i too am green, cuddly, and learning french

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

See, the thing with gardening is that once you hit a certain level, you have more plants than space, and the plants are making more of themselves everyday. So there are gardeners around you that want to give away plants that thrive in your local climate.

You go to a plant swap, and you'll see piles of raspberries, strawberries, irises, and more. You'll see succulents, and seeds, and vegetable seedlings. And you'll go up, and someone will say, 'oh would you like some raspberries? If I have any left by the end they'll have to be composted'. Most of the time you don't even need to have a direct trade, and lots of people explicitly say no trade needed.

Today I got thornless raspberries, white strawberries, walking onions, and someone's coffee plant because I'm a sucker. I gave away rooted fig cuttings, Oregon redwood sorrel, thimbleberries, and tradescantia cuttings.

So the thing is, they're very easy to propagate, just like raspberries. It's just that stem cuttings are the wrong method for them. At least in my climate (wet winters, mild summers) and if you're talking about the same species I am, Rubus parviflora.

What you want to do is make sure you get a good portion of the root, like at least six inches. Using a spading fork or shovel, in the dormant season, loosen the soil around where the cane enters the ground, and feel around for the root/runner. Follow it and get as much as you can. Plant immediately, and mulch.