Grow Light And Plant Cuttings

December 2008, Port Charlotte Florida

Right now I am experimenting with rooting cuttings of a few different garden plants. This is December in Florida and it has been cool, however it is warming up quite a bit. I am using a grow light in my house and have selected croton, which is doing very well under the grow light. Within three weeks the croton is rooting. So far I have transplanted one into a pot with regular soil prepared for the transplants. I will be transplanting two more in a few days because they have started to root. It’s a new variety that I want to get stocked up with in order to have stock plants for more cuttings.

I am also experimenting with leaf cuttings of the Kalanchoe plant. Although these plants are beautiful they are deadly. They are not safe to have around children and animals especially dogs.

I had bad luck with trying to root the passion flower. At first it seemed to be doing well, then something happened, it may have been due to contamination of the container; I‘m going to sterilize it and try again. I have a very vigorous passion flower growing on my fence in my back yard and started cuttings from it early last fall and they are doing well.

I have about a hundred croton plants that I started from cuttings of various varieties. They are doing really well and now I have to consider just how I’m going to manage them this spring. I need to develop a planting arrangement for the landscape and still have sufficient stock plants for propagation. That’s going to be a neat trick to pull off, especially with the limited space that I have. I‘m also going to be working with other plants to include with the project; one is the springeri fern that will make a nice addition. I want to keep only one for seed. One plant will produce all the seed that I can handle. I have multiplied these plants from division but choose to grow from seed. They are easy to take care of as seedlings and will take a little longer to grow, but that’s ok. Within a year I’ll have all the stock that I’ll need. That way I’ll have a variety of different sizes to sell and use for Rosie’s landscaping business.

I also have one Foxtail Springeri in a large pot that I hope to have produce seed. So far it has blossomed but it didn’t produce seed. I’m hoping that this spring it will bloom again and this time with a little luck and the right insects to pollinate them I’ll get some viable seed from them.

TriVita Stevia How To Grow Your Own | 154

Growing and Using Stevia which is called : The Sweet Herb.

Stevia rebaudiana is a plant, native to Paraguay and Brazil in South America. Stevia is a broad classification of plants. Rebaudiana is the species name. Remember that name because it is the only species, out of the many found contains the high concentration of sweet glycosides making this sweet leaf such a useful and amazingly wonderful herb. The dried leaf, in fact, is 10-15 times sweeter than cane sugar! Powdered stevia leaf, known as green stevia powder, may be found for sale at natural food stores or online while waiting for your first harvest. However, if you are looking for more stevia information you can order liquid Stevia right here at the bottom of this article.

Stevia is not particularly a showy plant but its sweet taste is its most desirable feature. The plant reaches about a height of about 2 feet. It is a perennial but tender plant and will survive where winters are mild. The stevia leaves are small and narrow, notched on the end. The leaves are much sweeter than the stems. The stevia blooms are white and tiny but so abundant that the plant looks like a greenish white cloud when in bloom Farther north than zone 8 stevia may be grown as an annual.

Stevia will do well in most soils, however it prefers a sandy loam with a good amount of organic matter. It’s home area the soils are a little on the acid side but will tolerate a wide range of soil pH. Stevie likes constantly moist soil, but not watter logged. Watering is essential unless substantial rains come every week. The short days of late fall will cause the stevia plant to blossom.

You can grow stevia from seeds or cuttings from other plants. If you are lucky and know somebody with a stevia plant, you might be able to get some cuttings for your own experimenting. If you want to order some seeds you could go to steviaseed dot com and check it out.

I will be doing some experimenting with the stevia cultivation next spring and will keep you posted to the results. I will be starting them from seeds. If you live in a cold climate you can start your stevia seed under a fluorescent light several weeks before transplanting outside. Stevia is vulnerable to cold temperatures so be sure all sign of frost is past before you transplant outside. Harden the plants at least 5 or 6 days before transplanting. Bring the plants indoors on cold nights. Transplant on a cloudy day. You should put the plant a little deeper than it is growing in its container. They are best kept in beds in rows easy for maintaining, staggering the plants. Plant 12 to 18 inches apart. Using a little much around the plant will prevent drying out during sunny days. Water the plants with gentle soaking right after transplanting.

Stevia plants are brittle and tend to break in the wind. If they break, use the broken stem to start additional plants. When the main shoots are 8 to 12 inches tall pinch off the end and this will encourage branching. When the secondary branches reach 8 to 10 inches long, pinch the ends off to encourage tertiary branching. The pruned leaves are good to eat right on the spot. I’ll have to try them in my salads. Fresh and dried leaves are good for tea.

If you are energetic you can dig up plants and bring indoors for winter use. A fluorescent grow light will work well. The plants tend to look half dead by the end of winter but will sprout and grow back nicely in the spring.

Late winter and early spring are the best time for taking cuttings for propagation. However you must have at least 16 hours of lighting per day to encourage rooting. The cuttings should be at least 4 inches long with at least two leaf buds above ground. Transplant to a larger pot after rooted plant starts to grow. (About 2 to 4 weeks) Then in about a month you will be able to transplant outside, if your timing is right.

You can harvest the stevia leaves through the summer as required. The best quality harvest is just as the plants start their blossoming in the fall. Depending on how you want to develop your plants will determine how you will harvest them. If you leave the stock plant to remain over winter in the gound, you can cut about 2/3 of the stem, leaving about 1/3 for the plant to re-grow. Mixing the stevia leaves with mint make a nice sweet mint tea. Peppermint and spearmint are excellent for this use. The dried leaves of the stevia remain sweet for years. If you use a food dehydrator be sure to dry them on a very low heat. Store the dry stevia in air tight containers, preferably glass jars.

