Our choicest, most magnificent shrubs and trees, formerly had to be propagated in the greenhouse and pampered there for months or even years (making them very costly), can now be grafted easily and simply in open ground by tire beginners.
Moreover, the resulting plant material is far superior to the greenhouse product. The Plastic Plant Propagator (patent pending) is the device that performs this magic.
My first experiments in 1948 have given me outstanding results with many choice subjects, including special blue spruces and rare forms and color varieties of pines, firs, Douglas fir, cypress, beech, birch, rhododendrons, and azaleas.
Simple Plastic Propagator
Simplicity characterizes both the plastic propagator itself and the grafting technique it employs.
The propagator is a small, two-piece device consisting of the following:
- A plastic “overcoat” for the plant with a tie string at the top and a rigid plastic ring at the bottom, which provide the plant with a moisture-proof fit to maintain needed humidity; and
- A thin muslin “topcoat” (actually just a square piece of material) to serve as a shade and eliminate the danger of sunburn.
Grafting Technique
The grafting technique is as follows:
The scion of the desired plant material is grafted on a common rootstock, just as in the greenhouse.
The best results are obtained when the scion and rootstock stems are about the same diameter.
For most plants, the best age rootstock to use is a four-year transplant.
The plastic overcoat is drawn on over the plant, and the base ring is pressed firmly against the ground.
If a four-year rootstock has been used, it will be small enough to be completely covered by the plastic coat.
In this case, after the top of the coat has been drawn together with the tie strings, it is tied securely to a stake driven into the ground at the base of the plant.
When larger stocks are used, only the scion is covered with tire film, and the film top is secured to the stock plant’s trunk.
The thin muslin square is draped over the plastic coat and fastened with a common safety pin.
In about a month, as soon as new growth appears on the scion, the base ring is lifted slightly, and a block of wood or small stone is placed under the edge to admit a bit of air.
At this time, one-third of the top of the stock plant is cut off to force growth into the scion.
Three weeks or so later, another third is removed, and the top of the plastic coat is untied and then retied with one section of the top allowed to gap open.
This permits free air circulation through the device but protects the plant from the full force of elements.
The tilting of the film’s base cap and the top services’ gapping gradually harden the scion—and also the union – to normal atmospheric conditions.
As a result, the plant suffers no shock when the propagating device is finally removed – usually about three months from the time the scion was originally set.
(However, if the plant is doing well at the end of eight weeks, the propagator can be removed then.)
The binding on the union should be removed at about this time, too. Sometimes this binding is ready to come off considerably earlier, in 5 or 6 weeks.
Certainly, it should be removed before it shows signs of constricting the union of scion and stock.
The final third of the stock, the section just above the union, is best left on the plant until the following spring, in my opinion, although most grafting authorities remove it at the end of 12 weeks.
I like to leave it on because I consider it beneficial in maintaining some semblance of balance between the top and the root system.
The two-thirds already removed forces plenty of growth into the scion the first year.
Reasons For Outstanding Result
But why does the Plastic Plant Propagator give such outstanding results, producing material at a fraction of the work and cost of greenhouse plants and yielding material of far superior quality – bigger, healthier, more vigorous specimens?
There are two reasons:
First, because the stock plants are left growing in open ground and are subjected to no shock or confinement of any kind, there is no interruption to natural root development.
In the greenhouse, however, the same material is handled in pots and subjected to smothering cases (to control humidity).
As a result, the plants suffer such shock that they are virtual stunted dwarfs, which require years to recover and grow normally again.
Second, because the gas-pervious and moisture-impervious plastic film provides ideal atmospheric conditions around the scion, a quick, clean, healthy union forms far superior to that obtained by any other method.
Uses Of Plastic Plant Propagator
The Plastic Plant Propagator can also be used to root cuttings, protect young layers and transplants and prevent plant buds from dying on fruiting or flowering subjects in difficult or late-season buildings.
It is also an outstanding performer at the herbaceous grafting of everything from sappy melons to the largest conifers.
This last use makes it possible for the gardener to shift part of his propagation work from the busy spring season to the relatively idle summer.
After July 1 last year, I grafted muskmelons on pumpkin vines and ripened a crop before frost.
Plastics have also been used with plants in several other ways: as cutting-box covers and storage bags for evergreen grafts tape for binding the union in budding and grafting.
“Parasols” for protecting new grafts and transplants from sunburn, in air layers that require almost no attention, in top-grafting of weeping conifers and other tall-stemmed weeping trees, and in a seed viability test requiring but a few days.
Indeed, the possibilities for using plastics in horticulture seem almost unlimited.
44659 by Victor J. Mcnitt