, this stuff is fairly fast to escape and hard to get rid off... lots of tiny tough seeds, tough plants, fairly bug resistant, and you can cut em back as much as you want... my two "wanted" plants have been cut back to ground level two or three times a year for the last 4 years or so and they always spring back.

VM

Edited March 21, 2008 by Vertmorpheus

[Lachy]

Cool, thanks for the advice VM. The next week's looking a bit cool, so I'll grow them on a heater until I get some decent roots happening.

The look on the nurseryman's face was quizzical, to say the least. His expression was something along the lines of "what the fuck does this bloke want with our weeds?".

[Vertmorpheus]

yeah theyll do that... even funnier when they find you hunting under racks n tables for self sown things to put in your pocket or deciding to pick a fallen chilli off the ground instead of paying 44 dollars for the potted one it just fell of most nursery ppl got their start knocking tips off stuff in their mums front garden, he probably was only half disapproving and the rest ...wistful.

if cuts don't work, there'd be plenty of members around with seed for it, common enough. Just remember that getting hold of it is the first half, getting RID of the stuff is the second

VM

[Torsten]

it usually only grows from cuttings before it goes into full flower. after that it really doesn't like it. As this is an annual it is best to just grow from seed. Maybe you can get a seed ball from the nursery or get at least one of your cuttings to grow to seeding stage. One ball will produce hundreds of seeds.