Taking cuttings from ‘salvia uliginosa’


hunting. Firstly I write the name and date on a label and drop it into the envelope. Then I fill it with lots of seed-pods, and fold over the top. When I have collected everything I can I bring the envelopes into the kitchen and leave them there to dry for a few days. Then I open a newspaper on the table and tip out the contents of each envelope in turn. It’s a meticulous job. Seed pods, dead insects and snail shells are discarded leaving behind only the seeds,


which are tipped into a small envelope and sealed. The name and date is written on each envelope and when they are all filled they go into the fridge in a sealed plastic box. The fridge is usually set at about 4º-5º C. and the seal keeps the moisture level constant.


Salvia uliginosa, however, would probably not grow large enough to flower from seed in a single summer. So, as an insurance policy as much as wanting more plants, I take softwood cuttings this month. I try to find shoots that are not flowering. Flowers produce the wrong plant hormones in the shoot and the cuttings root less easily. These are taken in the usual way and should root within a couple of weeks provided they are kept cool and shaded. Once they have made a good root-ball, they are potted up into 9cm (3½in) containers and kept somewhere frost-free over the winter. Then I can leave the original salvias to flower all autumn and take their chances in the frosty months.


Some of my favourite plants fail to set viable seed in a normal English summer, so after such an abnormally hot one I’m waiting to see if the Pineapple Broom (Cytisus battandieri), amongst others, will provide me with some offspring. After previous hot summers I have grown some good plants from seed, although I needed to keep up a constant slug-watch. And I also discovered that a few specimens failed to produce much flower. So it’s important to grow them on to flowering size to check that each plant deserves its place in the sun.


Removing seeds from the pod of an Evening Primrose plant


Wisteria produces long bean-pods more


Storing seeds kept in envelopes in the fridge to be planted in the spring


Country Gardener 19


frequently. However I have learned the hard way that plants raised from this seed are inferior in every way. And it takes several years of patience before they flower and the disturbing truth becomes apparent. Commercially, good named selections are grafted onto seed-raised rootstocks. Now I make sure I buy them from the garden centre at the right price to ensure that my patience is rewarded.


Collecting vegetable seed can also be a little fraught. Many veggies are biennial. That is, they produce their edible roots, cabbages or leeks for eating in the first year, and then flower the following year. So saving seed is a bit too time and space-consuming if you want to make the best use of the vegetable-growing area. And the results can often be disappointing also.


F1 hybrid seed has been bred from known parents specifically to produce a large, uniform crop of especially good quality. The seed of these vegetables will not re-produce similar plants and can be a waste of all the time and effort put into growing them.


But most years we allow a few runner beans to mature and collect the pods when they are ripe and dry. These too we store in the fridge in the same way. However, after a few years the resulting beans are noticeably not as good as they once were. They become tougher, shorter, and altogether less delicious. So we compost them all and buy the seed afresh in the spring, happy in the knowledge that our small investment will be amply rewarded with the long-anticipated mountains of tender beans.


Sally Gregson runs Mill Cottage Plants at Wookey. www.millcottageplants.co.uk


Photographs by Kate Lewis


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