Manuka seedlings

Now these plants are rocketing away! Just not that long ago they were a couple of inches tall, and now some of them are a couple of feet tall (that would be say 60cm for all you modern metric people). Bushy as anything too. They'll be ready to plant out in autumn, just got to decide where....

Potting up Thyme Cuttings

Those lovely vigorous thyme cuttings were starting to grow quite quickly, but I didn't think they were big enough for putting straight into the stone garden yet. Although I was concerned the roots would all start to inter-tangle. So I have potted them up into little pots. I'll let them get a bit bigger, then plant out.

And while I was doing that, some of the new crop of pineapple sage were ready to move up into pots too. This growing something from nothing could become quite addictive.

Trees for Bees

It was a big potting weekend, moving some of the manuka trees on into bigger pots. Here is some of what I started with

 I used 2 sizes of new bags, some of the seedlings had become quite big. Although when I had worked down to the smaller ones, they were not so desperately needing moving on up, as their roots were not filling the old bags yet.

And here they all are, repotted. Still got quite a few left on the table, but it is only half covered now, and all the chairs are free.

Cuttings Progress

These look pretty tiny here, and in fact they aren't all that big. But, a big moment! The first plantings of the cuttings. These are rosemary and pineapple sage. I've put one each into each bay between the retaining wall posts. They've already been potted up, and I chose the ones showing some growth, that had developed roots, so I expect these will just go like a rocket once the weather warms up a bit more.

How to pot up plants

Here is everything you need to pot up seedlings. Although the squares of chocolate are missing in action. I decided to pot on all those cuttings I made at the end of autumn, which might have been a bit early as some of them hadn't put on much growth, and when I dug them up they had only tiny roots. But too late now.

I have rosemary, which is growing well, pineapple sage, coprosma, azaleas not doing so well, grisilena.

I also potted up the half of the hebe hedge that hasn't got planted yet. They are growing so fast, and were quite root bound and thirsty.

Quite a busy day by the time I finished it all.

More Cuttings for Trees for Bees

Its really the end of the season for making cuttings, as it is getting quite cold now (for here, so not really cold at all), but a couple of plants will strike from cuttings all year round - or so my trusty book says.  So I have tried some Griselinia Littoralis - the big leafed green ones, these were the hedge-du-jour for a few years and I thought they would fill in some of my gaps on the boundary, and maybe even make a small hedge along my back border.  I pinched these cuttings from my lovely neighbours, who have recently planted a few plants, although a walk around the neighbourhood would find plenty of others hanging over the footpaths.

 

Then the little roundy leafed ones are from a couple of little azaleas that I have had in my front yard for 20 years, and I have not managed to kill them yet, so they deserve a go.  Might be too cold for them to strike though, we'll see.  Not bee plants, but pretty.

 

And trust rosemary, also might be too late, but I needed to trim it anyway. This is a prostate form, and I'm hoping it will go beside my retaining wall and dangle over the board that I am going to put up to hold all the dirt in.

 

 

And then I noticed one of the council street plantings just outside my place had a big bushy coprosma, so I pinched some of that too.  These should work I think.  Or they would, except after I took this pic one of the cats saw this and thought it was an excellent dirt box - dirt and cuttings all over the deck.  I've since moved them into the box beside the rosemary, but I'm not sure if any fatal damage has been done, time will tell.  Plenty more where this came from though, the street bush is huge, so I think it will make an excellent gap filler.