I water them from the top, pouring a small amount of water on the soil. On occasion I mist the leaves. I used to water every day, lately I've switched to every other day since I was thinking maybe it was too much water. Perhaps I should back off even more? Lately our humidity has been very high due to a lot of rain (which I bring seedlings inside when it rains) so that might be part of it too. So, what does dampening off look like? They just die? Turn some other color? I had some cilantro seedlings that looked great for awhile and then keeled over. Turned yellow first. Same went with them - I didn't know if I was over watering or if it was dampening off. I have many other seedlings that still "look" healthy, but they are just not growing. Example: my coleus was planted 7 weeks ago but it still is only like 1 centimeter tall with only the first set of leaves. Other ones I'm not sure if they are healthy because they are laying down flat: my forget me nots are laying flat but with enough leaves I thought maybe I could try hardening off. My 7 wk old sweet alyssum is about 2 inches long, most with one set of leaves, some with two, but all of them are also laying flat and just look so weak that I can't think about transplanting them either. I feel like I am mean & cruel to my little plants, making them suffer! I'm a bad plant mother. *LOL*

Sage and lavender like to be pruned, but not down to the woody parts. If you prune the green (nonwoody) parts 2-3 times a year, you can maintain a smaller size. Once they get overgrown, you can take hardwood or softwood cuttings and start new plants. Spring is usually the best time to strike new cuttings, but I am going to experiment with taking cuttings this month. I cut my Berggarten sage back only once last year -- reduced it by half -- and this spring it is larger than before, with extra-large leaves! I find it hard to prune back the lavender enough, since it is in bloom practically all summer and I hate to remove the flowering stems, but when I do I find it does much better and stays a manageable size without those ugly dried-out woody areas. This week I will harvest some lavender buds and trim back the largest one. In my climate (northern Calif.), I've seen the best results (nicest form, looks good all year) when the lavenders are pruned back hard 2-3 times a year. I wanted one plant, so I dug up 4 puny dried-out 2-inch-high lamb's ears from someone's dry soil, coddled them until their roots were developed, and in my compost-rich soil, they have taken off. I gave away and pruned back at least 80 to 90 percent in the fall and winter, and still they have reclaimed their space from last summer. They are now in bloom, 3 feet high, and cover at least 9 square feet. In containers, they tend to be self-limiting. I haven't grown these in pots, but I had some yarrow, thyme, and oregano in one of those 12-inch shallow patio pots for a couple years. They stayed the same size. When I planted them in the garden, the Moonlight yarrow really took off -- I divided it into 4 clumps the first year, and then divided one of those clumps into 24 plants a year later, and still have to give away lots more -- it's crowding out the gilia and echinacea and chamomile and thyme. The oregano has stayed in one nice clump, but I find smaller seedlings here and there.

thats not slug damage.. try google for cutworm damage.. one bug per plant does amazing damage .. then it morphs to a moth or something else .... and then the damage stops ... during the day .. the cut worm sleeps in the soil within a few inches of the plant during the day .... if you scratch around you will find it soil colored and curled in a semi circle .... squish it ... i never found more than one at any given plant.. good luck ken PS: there is a hosta forum .... just rip out the bad couple leaves.. and your hosta will look great ... no real need for chemicals in my world ....

Hi John, Whether or not you can root them depends on what you're calling a cutting! If you mean individual leaves, I don't believe there's any way at all to root those. If you mean you're cutting off the stems (with leaves attached), theoretically it should be possible to root those, but I've tried it two or three times and like I told Misty, have been totally unsuccessful so far--which REALLY surprised me! As I suggested to Misty, above, the quickest and easiest way to start new individual plants from an established lamb's ear is to remove some of the individual shoots that are already well rooted or obviously starting to root and stick them in small pots till they're rooted to the bottom of the pots, and then plant them outside--after hardening them off if it's still cold out! To get the rooted shoots, gently dig around the outside of the plant to loosen the soil and then kind of dig around a little bit with your hands, lifting up on some of the outside shoots, and you'll probably see right away some rooted stems that you can cut off--or just pull/break off. If you decide to try rooting some completely unrooted ones, when you cut them off, cut them almost the whole way down to the crown of the plant. That will force new growth to come up from the base of the plant, rather than getting multiple shoots coming out of the end of a stem that's already several inches long, which would just make the plant look all leggy and floppy! If you manage to root some unrooted pieces, please come back here and tell us about it! I'd love to find out if it really is possible! I looked thru my (many) pics in hopes of finding a couple lamb's ear ones that might explain what I mean by the "outside shoots," but I don't seem to have taken many lamb's ear pics over the years! Here are a couple--that may or may not help! The first is my plant the year after I put it in--a very small plant I had gotten at one of the swaps. You can't see the base of the stems, but you can see the tips of all the different individual shoots that make up the whole plant. The second one is a couple years later when it's just starting to grow in spring, after I've cleaned all the old ratty foliage off from the previous year. Because the leaves are still small, you can see all the way down to the bottom where the individual stems are going into the soil. Those individual stems are what you want to gently lift up far enough to see if they're adequately rooted to be able to remove them to successfully start them in a pot. [Click on the pic to open it in WebAlbums, and then you can click on the little magnifier on top, wait for it to load, and then click the + in the top left corner to get it as big as possible and then drag it to see the area you want to look at.] In this pic it's easiest to see where the individual shoots are going into the soil on the top left corner of the plant! Mine is considerably bigger now than in either of those pics, but I have the flowerless kind, so they don't spread as much as the blooming kind. If you have the kind that blooms you should have new shoots coming up all over the place, and you should very easily be able to remove rooted shoots to start more. Fluorescent lites, in my opinion, are the best things you can use for growing inside. They're inexpensive, and they don't burn plants even if the plants grow right up into the bulbs, and since keeping the source of the lite close to the plants is important, using something that doesn't burn them makes it a lot easier. I used to use cool white, but I don't think it makes any difference what type they are! Good luck! Let us know how it works out for you! Skybird This post was edited by skybird on Sun, Mar 2, 14 at 16:05