Propagating at Kew Gardens

October 28, 2025 · 22 min · Season 3 · Episode 18

About this episode

Sal Demain shares her experiences and insights from her role at Kew Gardens, focusing on plant propagation and the future of trees in the UK.

Sal Demain has her dream job and in this Offshoot episode she shares why she loves it so much. Working as the Supervisor of the Arboretum Nursery at Kew Gardens, she has many plants to look after though she does have her favourites! Her curiosity about how plants spread goes back to childhood. And she would love everyone to have a go at propagating. Just: "don't come after my job" . In this episode we learn about the tree gang who go out collecting seeds and the landscape succession plan for trees we might be growing in the UK in 50 to 90 years time. And we learn the definition of 'naturally sourced material.' Our Plant Stories is presented and produced by Sally Flatman The music is Fade to Black by Howard Levy Every month I will make a plant story but stories often lead to more stories and I end up publishing Offshoot episodes. So if you 'Follow' the podcast on your podcast app you will never miss an episode. It also makes a real difference if you can spare the time to rate and/or review an episode after you have listened. Spotify and Apple look at these ratings and it helps to get the podcast promoted to other plant lovers. This podcast uses the following third-party services…

People in this episode

Host: Sally Flatman

Guest: Sal Demain

Topics covered

plant propagation
Kew Gardens
arboretum nursery
seed collection
landscape succession
naturally sourced material

Keywords

propagation
Kew Gardens
arboretum
seeds
landscape succession
plant care
naturally sourced material

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Kew Gardens

Books & works: Fade to Black