Overview: Kris has purchased small pots, trays, and potting soil/pumice for growing our succulents and other plants, plus she’s been working on getting mother plants to take cuttings from (Elizabeth W. has been invaluable for this). We have about 40 different plants right now to propagate from, but we can use more. Please read through the following for tasks and collecting materials for club members to help with.
Donations of Plants
- We need to increase our library of mother plants to propagate (make baby plants). Anyone who has a succulent plant know that they will make offsets (also called pups, or “baby” plants) and it is easy to remove these and grow them into a new plant. Ask your family, friends, and neighbors if they have any succulent plants with offsets to share. if there aren’t any offsets, you can also remove a leaf (try to remove a bit of the stem with it) to make a new plant. You can rest them on a damp paper towel in a box and cover with another damp towel – they will be fine for days.Drop off at Kris’ house or text her for pickup if needed. If you can get the name of the plant as well, that would be fantastic (ID’ing succulents is tricky sometimes).
- Other needed plants: if your friends and neighbors are growing salvias, native plants, milkweed, culinary herbs, or any other plants that are bird, bee, or butterfly friendly, we can take seeds, cuttings, or baby plants. Our tentative theme to our Plant Sale is “Planting for Wildlife”, so it would be great to increase our library of these plants too (Kris has about 25 salvias, 15 herb plants, and a handful of natives)
Propagating and Taking Care of Plants
- Now that Kris has trays, pots, and soil, she needs some volunteers to help grow plants. If you are comfortable meeting with her and Luke at their house, you can come and learn how to propagate succulents and take home a tray or two of babies to grow at home. Elizabeth Waldman is also ready to have people at her house for propagating plants as well (and she has a lot more variety). We will need – very roughly – about 600-800 plants to sell to make around 2000$ and recoup our costs, and while that seems like a huge number, we can propagate a few trays of about 80 plants in an hour or so, so it really isn’t that hard.
- If you aren’t comfortable with meeting, we can also arrange for you to pick up a tray of baby plants, and Kris will teach you via email how to take care of them.
Donations of Materials
- We’ve tried using toilet paper rolls for growing seeds, and they don’t work very well. Doubled up paper cups work better (especially for succulents which don’t need as much water), but we will need proper pots for the sale. We’ve also tried making papier mache pots, but unless you use glue, these also fall apart too quickly to use. To minimize buying pots with club money, please collect the following:
- Tin cans of all sizes, soaked to remove labels and clean. If there’s a sharp edge where you removed the top, please just recycle those, they need to be safe for everyone to use (we’ll decoupage these with Mod Podge for planters).
- Any plastic plant pots you can find, especially the 4-inch size ones. We won’t need as many gallon pots, but we can always give extras away.
- Temporary plastic containers for propagating: margarine containers, yogurt cups, anything small that we can use for a propagation pot (but not sell). For example, we get Earth Balance margarine in a square, 3.5 inches across, plastic container that makes a perfect pot. Just clean please, and drop off at Kris’ house.
- Garden trays – when you buy a lot of plants at a nursery they will sometimes give you a black tray with holes in it to carry your plants. They are perfect for holding pots since the water drains out doesn’t collect. They’ll either be square or rectangular in shape.
- Boxes for the plant sale in spring: small, tray like boxes are the best, but we can also use those boxes used for holding pints of berries (they actually stack). If you go to CostCo, there’s usually a container with boxes for the taking.
Brief List of things to collect!
- Succulent offsets and leaves
- Cuttings from salvias and other wildlife-friendly plants
- Tin cans of all sizes
- Plant pots
- Plastic containers for temporary propagation pots
- Garden trays that can hold plants
- Shallow boxes for customers at plant sale
2. Collecting Materials:
3. Propagating and growing plants
Now that Kris has trays, pots, and soil, she needs some volunteers to help grow plants. If you are comfortable meeting with her and Luke at their house, you can come and learn how to propagate succulents and take home a tray or two of babies to grow at home. Elizabeth Waldman is also ready to have people at her house for propagating plants as well (and she has a lot more variety). We will need – very roughly – about
If you aren’t comfortable with meeting, we can also arrange for you to pick up a tray of baby plants, and Kris will teach you via email how to take care of them.