Liberated Gardener

How To Launch a New Fig Tree by Layering a Branch

When I discover a plant I really like I want to have more of them. But sometimes I want more then my budget can support. Fortunately, as gardeners we can save money by making our own plants.

 One of the easiest ways to multiply plants is to grow new roots from the branches of shrubs and small trees. I’m not talking about taking cuttings or grafting or division. Those all have their pluses and minuses in the world of horticulture. I’m talking about an even easier technique called layering. I think it’s one of the most underutilized propagation techniques in the garden today for shrubs and trees. It can work with shrubs like rhododendrons, camellias, daphnes and even small trees like juneberries and hollies. 

 Other propagation techniques either require significant damage to the plant--such as division--or trying to start a plant without any roots—meaning cuttings--or trying to line up narrow pathways of the cambium—that’s grafting.

Layering gives the gardener and the new plant the best of both worlds: the new plant stays connected to the mama plant until it’s ready to grow on its own.  And there’s no tricky work for the gardener. You can start a plant from layering in any season. Here, I’ll show you how simple and reliable it is to layer a fig tree.

 1)   First pick a few slender branches (no more than an inch or so thick) that bend easily and can touch the ground.

2)   Take your pocketknife and scrape away a thin layer of bark from the side of the branch that will touch the soil. Scrape away an area about 2” long (in line with the branch) and up to a half inch wide to expose the green cambium. (Some gardeners like to bend the branch just till it cracks and that can work too.)

3)   For some species it may be beneficial to apply a dusting of root hormone to the cut area, but many plants will root successfully without that.

4)   Press the cut area onto the soil after removing any mulch or other debris.

5)   Hold the scraped branch in place with a stone, brick or length of stiff wire so it doesn’t move. You want the scraped area of the branch to have thorough and stable contact with the soil. The darkness, the moisture and the smell of good soil will stimulate the cambium to produce new roots from the damaged area.

6)   Leave it alone for one or more seasons. I often start layering a fig in fall, let it root over winter and pot it up in late winter or spring. You can also layer them in early spring and probably pot them up in late summer.

7)   When you think it’s been long enough lift the brick and brush soil away from the branch. If there are no roots, you haven’t given it enough time or it’s been too dry or too cold for much to happen. Put the brick back and wait another season. If the branch is holding in place and you can see roots reaching into the soil, then it’s ready to grow on its own.

  8)   Use your hand pruners or loppers to cut the new baby plant away from the mama plant. Make this cut on the mama side of the branch just an inch or so away from where you scraped the bark.

9)   With the rooted branch separated from the mama plant, carefully dig as deep as necessary to get the roots up out of the ground.

10)                 Put the rooted branch in a suitably sized pot.

11)                 Add any compost needed to fill the pot and keep the roots from drying out unless you are going to plant the new fig somewhere right away.

12)                 If you are going to grow the new plant in a pot for a while put soil less media (I recommend 2/3 compost and 1/3 shredded pine bark) so that the potted roots will have great drainage and can get better established.

13)                 Alternatively, you can just cut the branch and leave the new plant in the ground where it is until you are ready to move it or give it away. Here's a picture of a new fig tree that's been dug after leafing out in spring.

Once it’s all said and done, you’ve got a new fig tree and can look forward to filling bowls with this delicate fruit in two or three years. 

This beautiful and delicious variety is called Violete de Bourdeaux and is available at www.ediblelandscaping.com.

Burch Ave. Community Garden Cleans Up Well

Thanks to folks from the Durham Community Land Trust, Cornucopia, Bountiful Backyards, NC School of Science and Math, Compuware and the neighborhood, the community garden got a a coat of stain on the fence, mulch in the paths and beds cleaned up for the fall. 

Here's the beginning of the day,with a big pile of wood chips delivered for mulch. 

As beds were cleaned up, burlap coffee bags were laid in the paths to suppress weeds and then topped off with wood chips for additional organic matter.

The work is done and a few stalwarts clean up. We stained the pickets blue, the stringers green and the gate yellow. Used stain instead of paint because paint would peel and look crappy in a few years. At worst, stain will simply fade a bit over the years. 

Sarah Vroom of Bountiful Backyards organized the planting of some edibles in a bed to the right of the gate. 

Schoolyard crops: Sweet Potatoes

I'm sure there are teachers who are frustrated by the fact that the plants they plant in spring, might not get much tending through the summer break. But there's a great option--sweet potatoes. 

When I was farming we bought bare root sweet potatoes by the bunch in early May, tossed one down onto tilled soil and then from a standing position (I like garden techniques that save your back) poked it into the ground with a stick till only the leaves were showing (as in the photos below), tamped the soil in place with our boot and took a step to plant another one the same way 12" apart. 

Throw a little water on 'em once, spread mulch and they'll root and start growing all summer and not quit till harvested or killed by frost. 

 

Bury them up to their leaves. Since they are vines you can cover the stem with soil and they will root all along the stem--like a tomato, which is also a vine.

 
Sweet potatoes are tough and need no tending. They can survive in droughts and heat waves, they don't care about weeds, they don't have bug or disease problems (unless you've applied excess nitrogen fertilizer or they brought some nasty disease with them from the nursery, which isn't real likely). In fact they spread like a ground cover, so they suppress weeds to a large degree. 

And no you don't have to poke them in the ground with a stick--you can be gentler if you choose. Point is, they can take rough handling by small and inexperienced hands. 

And if a different class takes over the plot when school starts in August--no problem. In fact that's even better as the new class can start off the garden year with a treasure hunt for sweet potatoes that they can take home to cook and eat. And they're sweet! So you know they'll at least try them, if sweet potatoes are not already a part of their diet. 

To harvest:

1) you only need to cut the foliage of the plant off, compost it and then

2)  dig the tubers up with a shovel. There's no avoiding cutting a few tubers in half--just plan on eating those first.

After the tubers are dug-which can be done anytime between August and Christmas. They just get bigger the longer they are in the ground, so no harm there--and it's time to plant a fall crop, put in a bed--or part of one--in Crimson Clover. 

This is a cover crop that will work with bacteria to gather nitrogen from the air (which is 78% nitrogen gas) to turn into organic fertilizer. After the clover is established you can dig one up and see tiny pink nodules on the roots.Those are the homes of the bacteria.

The Crimson clover will live and grow through the winter and will set gorgeous red flowers in April. Cut a bunch of the flowers for bouquets to give away and then cut the plants to the ground about the 2nd or 3rd week of April. Till the cut foliage into the ground--using a shovel is fine--before it can dry and turn brown. That will incorporate all the nitrogen from the bacteria and it will be just enough to grow a crop of sweet potatoes planted the first week of May. 

So the cycle starts again and the class that started their garden season with a harvest of potatoes in the fall, will learn about fixing nitrogen with symbiotic bacteria and clover and will plant the sweet potatoes that become a treasure hunt for the class that comes after them. 

And the teacher doesn't have to worry about tending those plants over the summer !  Yippee!

If you want to add another plant lesson, then in late March/early April use a sweet potato tuber to grow the new plants (called slips) by laying the tuber in wet sand or suspending it in water and letting it develop shoots that can be collected in late April/early May for planting.