I am growing lupins from seed this year, and they are doing very nicely as seedlings. If I can keep the slugs and snails away I expect they’ll be fabulous. Explain to me then why I bought two good size lupin plants on Sunday at RHS Wisley? Anyhow, bought them I did, and very hearty looking plants they are too.
Because I clearly don’t have enough lupins, my first thought was “how can I make more of these?”. I find this is often (always) the case now. Can’t help myself.
For lupins, the answer is usually seeds, very careful division or basal cuttings. I’m doing the first already, I don’t have mature plants to divide, carefully or not, so basal cuttings it is. The advantage of cuttings (or division) over seed is that the resulting plants will be genetically identical. March or April is a good time for it, the plant is throwing out nice new growth suitable for this method.
Unlike a stem cutting, as the name suggests, for a basal cutting you want to go in at the base of the plant where the stem meets the crown.
A clean, sharp knife is essential kit. I am using a scalpel style craft knife but an ordinary garden knife works just as well so long as it is nice and sharp. And clean.
I have tried to cut the stem as close to the crown as possible.
I just took two stems from each plant, I don’t want to denude the originals.
There is too much plant material on each stem, it needs trimming back. Using the scalpel I carefully trimmed away the excess. In some cases the base of the trimmings looked robust enough to try them as cuttings in their own right. Nothing ventured! My aim was to leave a single leaf or leaf group at the top of the cuttings.
I am using a gritty compost mix, roughly 2 parts sieved multipurpose, 1 part sharp sand, 1 part grit. I set the cuttings up around the edges of the pot, using a bamboo cane to poke a suitable sized hole then firming in gently around the cutting.
I have watered them and put them in the heated bench, somewhere warm and humid is good or they will quickly wilt. I’ll give them a spray with water every now and again to be sure they don’t dry out. If I can find one of a suitable size I may pop a polythene bag over them to keep the humidity levels up.
I was left with some spare pieces, the side stems. I decided to put these in the hydropod to see what happens.
That’s it. This same process works with delphiniums and campanula, amongst others. Give it a try!
I’ll be back in a while with an update, hopefully involving roots.
The Propagator 
I have started to use Strulch around the plants that slugs and snails like and it is proving to be just the job.
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I have rejected on basis of cost but it’s a good idea to use just around victim plants.
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Can anyone help please? I have been given some lupins grown from seed (l5.7.20). The plants are about 7″ – 8″ tall. Can I plant them out now, or should I keep them in pots until next April/May?
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If they are going to get crowded out by other plants I’d suggest keeping in pots till the end of the year then plant them out (or early spring). If they will have room to grow then plant em now, why not.
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Many thanks. I think I’ll plant some out but pot others.That way I’m sure to keep the lupins growing.
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did it work as planned?
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Yes, kind of. the larger pieces rooted well. The smaller pieces just rotted off. Worth doing to ensure the same plants, but also dead easy to grow from seed.
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That seems like too much work for something that grows so efficiently from seed. I suppose I would get impatient before bloom too, especially if there were stems that were such good candidates for cuttings. Yes, it is a bad habit.
When I grew Texas bluebonnet, I was instructed to scarify the seed. Is that common for lupine that you have grown? (I do not remember which of the four species of bluebonnet it was.) I never scarify the seed of native lupine.
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They do come easily from seed but quickly regress to basic model. If you want to keep the bred characteristics of the parent then either division (tricky with lupins because of the tap root) or basal cuttings is the way to go.
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Well, it makes sense when you put it that way; but I will still stick the the basic model. That is what I do with nasturtium; but then, I prefer the basic orange and yellow to all those fancier colors anyway. In the past, there were a few red ones, or very pale yellow ones, that I layered for quite a while. As they were dying out, I would just bury some of the tips. They would root and continue to grow before the original died out. If I found the old ‘mahogany’ colored one again, I might to that just to keep it going. With common nasturtium, there is never any need to buy seed, but I got some for work just because I wanted more variety, at least for a while.
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You really can’t help yourself can you? 🤣
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I really can’t.
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Very interesting and informative post. I have some lovely little lupins started from some Sutton’s seed, a gift from an English cousin. Look forward to them growimg up so I can try out this method of propagation. Thank you!
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Excellent! Might be next year before you can take cuttings from them.
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Very good description, easy to follow. I’m going to try this and do phlox and delphiniums too. You can use wool slug pellets when you plant them out. Forms a sticky cow pat that slugs won’t cross. Doesn’t kill them so birds can still eat them
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Thanks. I’ve got some sluggo pellets which are supposedly less damaging than the bright blue ones. I also have my eyes on some stray bits of bramble which I could use as a barrier.
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What a great idea, brambles!
Now I can drink the beer I buy for the slugs myself 👍 Cheers 🍺
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