Today I'm at Goddard's in York, an Arts and Crafts garden created by the Terry family
of Terry's Chocolate fame. At the heart of the garden is a lovely original glasshouse
where senior gardener Tom Longridge takes cuttings, sows seeds, grows exotic plants and tomatoes, cucumbers and grapevines.
Today he's going to show us how he takes cuttings from the pelagoniums he grows here.
So this is the original glass house?
It is, yes. We're lucky to have this glass house still in one piece.
It was built in the early 1930s by Richardsons of Darlington
and it's been up and down, it's certainly been at a phase where it was quite dilapidated
the National Trust restored it and now I'm lucky enough to have this space to to work in
and we use it in a slightly different way, this front section we use as a sort of ornamental display
to show our visitors the kinds of plants, different plants from around the world
that you can grow and then further back it's more of a practical space where we're raising cuttings.
We're growing on early fruit and veg and things like that.
And you keep them slightly different temperatures don't you?
Certainly over the winter, we can close off that space and we run a little heater just to make sure it stays frost free.
OK and where is this area?
Is this not heated at all?
Not at all no.
Yes you've got a lovely range of plants on display here and this is one of the most common ones that lots of people recognize and probably grow.
So this is a pelagonium, it's one that we would like to take some cuttings from to ensure we have some new stock for next year.
So show me how you'd go about taking a cutting.
OK well first of all, you want to select your cutting material and so this is a nice healthy green shoot
and I want to take about 10 to 15 cms of cutting material and what I do is I cut it just above a leaf node
and that's just so that there's no stump for it, so there's no stalk left,
just like that, and that's the cutting that we can go and prepare.
OK so that's your cutting material, so now do we we pot them up?
We'll take them through to the other part of the greenhouse and get them potted.
OK so do you just use normal potting compost?
I do, main thing is you want soil which is nice and free draining so you can add a bit of grit or perlite if you have it
but as long as it's a good free draining compost that's fine.
Great, OK and you're doing them all in one large pot are you? Which is really practical.
Yes I would tend to do five or six in one pot. It just is easier and more efficient that way.
So first thing I'm going to do is just fill up my flower pot here with some good peat free compost.
The next thing is to water that so it's nice and moist for the for the new cuttings.
This is our cutting material and the first thing to do is to strip away some of these lower leaves
which you can do with a sharp knife or they do just sort of pull off quite easily
because we're going to sink this into the compost, we don't want leaves below the level of the compost
and also we quite often pinch out the growing tip in case it develops into a sort of flower bud
which you don't want. One more thing to do, we just need to trim it off below one of these leaf nodes
and that's where all the hormones are concentrated which will make the roots. So sharp clean secateurs,
just a snip below there and that's now ready to go into the compost.
We tend to insert them into the edge of the pot, this helps the good root system develop and keeps them well drained.
So you just insert them up to those first leaves, just firm them in a little bit and there it is.
And so how long do you think it is before they'll have developed roots and need potting up individually?
I would normally think about six to eight weeks for pelargoniums to develop a decent root system
and then you could start potting them up to their individual pots and grow them on from there so as long as
you keep them frost free they should be fine and be in good condition for next spring.
Great. National Trust gardens can be great sources of inspiration
and our gardeners and volunteers are always happy to talk so why not come and visit
one of our places or get The National Trust School of Gardening from our shop.