Just came in from the flower garden again and was noticing some of the dried pods that were overlooked when I was deadheading the hibiscus moscheutos. It brought up a whole new area of discussion. At least, I hope it's a new one.

I've had a lot of fun in the past with grafting, cross-breeding, root and stem cuttings, and collecting seed, as I'm sure a lot of us have done. I know I'm not the only one in the group who has a pair of nippers in permanent residence in the back seat of my car, just in case I see something I can't resist. I draw the line at taking anything from private property because I was so infuriated when I took a bunch of huge, lush fuchsias to a show and got back plants that were half the size. Folks were coming along and tweaking off cuttings to take home. Sheeeeeesh.

Anyway, the hibiscus brought to mind the question, would I be better off to try to start more of it from seed, or rooting some cuttings in these awful climate conditions? In past years I've started big stuff like lilac and sun azaleas from seed when I happened to find it several states away from home. It took forever to get them up to any size, but it did work and they're beautiful now. I've even tried growing German bearded iris from seed, but that wasn't as effective. If you don't try it, you won't know, right?

I've grafted climbing roses onto old wild rootstock like the Ragged Robin; turned branches of a wild cherry tree into production of tasty Van cherries, and took old Jonared apple trees into new production with scions of Granny Smith and Gravenstein. Grafting doesn't always work, but when it does, it's really awesome and a ton of fun.

Seeds are one of my favorite things, but I'm learning to be a lot more careful about the particular needs of each one. I brought back a whole big bunch last year from a friend in CA, but didn't think to stratify them over the winter. Well, duh. It's no wonder the project failed. It was a bad year here altogether for starting seeds, but more attention on my part might have seen a whole new crop of flowers where I still have empty space. All that careful tending and watering in my new seedbed yielded exactly . . . zip. Nada. Drat!! Back to the drawing board for next year. At the moment I'm working on a young paulownia tree that I started from a cutting. It wasn't supposed to work, but it did. My daughter wants it for a replacement for an old ugly cedar she wants to remove. So far the start is about 10 weeks old and is looking good.

Back to the original question about the hibiscus. Are seeds more likely to get started, or cuttings, or try some of both and see which works out the best?

Anyone else have stories to share or suggestions to make on the subject of propagation in general? I'm all ears. (Or eyes, in this case.)

Pat