I love Angelonia but they are too expensive to buy more than a couple of them. They really are beautiful in the hot part of the summer and every year in early August I find myself wishing I had 10 or 20 plants; not the 1-3 plants that I usually bought in the spring (because I couldn't afford more of them).
So I'd like to know if Angelonia can be propogated by cuttings and, if so, how do I do it? I'm also wondering how long it would take for them to bloom from cuttings. And can they be overwintered?
Are seeds available to some of the Wedgewood Blue or other varieties? Or are the Serena Angelonia the only onces sold as seed?
I think that Serena is the only seed type, I think the rest are grown by cuttings, tissue culture, or something along those lines. But how they do it, I don't know. You could experiment...get some rooting hormone from the nursery or farm type store, cut a little stem with a couple leaves and pot in up, and keep it watered. Thats how i did it with my perilla last season, and its still alive in my front room waiting for spring!
I am only guessing (about Angelonia), but I would think your best bet would be to buy the varieties you like this year, plant them out and then take cuttings from them in late summer. You can probably leave them outside until frost is threatening. Then take them in under lights for the winter. The trick is to take the cuttings while the plants are still strong and healthy. If you wait too late, they begin to decline and then your cuttings will likely fail. Depending on how many plants you want, you can pinch the plants back in early summer to force them to make more stems. Tip cuttings are the easiest to root.
I keep looking at angelonias in my seed catalogs and think they are so pretty and today's monthly newsletter from Fine Gardening has them listed as one of 15 deer resistant plants. That sold me!
