Garden innovations - rooter pot

The rooter pot is a new plant propagation method which is specially designed to help with the propagation of large, rooted plantlets from woody plants in just one growing season. Given that some plants, like Schefflera and Ficus can take four seasons to root adequately enough to be planted out, this is a massive saving in time, but also in effort, as pots don't need to be watered and cared for over a whole year.

The pots work in a variety of innovative ways:

• They open up vertically (into two halves) around the stem and then locks tightly, which ensures a temperature and pest controlled environment. This means that unlike standard chimney shaped pots, you can site the cutting directly in one half of the pot, actually laying it against the soil or other growing medium before closing the other half against it. The gardener can therefore be sure that the cutting is perfectly placed and that there are no air pockets or solid clumps of soil that might prevent perfect growth.
• The base holds two reservoirs for water retention which are covered by mesh lids, meaning that the soil is permanently moistened, creating the optimum saturated habitat. As potted cuttings are likely to suffer badly if they go through drought/flood cycles with intermittent watering, this means your plants are more likely to survive, thrive and root to independent growth much quicker.
• The conical lid remains open within a certain narrow radius which reduces evaporation from the soil surface, giving a mini greenhouse environment which preserves water and prevents frost damage. As small cuttings have less tolerance for cold, this extra protection means they are more likely to survive through cold spells than plants in open pots.

Garden innovation root photograph by Zing boom, used under a creative commons attribution licence