Propagation workshop

We have been collaborating with members of the Nature Society (Singapore) since back in 2011, and they have been immensely helpful in aiding us and our senior group, Project canSOAR, in establishing our school butterfly garden. 

At the end of last year, the NSS extended a further kindness in educating us as to an alternative method with which we can expand our school garden-- namely asexual propagation.  Propagation is a trickier method of breeding plants; however its advantage lies in that it does not require any monetary expenditure on our part.  We would like to thank our NSS mentor, Mr Anuj, for taking time to host a workshop on plant propagation to ensure we grasped the technique well. 

Unlike sexual propagation, asexual propagation involves growing a new plant from parts of an existing plant-- there is no exchange of genetic material and therefore the new plant is very similar to the parent plant.  There are several methods of plant propagation; however the one introduced to us by Mr Anuj was stem cuttings.

This method of plant propagation basically involved cutting off certain parts of the parent plant and planting them.  A clean cut contributes to the chance that the propagation will have a higher chance of success.  The base of the cutting is then dipped in rooting hormone, which serves to stimulate the cutting to grow roots from the wound in its stem.  The cutting is then planted in a separate container, and excess leaves are trimmed so as not to 'overwork' the cutting by placing too much stress on its developing roots.

Unfortunately, our in-expertise in horticulture resulted in the propagation being unsucessful.  However on the occasion of the workshop we did receive seeds of Aristolochia tagala, Stachytarpheta mutabilis(Pink snakeweed), and Crotalaria retusa (Rattlebox), which we hope to plant soon.

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