Nursery bed

[barleychown]

One of the best things you can have if you are intrested in propagating your own plants is a nursery bed.

A nursery bed is a garden bed that is used go grow out plants that you have rooted, or started from seed, until they are large enough and strong enough to be placed in their permanent place in garden. This method works well for perennials started from seed or by division,  and shrubs started from cuttings.

The best place for a nursery bed is near your house, and a water supply. It should be somewhere that is easy to get to, so it will be checked on often. It's important that the nursery bed environment be very controlled, more so than the normal garden beds, as the young plants are tender and have tiny root systems.

[Dianna]

Sarah, how would you control the environment on a system like this? It isn't as if you can control the weather...

Which side of the house would you put it on? Does it need to be next to your house? I am wondering if I could use my melon patch area for this? It doesn't have a "windbreaker", though, because it is beside the gazebo...

[Triss]

I was wondering the same thing.

[barleychown]

Well, in my case I start my seeds as winter-sown, or my cuttings in my misting bed. Once they are of a good enough size that they can handle being moved, I move them to the nursery bed, to grow up. Once they can fend for themselves out with the chickens, then they get booted out into the gardens.

This would also work well for starting cuttings you intend to sell. You can either pot them up and then hill them into the nursery bed, or grow them out in the nursery bed, then pot them up a few weeks before you want to sell them, to give them time to recover fro any transplant shock.

So, the plants in the nursery bed have a bit of root to start with, and I keep the bed moist. I also shade it during the scorching times of the year...

[Dianna]

Could I just take my cuttings for shrubs, and such, and just put them in the nursery bed at this time of year? Does it have to be rooted cuttings? How do you "hill" something up in a pot?

[Triss]

Oh so this is not something you necessarily keep going all winter long with some kind of cover to promote a warmer environment?

[barleychown]

Dianna, It certainly wouldn't hurt to try it now. I've had my best lucky in the spring, but have rooted most things year-round.

To hill in something, make a hole about the same size as the pot, drop the pot in, and then mound (or hill) the soil around it, just like you would plant a shrub. This way, the pot and the soil in it will remain more constant, because the pot isn't exposed to the elements like it would be if standing alone.

Triss, I don't cover it in the winter. Around here it's raining enough to keep it moist, and I want the cuttings or baby plants to harden to life in the real garden.

[Triss]

SO I could start the nursery bed as first a spot to winter sow, and then to grow the plants before I move them to the main garden.

[barleychown]

I prefer to winter sow in milk jugs, because they act as mini-greenhouses, but I know several who direct sow into their nursery beds, then transplant out to the main gardens when the plants reach a good size.

[Dianna]

Does this mean that I could put my brugs out there in their pots, and the rest of the things I haven't figured out a permanent home for? I have a strawberry tree, hibiscus, orange-blossom(?), mimosa, maples, purple smoke, etc...

I would love to put them where they will be safe until Spring...

[barleychown]

I'm not sure about the brug, I put mine in the greenhouse, as well as the hibiscus. I'm not sure I'd plant any trees, because most form tap roots, but you could hill them in, and just be prepared that they may root through the holes in their pots, but should be okay.

[Bonnie]

This is an interesting topic. Sarah, do you cut your brugs back when you put them in the greenhouse?

[barleychown]

I do, and I root or give away the cuttings. They root really well in a vase in the kitchen window. 

[Bonnie]

Thanks, I will try that. Next year I will have to put them out in the sun. They didn't get much of it this year.