The Thrill of Propagation

I enjoy plants more when I grow them from seed or from cuttings. I can just easily buy, but it's more challenging to sow seeds and watch a cutting thrive.

Growing cuttings is really challenging. My Mom told me it's easy. Just stick it in soil and it'll grow. My Mom had a very green thumb. I'm still a work in progress.

A few weeks ago, I embarked on my fourth or fifth cycle of propagating my Mom's bougainvillea collection. As far as I know, she never bought bougies. She exchanged cuttings with neighbors. 

After a few cycles, I think I'm finally getting better at it. Let the cutting drink water with liquid rooting hormone overnight. The next day rub the bottom with aloe vera and wrap it with her leaf, then stick in soil mixed with chicken manure and perlite. Let it slip water from the bottom and leave it in an area with indirect light. I covered it with a bottle with holes for a week and then removed the bottle cap. 

Water everyday and I found out by chance that watering with rice water and orange peels help give it a nutrition boost. Just make sure to dilute it. I only remove the bottles when the leaves are bigger already. 

And the reward comes when you continue to care for it. Prune every so often and feed it with complete fertilizer. It will produce flowers even when it's in a small pot. I haven't repotted any of the bougies I propagated. I'll wait until they outgrow the pot, besides I still have some of those Mom propagated. I'll re-pot those first.

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Successfully Propagated Mom's Bougainvillea

I've been trying to propagate Mom's bougainvillea trees. She was really proud to have several variants of it and told me she just propagated them from cuttings. I would always catch her trimming them in the afternoons. 

I asked her once how she would propagate bougainvillea. She told me, just cut a step and stick it in soil. She had a magical green thumb and could grow anything. She mentioned though that the white variety was the hardest to grow.

Everytime I visit my childhood home, I take a few cuttings of the different colors. They were always blooming, so I'd just cut the stem with flowers. I tried it several times and followed online tutorials. I even got river sand to see if it would help. River sand is expensive though, so I'd mix it with loam soil. 

I managed to successfully grow four pots. I have no idea what variants I managed to grow. I've been waiting for flowers to come out and one finally bloomed one! I guess it likes rice water because I gave it some last week. 

Ohhh! I'm so excited! It's just one flower for now, but there are tiny ones growing. I made another batch to grow to make sure I complete all the colors. I'm doing this because I'm not sure if the tree will survive the construction. 

Cheers to more gardening achievements!

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How to Successfully Propagate Bougainvillea

My Mom told me you can easily propagate any plant. Just get a cutting and stick it on soil. Mom had magical green hands (not just thumb). She managed to grow anything, even the wheat Tita Rose gave her because she couldn't grow it.

My Mom has huge bougainvillea trees in different colors. She grew it from cuttings and she was so proud of them because they always had flowers. Since I couldn't just dig and move the trees, I've been working on propagating them. 

I cut several branches last summer. I only successful grew two out of the 8 stalks I tried to propagate. I was already happy then, but I want to make sure I get all of the colors Mom has in her garden.

I cut several branches again a few weeks ago. I got thicker branches this time and cut longer sticks to propagate. Aside from using rooting powder, I added more perlite in the soil. I didn't see any new leaf growing yet after two weeks, so I watered it with garlic water. Few days later it started producing leaves! Aha!

More perlite + garlic water will help propagate bougainvillea faster 🥳

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Avocado Update: Leaves, Finally!

Sweetie excitedly told me the other day that the avocado seeds I've been propagating for two months now have started to grow leaves! Finally!

In the past two weeks I increased the amount of honey and moved two of the seedlings with stems to a bigger jar. Sweetie also changed the kitchen curtains. The curtain was shorter and allowed more sunlight to come in. I think that encouraged the seedlings to progress faster.

I've been hesitant to move the jars to another spot with better sunlight because I might forget to top up the water (out of sight, out of mind!). I'm debating whether I should move the seedlings to soil already, but videos said they need to have leaves already. So I'll wait.

I hope to eventually harvest some fruits!

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