Uk-oh! The patent police the plant companies send out to check every garden, to get those who propagate their F1 stock are going to be knocking at your door at 6 a.m.

You'd better turn a room in the house into a planting/growing area. That way you can keep the illegal activity indoors and run the same risk as someone does who grows marijuana in the basement. --there they look for an inordinately & constantly high-light bill. If that is you, your on the suspect list.

Shame, shame on propagating an F1 plant.

I wonder if it's legal to take seeds from an F1 (if viable), plant a whole bunch, then find and keep the best and keep doing this until you have a pure (open) strain. Is it illegal since you started with a patented veggie/flowr?

This post was directed at the people who constantly post in this forum telling us it's wrong to propagate a patented plant. LOL.

Don't laugh, but I'm working on some patented yellow coneflower seeds. I have a yellow variety and I grew the seeds from it this year. One of the plants is yellow. I'm going to plant seeds of it next year and keep on and on until I get a yellow seed plant. I hope it works!

Its illegal to asexually reproduce, not sexually; seeds should be ok??

Of course people are going to divide PPAF plant stock to increase their plantings, maintrain the plant health and give to friends. I do know a nursery who was warned about asexually increasing some patented Hosta.

I was advised that I could propagate MY plants, for just my own use, but could not propagate them for sale. Like the fella who was caught growing 12 acres of MJ in with a few oats; he claimed to be growing it 'just for my own use'.

I am always cutting new plants- I seldom think of them as patented or un-patented.

Can you root echinacea? I didn't know that.....

Where did you get a 'Luscious Grape' lantana? I want one!

Janie

I called Proven Winners and asked if I could propigate to increase my plants for my personal use, and was told that was fine as ling as I didn't sell them. James

I'm wanting some luscious grape lantana myself! Oh and I just purchased 3 new echinacea plants today and I'm going to search for the baby plantlets at the base before putting them in the ground! My Clonex gel is ready!

little_dani,

I got the Luscious grape lantana at a local nursery. It is great. I like it because the blooms have a grape smell to them. Most other lantana plants stink. Nobody ever mentions this about this variety.

Gnomey, If you plant them out, make sure you get the little baby plantlets befeore they develop a flower bud. You want the ones that have like 3-4 leaves. I swear they are ready within a week. Some times if there is only 1 little root it takes me 2 weeks to get them ready. Also, if you use one of those cloner machines, you can root the stems as well. One time I rooted an echinacea leaf, but of course it didn't grow. I just wanted to see if it would root!

I saw some that had flower stems and left them with the mother plant but I got some cute little rooted babies with several leaves. Will the plant make more babies before the end of the year? If the do, can I rob them again? The plants I took the babies from - no worse for the wear. No one would ever know that "cuttings" had been taken from them at all.

Yes, they will. They will grow better now that they aren't so crowded. The cool thing is that next year your babies will have even more babies too. The Coconut Lime, Razmatazz and Double Delight multiply great. I only got 2 babies off my After Midnight. I got one off the Ruby Star plant.

I'm rooting a Double Delight cutting which has no roots. It's doing better than any other echinacea with stem cuttings. I also got one with roots and it's ready to be removed from the tote after only 1 week. If you take one out and it wilts, then put it back in for another week. I keep doing this until they don't wilt. I put them under a grow light for a week (a window would probably be ok as long as it's not too much direct sun) and then outside under the shade. After they get used to being outdoors, gradually move them to the sunny spot. Keep them watered until they are able to take the heat.

Thanks for all the great information! I believe Pink Double Delight is one of the ones I got yesterday and promptly robbed of its children. :) This is really cool. I may buy more varieties next week if I find some I like. I really want to try some of the green ones, but they are proving hard to find.

Are there any other plants that can be propagated this way? I have to say that if these take, and I am fairly certain that they will, this is the easiest method of propagation I've ever tried. I mean.. we all lost our baby teeth at one point, right? hehe.. That's exactly what this reminded me of when I was wiggling the babies loose.

gnomey, I think any plant that can be divided can be done this way, but the only reason I do it is so the baby plants have time to establish before fall. You can also divide them in fall. This way just works for me and sometimes you get a bloom before fall.

Yarrow works this way. Heliopsis Lorraine Sunshine. The list goes on and on. Salvia works this way too. I got some cuttings for a friend last week.

I'm going to try Heuchera this way, but I think I'll use a sharp blade to divide just a small part off of the edge because there doesn't seem to be individual plantlets.

Today my echinacea babies look a bit wilted :( Hope they perk up. I was sure that with the little bit of roots they had that they would be fine. Now I'm nervous. The mother plants still are fantastic, no problems with them whatsoever.

Fill a small bowl up with water and sit it in the plastic container with your plants. Make sure your container has water condensing on the lid/sides. Give your plantlets a mist of water from a spray bottle if you have one handy.

This morning everything is fine, only the big sky sundown babies show any kind of stress and they are improving. :)

Great! The next step is the most difficult. You will have to let them grow roots for a week or two and then get them used to the outdoors. Make sure you don't just plant them out in the full sun. Let them grow in some shade for a week or two.

Waiting is the hardest thing for me! I'm so impatient. They all look wonderful now with the pots of water in there.

My propagation chambers are a hybrid of little_dani's and the other one that I saw on here. I use the bigger tubs instead of the shoebox, drill drainage holes in the bottom one and add the little clay pots to make sure they never get too dry. I lost some heuchera babies because my perlite one got too dry and the little pots of water seem to have taken care of that problem. I also mist with a spray bottle a couple of times a day now.

Since they are all looking marvelous now, the real waiting game begins. Since I'm fairly sure this is the first time I've had 100 percent with a propagation experiment, now the danger is of me removing them too soon and trying to rush the already so quick and easy process.

I am so glad this is working for you. It took me a while to figure this out. I started doing this last summer and was shocked at how easy these are too propagate. I'm focusing on After Midnight, Coconut Lime, Double Delight and Razmatazz for now. As soon as Tikki Torch puts out a baby that suckers being cloned!

Coconut Lime and Double Delight even seem to be growing now.. is that possible? I only took the babies off on Friday! This is so awesome.

Yes, this is very much possible. They aren't crowded by the main plant and the other babies anymore. I think this actually makes the plant grow stronger too!

hello, here in the UK, i only ever see the general purpurea, tenneseensis( this spelling looks dodgy) and very occasionally, expensive plants of sunrise and sunset. So, I am now drooling with greed. Not sure of plant buying rules from the US but I would really love to grow a few more echinaceas (apart from razzmatazz, which I do know and don't like much) any ideas on getting seed in england?

campanula,

These plants don't come true from seed. If you want some interesting echinacea plants look into seed of Paradoxa and Pallida. These are very fun to grow. Plant the seed of your first blooms and you'll get some interesting crosses. If you want a healthy plant, try Double Delight or Coconut Lime. They are awesome!

Has anyone ever tried to take a cutting from a Dark Horse, and if so.... any feedback would be great :) I'm brand spankin' new at all this propagation stuff. I didn't even know it was possible until a few weeks ago. Duhhhh.

hummingbird5, you can root those very easily. Take a cutting and remove the lower leaves. Dip into rooting gel. Stick in Jiffy Mix and keep in a humid environment (zip lock bag or clear plastic tote). These root in 3-4 weeks.

Has anyone had sucess with rooting Encore Azaleas? I can root most everything else... But these just seem to wilt away... Please tell me how you did it...

Onnie!