DOWN TO EARTH
Tootie and the Plant Babies
April/May 1994
By JIM LONG
She came with no real plant knowledge, but she had a
quiet assuredness that everything would grow if given a
chance.
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TOOTIE CAME TO work for me early one spring. “I
love plants,” she said simply, “and thought you might want some
help.”
I did indeed. At the time, I was managing a small landscape
nursery, a retail greenhouse, and a landscaping staff of twelve for
a private estate. Anyone who loved plants would be a valuable asset
in the greenhouse, so I welcomed her.
Tootie (pronounced like the chocolate-roll candy without the
“s”) came with no real plant knowledge, but she had a quiet
assuredness that everything would grow if given a chance. She
soaked up information about plants like dry soil absorbing water. I
began to teach her the names of the 200 or so plants we grew, and I
opened our shelf of reference books to her. For her, learning a
plant name was like meeting a new friend, and I would often
overhear her as she worked, talking to the plants and practicing
their names.
I introduced Tootie to our propagation bench, where cuttings
were placed, and she immediately took to the “sandpile”, as we
called it. “Can all plants have babies this way?” she asked me. I
explained that a wide range of plants can be rooted from cuttings.
She took great satisfaction from turning snippets of greenery into
rooted, growing plants.
Our propagation bench was 30 inches wide and 6 feet long, big
enough to hold a few thousand cuttings. The bench had a comfortable
work-level bed with 8-inch sides, set on 30-inch legs and built of
treated wood. The bottom of the bench was a layer of 1/4-inch
hardware cloth covered by plastic window screening. I had designed
the bed myself, just as I had designed the bermed greenhouse that
housed it.
The cutting bench was filled with a mixture of perlite and
sphagnum peat moss in equal quantities to a depth of 4 inches.
Misting sprinklers were located 15 inches above the surface,
attached to a moisture-regulating valve. At regular intervals, the
sprinklers emitted a fine mist that kept the medium consistently
moist. I explained to Tootie that, when propagating from cuttings,
the most important part of the process was to keep them from
wilting for the first few days after they were inserted into the
rooting medium.