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Plant Presents From your
Own Garden
By The Bare
Bones Gardener
If
you are looking for ways for you or your children to provide cheap presents
for the extended family, or just like to give gifts that have a personal
element to them, then here is a suggestion or two for you.
If you are looking to make a present for the gardener in the family or
someone who has recently moved into their own home, someone in a flat or
unit, or a person who can't manage a full sized yard, or a family member who
loves to cook with fresh ingredients, etc. Then why not consider giving them
something from your own garden? Here I am talking about plants that you have
divided off from your own garden plants.
There are many
plants growing in the average garden that can be divided, or that have
naturally self layered themselves. Where you could go along and take a rooted
section, pot them up and with a bit of dressing up of the planting container,
you could produce a really nice gift for someone you care about.
These plants include many herbs as well as perennials or shrubs
and even some trees which manage to send out self-layering branches or
suckers from the root system. Some perennials or bulbs will increase their
size or number of bulbs over time. Chance seedlings coming up in the wrong
place for you, can easily also be used. All of these provide you with an
opportunity to cheaply create a wonderful present for someone else.
First things first you will need to obtain a number of pots either plastic
ones left over from additions to the garden population, or from someone you
know, or you can go out and purchase a pot plastic/ceramic/terracotta etc.,
to suit your needs. If the person you are giving the plant to is not a real
gardener, then you might consider getting a pot with a water well in the base
to increase the plants' chances of surviving.
Next, you need to begin looking for your plant material, so take a careful
look around your garden at the soil level. Check out which plants are showing
multiple stalks growing out of the ground. Or those sprawling plants where a
branch has leaned over on to the ground and taken root along the branch,
maybe one where a branch has become buried under the mulch.
Or one where there is a sucker growing from the soil a short distance from
the parent plant. Another possibility is seedlings growing in the garden a
distance from the parent plant material. Maybe there is a clump of plants or
a big patch of bulbs where you can do some dividing.
Many of these plants benefit from being divided up or being allowed some more
growing room in the particular area where you have taken away some material.
Different parts of Australia will have a differing range of plant species,
which lend themselves to this form of self-propagation. If you can't find any
plants that are doing this in your own garden, why not look at a friends or
neighbours garden. Or you could maybe join forces and give a joint present
using plants from another family member's garden. Or another possibility is
to buy a plant in a pot that has several plants already established in it.
Divide that up before you use half in your own garden, and still have half to
re-pot and give away. Even if you are not confident about your gardening
skills you can still pick up cheap plants at the local market, school/church
fair, garage sale etc. Repot them into a bigger or nicer pot for a fairly
cheap present.
Another possibility is to multi-plant a few different plants into a long or
large round tub. This will create an instant garden on the move. Some themes
you might consider here is herbs, indoor foliage, bulbs, annuals,
alpine/rock, cacti/succulent or even patio gardens mixing annuals and
perennials.
It is best to moisten the ground around the plant that you are going to work
on well before you do the dividing, as this allows you to remove the maximum
amount of root mass during the dividing process.
The first step is to divide the clump or cut away the joining branch to make
the separate plant available. Then using a spade, fork or gardening trowel,
dig as far out from the potential plant as practicable, because this will
give you the biggest root mass possible.
Go down as far you believe you need to, (this will depend on such
circumstances as size of new plant, species of original plant material, type
of soil, other plant or landscaping material
around the area, etc.). As gently as you can dig out the new plant. Shake off
any excess soil and refill the resulting hole in the ground if necessary.
Prune back the foliage of the new plant to roughly equal size of the root
mass, trying to protect some of the new foliage growth. Repot as soon as
practicable, so that the roots do not dry out and die.
Another thing to consider is what sort of pot you are gong to plant into; if
it is only a plastic pot then you do not need to prepare it beforehand.
However if you are looking at painting it, then do this before you get
digging.
When painting up pots, you will need to do some preparation work for the
paint to stick properly. Plastic pots should have their surface roughened up
with a bit of sandpaper. While some terracotta pots should have a primer
applied to the outer surface before you paint them. Try not to get primer or
paint onto the inside of the planter, because
while most wont, there are still some paints which contain chemicals that may
affect or contaminate the soil and plant over time.
Other possibilities for decorating up pots include simply gluing on bits and
pieces including stones, tiles, buttons, sticks, shells, ornaments, ribbon,
stickers and decals, etc. Other ways of decorating up a pot for the initial
presentation is to wrap up just the pot (not the actual plant), using either
wrapping paper, cellophane, material, a cheap tea towel or even hessian. Hold
these wrappers in place with string, ribbon, bandana, scarf, etc.
Other possibilities for adding value to the pot plant is to provide some
growing information and name tags for the plant/s included. Other little
quirks you might add include a personalised name tag, (Hi, my name is David
the Dieffenbachia . . .), or a little watering indicator, miniature hand tools,
small amounts of fertiliser, pot ornaments, watering can etc.
So as you can see, creating a very personal gift for just about anyone can
easily be within the grasp of anyone. Why not go out into your garden and
start thinking about what presents you can be preparing for Christmas this
weekend.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright by The Bare Bones Gardener
The
Bare Bones Gardener is
a qualified Horticulturist and a qualified Disability Services Worker. He
hates spending money on stuff that doesn’t live up to the promises given. So
he looks for cheaper, easier, simpler or free ways of doing the same thing and
then he passes these ideas on to others.
Garden
Blog - http://barebonesgardening.blogspot.com/
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