
The middle of January and we gardeners are all the same. Our fingers are already itching to get started on our 2025 garden!
Recent severe weather might have kept us indoors, but it’s time to get weaving. How about trying some cuttings in water, sowing some seeds, and pruning some shrubs ……….
Cuttings in water
Regular readers will know that I am very, very keen on the idea of making new plants for free! Collecting seeds from the garden, dividing plants, hardwood cuttings, softwood cuttings, root cuttings, everything-in-between cuttings…………you name it, and I do it. Not always successfully, of course, but the wins seem to outweigh the losses, and oh boy, the satisfaction!
I’ve been having a go with yet another propagating method recently – rooting cuttings in water and then transferring them to pots to grow on and become established in soil.

I wanted some more herbs – specifically thyme and rosemary – and I thought I would have a go with some salvia cuttings too, like the lovely feature pic of S. ‘Amistad’ this week. Rooting in water is not going to work for lots of woody-stemmed plants (they rot before they root – it’s the matter of a missing ‘o’!!). It is a method that is most often used for houseplants in fact, such Monstera, Philodendron, Coleus, African violets, Begonia, etc. but will work with mints, ivies, herbs, and some perennials like Ajuga, Brunnera, Geum, Nepeta and Geranium. But some bigger things will do this trick too – Forsythia, dawn redwood (Metasequoia) or dogwoods or elder. And I’ve seen cuttings from willows (Salix) FILL a pot of water with roots in a few weeks.

Having a bit of warmth will generally help the cuttings to root faster, so early spring to early summer (when plants are in active growth) is usually considered the best time to attempt this kind of propagation. If you can provide a warm bright windowsill inside, though, there is nothing lost by having a go at any time of year.
The process is pretty straightforward:
Snip off short stems of your chosen plant below a node (the knobbly bits on the stem) preferably, take off any buds or soft tips, strip off the leaves at the bottom of your cuttings, and put them in a pot of water. Foliage below the waterline will rot.
Leave the pot in a bright warm place and change the water regularly. Once you see roots coming from the base of the cuttings, move them carefully to pots of very moist compost, and watch them carefully as they adapt to their new growing conditions.

I’ve made a short video that shows you the process – the link is at the end. Surely this has got to be worth five minutes of ANYONE’S time! I can imagine children really enjoying watching the magical process of the roots developing too.
Winter shrub-pruning
January can be a good time to do some big rejuvenation pruning of hardy shrubs. Cutting overgrown shrubs hard back now will probably mean that they lose the flowers for 2025, but the plant should end up much healthier and better-shaped – more able to thrill you in years to come.
Viburnums are a good candidate for this kind of severe pruning, as is Eleagnus or Cotinus (smoke bush). If you cut back the thick stems of a tree such as Paulownia (foxglove tree), you prompt it to create massive tropical-type leaves rather than growing into a big flowering tree.

Saw back the branches of the overgrown shrub to stumps about a metre high, and prune vigorous smaller stems coming from the base so that they are all the same height. If you can cut these back to just above a bud, so much the better because it will avoid dieback; this is when the bit above the bud rots away and leaves a snag where infection might get in.
Since it’s rather unusual (and frankly sporting) for an evergreen shrub like Eleagnus to not mind being hacked back severely, you may want to take 2-3 years for a full rejuvenation of the shrub: just saw back one in three branches each year. Honeysuckle (Lonicera) and Campsis can also be cut back hard now to a tidy woody framework.

I warn you that your shrub might look pretty terrible for a while but when all those glossy new shoots start appearing in spring, you’ll be really glad that you seized the day and dealt with that ever-increasing monster in the corner!
Gardening shorts
- You can start a little bit of seed-sowing now – chillies need a long growing season; Lobelia, snapdragons, begonias and other summer-bedding plants can be sown in January inside in warmth. I rather like the feeling of getting a few things going early, because I know I’ll be run off my feet sowing and growing when we reach the main season for this in March. We have a great little seed-tamper and widger offer on in our shop at the moment – do have a look – I find mine invaluable for all seed-sowing jobs.

- You are going to need your favourite pair of secateurs all summer long – how about giving them some love now? Give them a good clean, and sharpen the blades so that they will be ready and waiting for you when you need them.
- Keep an eye out for perennial weeds in the borders like creeping buttercup or docks. You should be able to see them pretty clearly at the moment before the beds start filling up again, and you can oik them out roots and all.

- If you are doing a little bit of garden work outside in the borders, watch out for bumblebee queens which might be hibernating in loose soil. If you find one, gently re-cover her, or if she starts moving about, see if you can move her to somewhere dry and sheltered (a pile of old leaves, for instance) to sit out the rest of the winter.
Here is the step by step video of how to take cuttings in water – just click on image below!

We have Louise’s ‘go-to’ winter herb for this week’s Great Plant of the Month and it even comes with some cooking tips! Are you curious? Click on the photo to find out more:

The perfect seed-sowing kit for under £12! The next season is all about getting your seeds on the go, so we’ve combined two great pieces of kit, a soil tamper and seedling widger, to give yours the very best chance of germination:

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7 replies on “Propagation and Pruning – Gardening tips for January”
Having seen glass balls with a twig of holly on some moss on sale at £25 each at a Christmas market I thought I’d have a go at creating my own. The balls can be found at less than £20 for 6 from online retailers so I acquired a batch. Rather than use them as Christmas decorations I thought I’d try propagating cuttings in them. So far I have rosemary in 1 and sage in another. They are hanging on houseplant branches and look very pretty.
This link shows a similar glass ball, just to demonstrate the idea.
https://www.gardenhealth.com/large-glass-globe-terrarium
Hi Diana, that’s a great idea, and one I might pinch myself! I can imagine how lovely they look on the houseplants. Thank you for writing in. All the best, Elaine
I love this method of propagating plants in water. It’s so exciting when the new roots start to emerge! I keep mine out of direct sun and change the water every other day to keep the oxygen levels in the water topped up – using tepid water so the plant isn’t shocked. Perennial fuchsia is another plant that does very well using this method.
Hi Lisa, Elaine here. Thank you for writing in. Yes, it is very rewarding when they start to produce roots, isn’t it – one of those moments in horticulture when the science of it all becomes a little overshadowed by the magic! Thank you for the tip about perennial fuchsia – for some reason I have never been terribly partial to those, but I know they are very popular so an easy way of propagating them would be welcome to a lot of people. All the best for your 2025 garden from us.
I have a very large (and very prickly) Osmanthus. Is it safe to prune at this time of year (we’re at 800ft in the Welsh Marches), & how severe should I be? The birds use it as a refuge, but there’s no sign of any nesting material.
Hi Elaine, Elaine here (!). Hmmm, well your Osmanthus is obviously growing very well where it is or it wouldn’t have got so big, I don’t think! I’d be very wary of pruning this lovely shrub so early in the year – I think the chances of any new shoots getting damaged by bitter winter weather are too great. My advice would be to leave any cutting back until at least March, although delaying it until late spring or early summer might be even better because you wouldn’t have lost this season’s flowers. If you are planning a severe pruning, I would also do it in stages, taking a few branches off each year over 2-3 years, in the hope that the shrub won’t get shocked into giving up the ghost. I know that this advice runs the risk of disturbing nesting birds, but perhaps you can just check before you begin? Good luck, wishing you all the best for 2025.
Thank you for your help. As to flowering, it’s only flowered once in the last 21 years!