Increasing Plant Stocks of Kiwi and Grapes

Today the weather played ball, I spent most of the day sorting out plants, our new buyers have asked if they can have a landscape gardener come round to do them a quote, they want all the garden stripped out and turned to lawn, I was a bit taken aback by this and find it sad that all this will go

when we first moved here 9 years ago the garden was just lawn and nothing else, so now its to be turned back again as it was, very very sad as there are many unusual plants many, established plants, all the fruit bushes and trees will go, the asparagus beds will go, the herbs will go, the wildlife will go.

It will be there home so its down to them, if I had know early spring I could have taken up so many plants but thought better of it at the time as I wanted to leave a productive garden for the new people. 

I made a start this morning taking more cuttings of the black grape and kiwi that are climbing over the trellis arch that leads into the edible garden.

I took the cuttings first thing this morning and left them standing in water until I was ready a few hours later to deal with them.

one of the grape cuttings all the leaves stripped back

One of the kiwi cuttings with the main leaf cut in half to reduce water loss

Wounding the the bark on the last half inch of the kiwi cutting encourages new root growth

 I usually use an organic rooting powder to assist with rooting, and the mix I am using for potting is John Innis No2 mixed with pearlite, the pearlite helps air to get to the roots. That spike on top of the pot of rooting powder is perfect for making a hole in the compost.

So it was very easy after letting them stand in water for a few hours, dip in the powder then pop into the compost mix, Kiwis and Grapes benefit from bottom heat to encourage roots and like a humid atmosphere, so it was into the heated propagator, and I have them sitting in the kitchen out of direct sun

Here they are all raring to go, I hope, this photo was taken this evening so far so good none are wilting.

I also cut my first sweet peas today's

I also moved the Dahlia up onto the patio as it was in flower

Very early but it has been brought on in the greenhouse, a lovely flower that was bought in Poundland 

I moved many of the fruit trees and plants up on to the patio that were lifted last autumn they are all doing fine. Many are in fruit as well.

I had to pop to the range today and they had all there summer plants reduced to 10p

there was boxes and boxes of them in the Range, but most of them were beyond rescue such a shame, I managed to find 13 that had signs of growth, so for 10p its worth a try, the first thing I did was to give them a good soak in water

I don't expect much from them this year but with a bit of TLC they could give a lovely display next year

after soaking for a few hours I popped them in a wooden trough and inter planted them with some of the geraniums and ganzanias I got the other day, it will be interesting to see how they do.

They are planted in the wooden box at the back, the plants in the front are some of  what I have been lifting and splitting from the garden today.