Plant enthusiasts got a wealth of clippings from West Indian Club Nursery horticulturalist Manuel Dequito last Saturday.
The presentation, which provided information on the significance of growing native plants also taught those attending the art of propagating Cayman’s native plant by seed or air-layering.
Hosted by the National Trust and conducted by Mr. Dequito, over 16 persons discovered easy propagation techniques such as asexual propagation, leaf cutting, pruning, potting plants, flower parts and other basic concepts on plant propagation.
Visitors also gained garden tips on how to grow plants from seeds and cuttings and how to care for them.
One technique learned was air layering, which is another form of asexual propagation wherein a stem or branch of a woody plant is induced to produce adventitious roots while still attached to the parent plant.
Air layering is done for several reasons: species is hard to propagate by cuttings, seeds of the plant species are unavailable during the time of propagation, seeds of certain plant species are not viable due to either environmental or genetic factors, having newly propagated plants already at a certain height, to bypass the vegetative and juvenile stage of the plant and Bonsai training.
This method is also good for producing roots on the stem of indoor landscape plants that have become leggy through the loss of their lower foliage.
Root development can also be treated with a powder root inducing compound, called IBA (indole-butyric acid) which is available at most garden stores.
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