Those who love gardening may have questions on how to ensure perfect seed germination and propagating clones. You may have found a handful of tips online among which some actually work, some are wrong while some are indifferent and ineffective. The following tips are a foolproof way to boost the chances of success rate.

It is to be noted that when you seed indoors, it is entirely different from how you plant a seed outdoors wherein you prepare a plant bed, sprinkle generous number of seeds onto it and cover them with soil.

Planting the seeds:  

• In the soil: When planting the seed in soil, begin by placing it in a small pot. Pre-soak the seeds in water for about 6 to 12 hours and not more than 24 hours. It is still unclear if pre-soaking alters the success rate. Choose a 0.5l to 1l pot. Some make the mistake of choosing a large pot for planting the seedling and end up finding it difficult to maintain a dry/wet seeding cycle.
• Into propagation plugs: If your growing medium is hydro or coco, soak the seeds as wear as propagation plugs in room-temperature water for about 20 minutes. You can use a root stimulant to promote better germination.
• Paper towel: Use a good quality paper that can hold reasonable quantity of water. Fold it over the seed and place it a zip lock bag in a light-proof environment at a temperature of 20°C. This won’t work if the paper is delicate.

Gardening equipments including pot, fertilized soil, propagation plugs, root stimulant etc are available at The Grow Depot. Their team would also assist in finding the apt products.

Rooting cuttings:

Some prefer clones/cuttings to seeds. If you want to go that way, do the cutting from a plant that is in the vegetative stage. Cut anywhere near the top of the plant since hormones are more concentrated there. Cut using sharp scissors and it should be 75-130mm in length. Scrape the last 25mm of the stem using scalpel. Pour some rooting hormone in a bottle and dip the cut stem in it before placing it inside a propagator. There are a number of propagators available in the market.

Perfect lighting is essential to stimulate the growth of the plant and there are specific lamps with the right watts to serve to aid plant growth. Choosing the right gardening equipments is half job done.