The Incredible Bulk

It is the time of year for hearty soups, comforting crumbles and the warm glow of smugness which comes from a newly propagated plant. I love stodgier, bulkier food as much as I love bulking up plant numbers in the borders, so without further ado I will grab the tools required: 2 spoons (one dessert; one soup) and a sharp knife and scurry headlong into autumn.

First under the knife is always lavender. I am currently planting out new borders with the grandchildren of the Old English lavender plants I introduced to the garden over a decade ago. I propagate lavender every autumn because not a year goes by without the garden screaming out for a new plant or sixteen. Lavandula x intermedia and Lavandula angustifolia clipped into shape just after flowering can look great for years, but I garden with wildlife in mind so even if just one new flower spike is thrown up in early autumn, the plant will remain unshorn. Anyone who has ever neglected lavender will know that it soon becomes woody and falls apart if it isn't clipped and if you have a wayward lawnmower which hungrily devours mammoth chunks out of the side of the shrub, you will be familiar with the astonishing speed at which fleshy young plants can age. 

It is a similar tale of woe for Salvia officinalis in our garden. I wouldn’t be without Salvia officinalis 'Purpurascens' in the mixed borders as it makes such a fab ever-purple foil to other plants. Consequently I grow a lot of sage and if I were to pick them all on a regular basis to keep them looking young and beautiful, we would have sage for breakfast, lunch, supper and all those little snacks in-between. Fortunately I don't feel any inclination to replace my usual chocolate snacks with anything sage-based, since sage isn't great at holding itself together when we let it flower. Bees love the blooms (as do I), so I prefer to enjoy the beautiful flowers and propagate replacement plants to wait in the wings for that moment when their predecessors fall unceremoniously apart. All of which gets me rather neatly out of eating industrial quantities of sage.

Sage as a backdrop to Nepeta

Although Agastache 'Summer Sunset' looks too washed-out for my taste, it has its uses, particularly where a full-on orange might be too much. Its scent is astonishingly moreish and every time I see this plant I can't resist a quick squeeze of its leaves. Agastache can be short-lived at the best of times and I suspect that my over-exuberant leaf crushing tendencies are doing little to further its existence in my garden, so I will be grabbing a few cuttings this week as an insurance policy. I only hope that I can keep my hands to myself for long enough to allow the new plants to root.  

There is plenty of information on the internet about how to propagate plants and there seems little point in adding to those voices apart from to say that I just pop Lavandula x intermedia cuttings in gritty compost in a pot in September or October and leave them to it. One year I got sidetracked and left the pots by the plants I had just taken the cuttings from and forgot about them. They did rather well. I suppose if the parent plant was happy there, why shouldn't their babies enjoy the site too?  

If you have never taken a cutting from a plant before, try it! It is a slightly addictive habit which can have excellent results and Lavandula x intermedia and Salvia officinalis are pretty straightforward and a great place to start. After all that constructive dibbling, you can reward yourself with a spot of brambling and a blackberry crumble doused with custard. Isn’t early autumn perfect?