Bill teaches Peter the way to create Semi ripe hardwood cuttings. Cuttings are a great way to propagate certain types of plant like for example Photinia, Forsythia, Berberis, Hebe, Laurels, Brooms, Cistus, zonal geraniums and Camelias. There are also lots of other shrubs and trees which can be propagated like this. Peter has a tea bush (camelia) which is what we are going to try and propagate.
Equipment: Bypass Secateurs, Sharp knife, dibber or something to make a hole for the cutting, a p9 pot or cell pack, John Innes Seed compost, perlite, ideally a propagator, or cover to help keep the cutting in a humid atmosphere, somewhere ideally around 19C with moderate light.
We need material which is shoot with material from last year and fresh growth from this year. Make sure your knife or secateurs, pots and propagators are clean and sterile before starting the job. You need the tip and a couple of leaves or a pair of leaves, then cut the shoot just below the node and take the leaf off by pulling the leaf down, removing the leaf and the petiol. Using a dibber, stick or a pencil push a hole into your pot of compost, and push the cutting into the compost and firm the compost up to the cutting. The cutting needs to be held firm and supported by the compost. When watering, make sure you water very gently or use the dunking method so pop the pot into a bowl of water and allow the compost to take water in from the bottom of the pot. The compost needs to be kept moist, not over wet or allowed to dry out. Keep the pot of cuttings in a propagator so they are kept in a humid atmosphere, but do try and keep the cuttings away from dripping condensation. A good temperature is around 18 – 19C. If a cutting does not take then remove them from the propagator. To check the cutting has taken look for new white roots emerging from the bottom of the pot. You shouldn’t need to feed the cuttings to start off with, if you have used a proprietary seed and cutting compost. It is also important to make sure if you are taking cuttings of plants that grow in a low pH soil to use a low pH cutting mix.
For pictures of the process please click on this link
Lots of plants can be made to send out roots just by putting a stem in the ground and keeping it in contact with the soil. If you want to propagate Willows you can probably get them to root just by putting them in a well oxygenated bucket of water, or pop a stem into the soil where you want it to grow, these are called ripe cuttings.
Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for the music.
","author_name":"Dig It"}