A few weeks ago we asked at Instagram what you wanted to know about our plants. After collecting the results, it turns out you are interested in our cultivation process. We will give you a look behind the scenes in our kitchen nursery.
First things first
The first thing, and maybe the most important thing, is that a plant must have a ‘thing’ we like about it, because we want to grow the most awesome plants! This ‘thing’ could be the colour of the plant, but also the shape of the leaves or growth habit. And when our experts see a plant, they see how a plant should be propagated in a second.
Kinds of propagation
There are different ways to propagate a plant. We will tell you something about the methods we use.
Tip cutting and section cutting
make sense already, but we will give the definition of a tip cutting and section cutting. A tip cutting includes the apex and a small part of the stem. A section cutting includes a small section of the stem and leaf joint.
Tissue culture
Tissue culture Another option is that plants are multiplied in the lab. We cut a plant into small pieces. Thereafter, these pieces are grown into cuttings. We call this way of propagating tissue culture.
Compared to the other cutting methods, tissue culture is a long lasting en precious process. But once the process is started, propagating plants goes way faster. In te beginning of the process, we put a lot of time and effort in it. Cutting, selecting an growing a small piece of plant into a cutting takes a lot of time. The whole proces takes up to a year in the best-case scenario. We want to create the perfect circumstances for growing the small pieces into cuttings. A clean work environment plays an important role by creating this circumstances. A virus or bacterium could ruin the process, which results in throwing it all away and start all over again.
Growing process
When we made cuttings and pot them in fresh soil, they are ready to grow into a gorgeous plant. At this point we also want to create the most favorable circumstances. For example, we put plastic bags with holes in it over some plants. But what the most favorable circumstances are, differs per plant. Most times we grow a batch of the same plants. The pots in which the plants grow are first placed against each other. As soon as the plants get bigger we put the pots wider, so they get all the space they need to grow in height en width. If we put the pots wider, the young shoots of our plants get the space and light they need to grow. We also give our plants more nutrition after we put them wider. Finally, those small cuttings grow into plants you see at garden centers and many other places.
Did you know that in some cases it takes 40 to 45 weeks to cultivate a plant before is ready for shipment? Add the time it takes to grow a cutting and do the math; the cultivation process takes up two years!
Did you get excited to make your own cuttings and cultivate them into beautiful plants?
