Cuttings

The image above shows my preferred technique for propagating plants from cuttings. I use small plastic cups that are 2 inches (5 centimeters) wide across the top. After inserting the cutting in the soil, I loosely wrap it up with plastic to maintain high humidity and the cuttings are placed in a frosted east-facing window. This provides bright light, which stimulates the cuttings to root more readily, while avoiding excessive sunlight that would scorch or bake the cuttings. Except for woody, hard-to-root cuttings, I do not use any rooting hormones.

Once the cuttings are well rooted, I'll harden them off by removing the plastic wrap and slowly acclimating them to full sun. Then I'll move them into bigger pots (unlikely) or plant them directly in the ground (much more likely). I prefer to place small cuttings like these into the ground for three reasons. First, the small pots, with their equally small quantities of soil, use up far less resources than larger pots. Second, they are much more easily handled than larger pots and create far less of a disturbance in the garden than does the planting of a larger plant. Lastly, small young plants adjust better to life in my sandy South Florida soils than do large plants. Often, large plants originally flourish but eventually perish when their roots, accustomed to living in a large pot of rich, organic potting soil, fail to adjust to growing in Florida sand. I also like this system because both the plastic pots and the plastic wrap can be reused indefinitely.

For curious readers, the plants above are, from left to right: Plectranthus parviflorus 'Sapphire Dream', which is being rooted in water; two cuttings of Calamintha coccinea (synonym: Clinopodium coccineum); and two cuttings of Piloblephis rigida 'Juniper'. All three are members of the mint family (Lamiaceae). The Plectranthus is a variegated cultivar of a plant originally native to South Africa and Swaziland. The Calamintha is native to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi. The Piloblephis is native to peninsular Florida and the Bahamas. Piloblephis rigida 'Juniper' is a cultivar originating from plants growing wild in Palm Beach County that has a very dense and crawling growth habit with mature plants forming a solid groundcover only a few inches high and resembling a prostrate juniper.

Image and text © 2012 Rufino Osorio

Scutellaria arenicola

Scutellaria arenicola was named by John Kunkel Small in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club in 1898. Over 100 years have elapsed since then and it is still essentially unknown in cultivation in spite of being nearly pest-free, easily grown, and bearing masses of large, colorful flowers. In nature, it occurs in sandhills and scrub and this might account for its rarity in home gardens. Plants from these habitats are often difficult for home gardeners to maintain unless the garden has very deep, sandy soil; however, that is not the case with Scutellaria arenicola and it readily adapts to a wide variety of garden conditions so long as it is provided with full sun and is not shaded by taller plants.

Plants die down to basal rosettes in the autumn and spend the winter in a more or less dormant state. With the arrival of warm weather in the spring, the rosettes take on a striking and distinctive deep burgundy color. Even if it never flowered, it would be worth growing for this beautiful foliage display. With spring rains, the stems rapidly elongate to 1—1.5 feet (30—45 centimeters) tall and produce sparsely branched spikes of large, dark lavender-blue flowers accented with a contrasting white throat. In the wild, stressful conditions usually result in plants that consist of a single rosette bearing a solitary spike of flowers. But with richer soil and more consistent watering, garden plants form many rosettes that bear large masses of flowers. Its horticultural uses are varied but it is perhaps best suited as a groundcover in sunny areas and as an accent plant in perennial flower borders, wildflower gardens, and cottage gardens. It may also be profitably used to provide color in herb gardens since it combines well with traditional herb garden plants. And, of course, it may be grown as a potted plant.

Fortunately, propagation is as easy as its cultivation and Scutellaria arenicola may be readily propagated by dividing the clumps of rosettes, by rooting cuttings, or by seeds. Every flower seems to produce seeds and, if allowed to do so, a single plant will form large colonies that become a carpet of lavender-blue in the spring. Although it is a long-lived perennial, plants will flower in a few months from seeds.

As is the case with all plants, Scutellaria arenicola does have a few drawbacks. Although it will tolerate surprisingly wet soil, the soil must be very well drained and it will not do well in an area where there is standing water after heavy rains. As mentioned above, it demands full sun and, although it will survive in the shade, it will bear few or no flowers. Although Scutellaria arenicola flowers throughout the summer and autumn, another drawback is that the flower buds produced during hot summer and autumn weather usually go directly to seed and do not produce the large, showy flowers.

To my surprise, Scutellaria arenicola has relatively few wildlife benefits and, although the flowers show all the hallmarks of being adapted for pollination by bees, I have not observed an insect visiting the flowers in over 15 years of growing the plant. Likewise, nothing seems to eat the foliage although occasionally plants stressed by extended drought will be attacked by non-native scale insects. However, cultivated plants can form rather large colonies that can cover many square feet of ground and as such they provide shelter for insects, spiders, lizards, and other small animals.

Scutellaria arenicola is native only to parts of Georgia and to Florida, where it occurs from Columbia County in north Florida to Highlands County in central Florida. Additional records, separate from its principal range in central Florida, have been reported from Lee and Collier counties in southwestern Florida.

 

© 2011 Rufino Osorio.

Solenostemon scutellarioides - Coleus

The common garden coleus can be highly invasive in moist or wet tropical forests.

© 2009 Rufino Osorio. All rights reserved.