Off with her head! (or, Propagation by cuttings)

I've introduced you to my 'work garden' before - and today, I've got an update.

(Yes, yes, I know - I owe you a huge update.  All is well, and I'll get to it, I promise.)

Princess - remember her? the giant Parrot's Beak that I've cut back once already? - has continued to grow.  She's HUGE.  Due to my terrible hands-off management of her growth, she's gotten too big, and too lopsided, and her stem(s) finally started to give way when I tried to turn her around to sun the other side of her last week.  It was obvious that Princess needed to be cut back again, and today was the day.

The work garden

Fuscias - looking appropriately fuscia

Right row, front to back: Spider plant, Donkey's Tail (Kim's), another Spider plant.  Front center: Vancouver Centennial Geranium. Left row, front to back: Garlic (Kim's), Princess Two, Princess One (you can see her leaning on the Spider plant's pot), Aloe Vera (Kim's)

The Parrot's Beak (Impatiens niamniamensis - that's a fabulous name!) has stems that get woody as they grow, but the first few inches of new growth at the top are young and supple.  I had clusters of leaves right at the bottom of the new growth, so I cut the stems right under that cluster, then removed the clustered leaves.  The bottom two inches of these cuttings went into some nice wet potting soil mixed with a bit of compost - I'm hoping that they put out roots quickly and successfully.  (Sending out a huge thanks to a now-retired colleague, who left a bag of potting soil for me that she had brought in to repot her giant fern.  Thank you again - I'm putting it to good use!!)

New cuttings - introducing Princesses Three through Five!

There's one more new branch started on Princess One, and she's got a few flowers growing on her original stem, so I'll keep her around for a little bit longer, cut and plant that fourth branch, then likely dispatch Princess One.  I am being much more careful with the growth of the other Princesses - I pinched the new growth off the main stem of Princess Two fairly short once she was firmly rooted, and she's since grown two more branches, one of which has reached my height tolerance and got pinched today. I'll keep Three through Five short as well - Three (the tallest in the above picture, on the right) is already a good height for a main stem, but I'll wait until she's rooted before pinching the new growth.

All three are now in the sun, with bags over them - Three gets the bag that I used for both One and Two when they were first cut, and Four and Five have large freezer bags over them.  This raises the humidity, creating a little microclimate of their favourite conditions, which will reduce the stress while they take root.

Princess One and her beautiful - if slightly malformed - flowers

The spider mites that I battled for months have been successfully eradicated, and I'm now very cautious about grabbing new plants.  We have a yearly 'Green Day' here at work, and the greenhouse brings plants to share - they take pest control very seriously, so I am quite confident that their plants are clean.  In fact, that's where Princess One came from, along with Kim's Donkey's Tail - last year's Green Day.  This year, I got a geranium and Kim got garlic.  They had some herbs too, but I already have lemon balm in the perennial garden at home so I decided on another huge, flowering plant.

I have another Aloe, it is keeping a colleague's big tree-like mystery plant company in another corner.  All of the Aloes come from the one I got from Mom's Aloe a few years ago - and they're all putting out babies like mad!

Interested in learning more about Impatiens niamniamensis?
Stupid Garden Plants - This plant blog is hilarious :)
Strange Wonderful Things
Gardening Know How - information about propagating Impatiens