If you don’t want to go through all the trouble of gardening and raising your own stevia plants, you will find that stevia sweetener is a wonderful product and you can order stevia right here.

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TriVita Stevia: 12/15/08

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Butterfly Garden vs: Nursery Garden

Since my nursery garden has occupied a great deal of my time this summer, I still haven’t given up on the butterfly aspect of my garden. I still have a devoted area set aside for the butterflies. Although I did discontinue raising the milkweed plants I still have other plants that are also beneficial to the butterflies. At there is a general improvement in the appearance of my garden. By getting rid of the milkweed plants, I have successfully gotten rid of the Mexican beetle that was devouring the plants before the butterfly larvae could benefit from them.

Since my hobby of a plant nursery is somewhat stabilized, I have a little more room for more plants, but that will develop now over a slower pace. My next step is to begin working with cell culture in developing new plants. I’m not sure yet if I will start it this late in the season or not. I may wait until next spring when the weather will be more acceptable for developing this hobby.

I have some lantana plants in my butterfly area and they are somewhat of a problem. I planned on using them for base stock for cuttings, but they are a very intrusive plant with vines going all over. I haven’t quite made up my mind what I’m going to do about them. They are beautiful, but a problem. In Texas we treated them as weeds.

Brad Vigansky

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Croton Cuttings

When I moved to Florida 20 years ago I had never heard of a croton plant. My neighbor had one and I just thought ho hum and never got interested in them. It wasn’t until my daughter started a landscaping business that I began toying around with the idea of beginning a hobby of raising some plants. Together we have observed and learned what people are using in their landscapes and I began to experiment with several plants. It is then that I began to get interested in the croton. Although it is not native to Southwest Florida I decided to go with it because it is not invasive and does very well in this climate and is quite hardy to the weather extremes.

I began to visit my neighbors with my garden clippers and over this past summer have gathered about 100 cuttings from various species of the croton plants that are doing well in this neighborhood. I have about 80 growing croton plants in my inventory and have some more coming on from some fresh cuttings.

I have experimented enough with cuttings from the croton plant that I have a very specific procedure in producing the rooted plants. I will go into more detail later on the specifics but will mention that the first few I trimmed the excess leaves so that they wouldn‘t take up much room in my plant rooting box. Then I did a batch of cuttings where I only removed the lower leaves and left all the top leaves whole. They take up more room but the results were startlingly different. The untrimmed ones are doing much better and are exceeding the growth of the trimmed ones. However it is a little more work for the first month because of the cuttings having no roots you must mist the leaves so that they will survive the heat and absorb moisture and survive and grow roots. Here in Florida we have an advantage over the snowbirds in the north because we have a much longer growing season and with care can get double the growth over the north’s shorter growing season.

Brad Vigansky

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More Information About My Garden

I lived in Michigan for the first 50 years of my life and have always been exposed to gardens, my own and others. The biggest problem that I had in Michigan was taking care of all the excess produce that was produced in my little back yard garden. Most of the plants were very productive in the fall of the year, September, October and November. My garden saved me a lot of money on my grocery bill.

Gardening here in Florida, for me is another story. Because of year around warm weather the bugs here are a terrible problem. I have gone from the butterfly garden to a nursery garden, a small scale process of producing several new plants for my daughters use in her landscaping business. Right now I am using the cutting method of producing the plants required and it is working pretty well. As a hobby I would like to branch into experimenting with in-vitro cell reproduction from parent stock. Just in the thinking stage at this time, however the expensive labs for in-vitro cell reproduction has moved into the kitchen and is becoming available to people that are interested in experimenting and developing their abilities in plant production and reproduction. If you are interested in this and would like more information click here on this link.

After I get set up and have experimented with their recommended plant The African Violet, I want to continue with the Plumeria Frangipani which is the Hawaiian flowers that they use to make their Leigh’s. After being successful with the Plumeria I want to experiment with the croton plant. From there who knows. With my failing eyesight I don’t know if I will be able to do what it takes to get cultures to grow.

As it is right now I have variety of about 30+ different plants that I’m working with and experimenting just to see what I can do with them. I have a total of about 450 plants all at various stages of development. I am working with primarily native plants of this area that will do well in this harsh climate. Yes I said harsh, at different times of the year is is arid, cold, hot, rainy and to the extreme. It’s a very challenging hobby but very interestin.

Brad Vigansky

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Phone: 941-343-3184
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My Nursery Garden

For three years I tried to have a butterfly garden and loved it except for the Mexican beetle that attacked the milk weed plants that I was raising for the butterflies. Things change so has my gardening. My youngest daughter Rosemarie has a landscaping business and I am raising some of the plants that she will be using. It’s kind of like a family enterprise which is by the way a home based business.

I am still encouraging the butterflies and I think I can be successful in combining the efforts of a small nursery operation and still have a butterfly garden. I’m working at it. I am primarily interested in raising the Plumeria Frangipani. I have about a dozen of them started; they are the flowers that they use to make the Hawaiian Leigh’s. I also am very interested in the Croton, a plant primarily raised in the tropics. I have about 80 crotons started and doing well.

At this time my inventory of plants is quite small but I have a few of several varieties. Some I am experimenting with to learn how to take care of them. I will be working with the kind of plants that require little attention and can do well in this very hot climate. The climate alternates between being excessively wet to excessively dry. This year it has been near normal. When it rains the weeds and grass really grow fast. During the dry seasons and it has been excessively dry for about 3 years. I work with plants that tolerate the extreme climate and will do well when transferred locally to another garden or field.

Since this is a home based business, that’s what I’m about. If you would like to know more about it go to the links at the bottom of this article.

Brad Vigansky
Skype: bradley:vigansky
Phone: 941-343-3184
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