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Who’s up for some springtime gardening?
In the Pacific Northwest, green-thumbed stoners are always in low-key garden-planning mode, debating which cultivars will make the best garden additions, demand the least amount of attention, and result in the greatest payoff. For garden witches and novice gardeners establishing an outdoor plot or an indoor grow, the first bloom of spring is a truly poetic (and realistic) time to explore which strains have produced the strongest and healthiest clones.
No disrespect to the purists out there sprouting their own seeds, but for the rest of us, cloned plants are a straightforward way to cultivate our own cannabis garden to maturity with minimum drama.
Cloned plants are typically bred from cuttings provided by a prolific mother plant. They retain the same genetics as the parent and, when grown in stable conditions, will express the exact characteristics, including not just her stinky terps and heady cannabinoids, but also the essential vitality that made her an optimal candidate for cloning in the first place.
For novice growers attempting to cultivate their first cannabis plant or seasoned stoners preparing their plots for a new season, here are a few of this year’s hottest clone phenotypes, now available for countertop cultivation, porchcore potting, or garden ganjafication. Make sure to research which growing environment will best benefit your new plant homies, and let’s all compare our homegrown buds in 50 to 60 flowering days.
INDOORS
Ice Cream Cake
There are several variations of Ice Cream Cake, the two most popular being a cross of Gelato #33 and Wedding Cake and a cross of Cheesecake and Dream Cookie. Both deliver super-relaxing, sweetly blissed-out, potentially sedative effects and exhibit a sweet, creamy exhale and vanilla funk nose. Ice Cream Cake phenotypes typically flower in 50 to 60 days when grown indoors, and reportedly drop a considerable yield (2 to 4 ounces) of smallish, tightly constructed buds.
BUY: Archive Portland, 10645 SE Henry St., 503-719-4229, archivedispensary.com.
OG Kush
Inarguably one of the most famous contemporary strains, OG Kush, or simply Kush, is the dankest, most euphoric and intensely psychotropic variety of cannabis. It delivers a cushiony high in both the body and head, and is popular among both therapeutic and recreational users. If attempting an outdoor arrangement, use caution. OG Kush can be difficult since the plant is highly sensitive to environmental changes and susceptible to pests. But indoor growers with a zenlike space can expect around a 60-day flowering period.
BUY: Marijuana Paradise, 9663 SW Barbur Blvd., 503-893-4881, paradisepdx.com.
OUTDOORS
Pennywise
Users hoping to cultivate a plant with milder, more therapeutic effects should consider Pennywise, a high-CBD cross of medicinal strain Harlequin and peppy cultivar Jack the Ripper. This 1-to-1 CBD-to-THC strain delivers around 12% of each cannabinoid and has a bitter coffee aroma and sweet, piney exhale. Outdoors, Pennywise has a 55- to 65-day flowering period, and it’s recommended that growers top only once (snipping the growing tip of a plant’s main stem at a 45-degree angle, encouraging two flowering tops to form rather than one).
BUY: Satchel,, 6900 N Interstate Ave., 503-206-4725, satchelpdx.com.
Pink Runtz
The prize-winning cross of Pink Panties and Rainbow Sherbet (or Runtz, depending on the OG breeder) delivers a potently euphoric, deeply dissociative high that’s become a fast favorite of varsity users along the West Coast, particularly fans of swoony yet balanced hybrids. For an indoor grow, Pink Runtz has a flowering time between 50 and 65 days, but when grown outdoors can typically be harvested in mid-October.
BUY: Green Gratitude Cannabis, 10322 SE Holgate Blvd., 503-444-7707, greengratitude.us/cannabis-delivery-portland.