Propagation 2015

Cady’s Falls Nursery

Don & Lela Avery

637 Duhamel Rd. Morrisville, Vt. 05661

One of the old-fashioned and unique aspects of Cady’s Falls Nursery is that we propagate almost all our own plants. We propagate by seed, spore, hard wood and soft wood cuttings, root cuttings, grafting and by simple division. Over the years we have developed some techniques that may be of interest to our customers and to fellow nursery people. We offer here a quick glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes year after year.

Looking north from the production fields towards the raised beds, compost piles, soil piles, shade structures and the barn.

Greenhouse with temporary spring cold frames which protect plants coming out of the cold storage in April.

Inside the greenhouse in late April

Vernalized Meconopsis seedlings coming out of dormancy in March

Two year old pitcher plant seedlings

Shaded south facing bench with yellow sticky tape for trapping fungus gnats and shore flies

A clear plastic-covered chamber with a portable fogger for rooting perennials and soft woody cuttings in summer. The front curtain has been raised for the photograph. A similar system is used for grafting pines and fir in March and April.

Zip-locks removed and sporelings maturing in the greenhouse

Spore is sown in steam-sterilized 4” pots of soil and placed in Zip-Lock bags, on heat pads, under lights, in a cool room in the house, in early winter.

Trays of Sempervivum divisions growing outside in the nursery

PROPAGATING FERNS FROM SPORES

Fully developed gametophytes several weeks later. Plastic bags will be resealed after spritzing with sterilized water

Pellea atropurpurea sporelings ready to pot up

GRAFTING CONIFERS

We graft conifers and a few hardwoods in March and early April. In all cases, we use some version of the side-veneer graft and, with a few notable exceptions, we graft dormant scions on active under-stock. The larch are grafted with the scions waxed or taped and left in the open greenhouse to knit. The grafted pines and firs are placed in a high humidity, shaded, fog chamber, inside the greenhouse. Spruce are somewhat problematical and many of them are grafted and cured inside plastic tents, under shade in the greenhouse. We callus some spruce, and some hardwoods on a hot pipe system in the root cellar. These are grafted with dormant under-stock and dormant scions. After about three weeks the unions begin to knit and we move them into the greenhouse to settle-in. With the exception of the larch, all the conifers are planted out in raised beds and grown-on for three to four years. Then they are dug bare-root and potted-up, to be offered for sale after they have put on substantial new root growth.

Hot pipe callusing system in the root cellar

Callused graft union on Acer saccharum ‘Monumentale’ with grafting film deteriorating

Thermostatically controlled heat cable inside the hot pipe, covered up by the sphagnum moss

Fresh graft unions on the hot pipe and ready to be covered with live sphagnum moss

Anemonella ‘Shoeff’s Double’ freshly dug from the beds and ready to be divided in late summer

One eye divisions to be grown in a tray for one year and then transplanted to a shaded raised bed for two more years.

Close up of a three year old clump

Fresh grafts, rowed out, mulched in with pine bark and shaded shaded with 2”x 3”s

Fresh grafts ready to settle in for three years. Older conifers in beds in the background

Conifers, freshly dug, potted and rooted out, ready to be sold in early summer

Our solar greenhouse, built in 1982 from salvaged greenhouse glass. The old post and beam barn is 80 feet long. Shade fabric protecting potted plants in the foreground.

Dwarf larch in fall

Freshly-grafted larch, waxed and/or wrapped in plastic tape, healing-over in crates in the open greenhouse

DRUM-LACING FIELD SPECIMENS

Nate drum-lacing a weeping birch in April

B&B specimens moved into the sales yard

A large weeping larch specimen with the branches wrapped in burlap to protect it from wind damage in transit.

Traditional drum-laced root ball

Fog chamber in the open greenhouse with the white poly curtain pulled back for the photo.

After another growing season in the greenhouse

Pitcher plants ready to sell the third spring in 4” pots

Anemonella ‘Shoeff’s Double’ for sale in 4” pots

Spores are collected in late summer by laying the fronds on white paper overnight. The spores are stored in the fridge until they are sown

Asplenium tricomanes potted up

Ferns in the greenhouse under white poly. The yellow sticky tape is for capturing fungus gnats and shore flies.

A PAINFUL LESSON

This scots pine was planted in 1986. Pinus sylvestris ‘Waterii’ thrived for 20 years and it’s beautiful cinnamon bark was a source of great pleasure. Then it began to drop its needles and shed lower branches. At first this we thought this was caused by disease but we later learned the true cause.

The scots pine was 100% dead in 2012 so we chopped the roots and pulled it out with the loader

When the tree was originally hand dug in 1986 it was drum-laced with plastic twine. When we planted it out in the garden we did not know how important it was to remove the twine encircling the trunk, and this mistake finally strangled the tree, as could be seen clearly after the soil was washed away. Much of the plastic twine was embedded deep within the trunk and can not be seen in the picture.

Freshly dug clumps of Trillium ‘George Young’ ready to be divided and potted in October