Gardener's World expert demonstrates how you can grow plants from special place for free

Gardeners' World expert Carol Klein has demonstrated how it is possible to grow new plants for free using only their roots.

Carol, 79, who has been a stable of the iconic BBC show for years, shared that with a bit of careful cutting and trimming, it was possible to grow new plants from their roots.

During the latest episode, she informed viewers that there were two types of cuttings; horizontal and vertical and demonstrated to the public what this meant in practice and how it was possible for people to do it at home.

The veteran presenter started with plants known as Anemones and later explained that it was also possible to pull off the same trick with Geraniums.

Carol said: “You can grow new plants for free from parts of the plant that you never ever dreamed of, roots in that case and also from leaves. There are two kinds of root cuttings and these I like to call horizontal.

“All along these roots there are nodules and, every so often, up will come a brand new shoot and that is going to make a whole separate clump. So, we’re going to exploit exactly what the plant does in nature and use it to our advantage. I’m going to cut it into bitesize pieces just about an inch long that’s all you need.”

Later, Carol transferred the root to a seed tray with compost which she said required an extra crucial piece of the gardening puzzle. She explained: “It’s full of really good compost, lots of extra grit always when you’re trying to take cuttings of whatever kind it’s a good idea to incorporate more grit because it makes the whole mixture more open more free and draining.

“I’m going to put them in a nice warm place reasonably bright but out of bright sunlight. Keep it reasonably well watered. As soon as you see new shoots coming up, hesitate, wait another couple of weeks because the shoots will come up first and then the fibrous roots, the feeding roots come later. So a couple of weeks after that take them out individually, pop them on and then keep growing them on and eventually put them out in your garden.”

Carol then moved on to vertical cuttings using the Acanthus plant, revealing that it wasn’t with this plant alone that vertical cuttings could work. She said: “Instead of going across you go up and down. All I’m going to do is take these roots off.

“There are several plants you can do this from, Anchusa is one of my favourites with those brilliant blue flowers and big thick roots. Verbascums. All those perennial verbascums… there are all sorts of gorgeous hybrids of them.

“So you want these cuttings to be maybe a little longer than the ones that were horizontal, maybe about an inch, inch and a half. The key bit of information that I haven’t given you is that you should always plan these cuttings the right way up and the right way up means exactly the way they grew in the ground.

“So always the bit that’s closest to the soil is the top of the cutting and the bottom of the cutting is always the bit that’s going downwards. Now I’m pushing these straight down until they’re completely flush, and the top of the cutting is flush with the compost. Then, all that remains to do is put some grit on the top of them. A nice warm place out of brilliant sunshine, make sure that they’re reasonably well watered, and you’ll have a whole load more acanthus plants.”