My earthbox has a beautiful red trailing verbena in it that I have tried to start (probably too late in the year) from cuttings to no avail, so I was wondering about harvesting any seed. I was snooping over in the seeds forum and there was some info about getting seed from verbena but it was also stated that most hybrids are sterile. Since I have no clue what I bought at the nursery, do you guys know how I can tell whether it is is "propogatable" (is that a word?) by seed?
Annie
verbena from seed
Annie,
I'm sorry that I don't have any seed finding/starting advice to share. But, I will give you my opinion anyway! LOL!
If it were me (being that I don't have a clue) I would try bending a couple of the stems over to where they touch the dirt. Then, I would use a little piece of heavy wire folded in a 'u' shape and place it over the stem to hold it in the dirt. I might even cover the stem up with a bit of dirt. I have tried this method with my trailing rosemary and it always works. I just wait about a month and when I go check on it, lo and behold, the stem has formed roots!
HTH,
Necia
Necia got it - burrying the stems in the groud will get you roots fast, I have made tons of plants this way off my Verbena and it is sooo easy to do.
Oh, I feel like I just won the lottery!!!! I gave good gardening advice! LOL
Good luck, Annie!!!
Necia
Is the procedure to bury the root, and check it say in a week to see if it is rooting? You wouldn't want to leave it too long because it would be hard to dig up once the roots get established. So, if it has roots, do you snip it off and put into potting mix? Or is it safe to go to potting soil? Thanks!
You can check ever week, I use hair pins to hold them into the soil and just check to make sure. They need two or three good roots before you cut them off. Snip off and pot up in the same soil you rooted it in.
You can do a lot of plants this way - if it stays moist a lot of them will root. If they are woody stemmed just scrape a little of the bark to wound it so it will root.