Moscow Food Co-op Organic & Local Products
Free Shrubs
by Pat Diaz, from the August 2003 Newsletter
It’s easy to create more plants and shrubs by using cuttings from your existing plants. And now is the time of year to do that. Here are the easy instructions:
The following plants and shrubs root very quickly and are, therefore, good candidates for creating more plants – Serviceberry, rugosa rose, mock orange, lilac, hydrangea, beautyberry, butterfly bush, elderberry, beauty bush, crape myrtle, daphne, enkianthus, flowering quince, forsythia, redtwig dogwood, smoke tree, weigela, bluebeard, deciduous azalea, and viburnum.
What you need from your “parent” plants is a stem or softwood cutting that is neither too new nor too woody. You can test your plant by bending a stem. If it snaps, it’s ready. If it bends without breaking, it’s too immature, and if it is dark and bends barely at all, then it’s too mature.
Plan on having the cuttings take two to four weeks to begin making roots. Within six weeks, you should be able to transplant your cuttings into larger containers. You will want to take the cuttings early in the morning. Choose from healthy lateral growth. The cuttings should be approximately three to five inches long and you should snip them just below a leaf node. If you’re taking several cuttings, place them between wet paper towels in a plastic bag in the shade until you’re done so they don’t dry out. Remove the lowest set of leaves from each cutting and dip the lower ends in rooting hormone. Shake off the excess. Have ready ahead of time, small (about two-inch) pots filled with either potting soil or propagation mix. Poke a hole in the center of the soil with a stick then set the stem in the hole and cover it with soil. Water thoroughly but be very gentle when you do this. Put a six-inch stick in the corner of each pot and then place each pot in a plastic bag and tie it or zip it closed. The stick or stake is there to keep the plastic bag from touching the leaves of your cutting. Set your pots in bright light but not in direct sun. If you notice heavy condensation building up, poke a few holes in the bag for air circulation. Make sure you keep the soil moist but not wet.
In three or four weeks, check your cuttings to see if they have rooted. You do this by gently tugging on the stems. If they resist, roots are developing. You can expect a 30-40 percent failure rate when propagating. The failures will eventually wither, dispelling any doubt you may have had but were afraid to look. At about the six-week time frame, transplant the well-rooted cuttings into larger containers. When the plant is well-established, plant directly in the garden.
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