The Secret of
Growing Landscape Plants
from Cuttings
© Copyright 2000
by Michael J. McGroarty
Make your Garden Glow Learn the best strategies of making your yard and garden a source of great satisfaction. The size of the average American yard continues to shrink -- it now stands at only 9,100 square feet -- including the house. At the same time, more and more people are valuing fresh, organically grown produce and wanting to grow their own. With new technology, special varieties and innovative planting systems, you can now grow almost any vegetable, herb or fruit on a deck or in a small corner of your yard or deck -- even producing more than if you planted them in a regular-sized garden. Turn Your Small Yard into a Big Garden. If you want to add curb appeal to your home in time for selling season, a few simple touches can make a powerful impact in the eyes of potential buyers. | The secret of growing landscape plants from cuttings can be summed up in two words. “Timing and technique”. When you do your cuttings is every bit as important as how you do them. So if you do the right thing, at the right time of the year, your efforts are sure to bring success. Through this article you will learn both. Hardwood Cuttings of Hardwood cuttings are much more durable than softwood cuttings which is why hardwoods are the best technique for the home gardener. A deciduous plant is a plant that loses its leaves during the winter. All plants go dormant during the winter, but evergreens keep their foliage. Many people don’t consider Rhododendrons, Azaleas, and Mountain Laurel evergreens, but they are. They are known as broad leaf evergreens. Any plant that completely loses it’s leaves is a deciduous plant.There are two different ways to do hardwood cuttings of deciduous plants. Is one better than the other? It depends on exactly what you are rooting, what the soil conditions are at your house, and what Mother Nature has up her sleeve for the coming winter. I have experienced both success and failure using each method. Only experimentation will determine what works best for you. Try some cuttings using each method. When doing hardwood cuttings of deciduous plants, you should wait until the parent plants are completely dormant. This does not happen until you’ve experienced a good hard freeze where the temperature dips down below 32 degrees F. for a period of several hours. Here in northeastern Ohio this usually occurs around mid November. |
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Method Number One Unlike softwood cuttings of deciduous plants, where you only take tip cuttings from the ends of the branches, that rule does not apply to hardwood cuttings of deciduous plants. Sour GrapesGrapes are extremely vigorous. A grape vine can grow up to ten feet or more in one season. That entire vine can be used for hardwood cuttings. Of course with grape vines, there is considerable space between the buds, so the cuttings have to be much longer than most other deciduous plants. The average length of a hardwood grape vine cutting is about 12” and still only has 3 or 4 buds. The bud spacing on most other deciduous plants is much closer, so the cuttings only need to be about 6-8” in length. Making a deciduous hardwood cutting Just collect some branches (known as canes) from the parent plants. Clip these canes into cuttings about 6” long. Of course these canes will not have any leaves on them because the plant is dormant, but if you examine the canes closely you will see little bumps along the cane. These bumps are bud unions. They are next year’s leaf buds or nodes, as they are often called. It is only a place for insects and disease to hide. |
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Give It An Owie!It is also helpful to actually injure a plant slightly when trying to force it to develop roots. When a plant is injured, it develops a callous over the wound as protection. This callous build up is necessary before roots will develop. Cutting just below a node on the bottom of a cutting causes the plant to develop callous and eventually, roots. Rooting CompoundOnce you have all of your cuttings made, dip them in a rooting compound. Make sure you have the right strength rooting compound (available at most garden stores) for hardwood cuttings. Line them up so the butt ends are even and tie them into bundles. Select a spot in your garden that is in full sun. Dig a hole about 12” deep and large enough to hold all of the bundles of cuttings. Place the bundles of cuttings in the hole upside down. The butt ends of the cuttings should be up. The butt ends of the cuttings should be about 6” below the surface. Cover the cuttings completely with soil and mark the location with a stake, so you can find them again in the spring. It is beneficial to cover the butt ends with moist peat moss before filling in the hole. |
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Give Your Cuttings |
Within a few weeks the cuttings will start to leaf out. Some will more than likely
collapse because there are not enough roots to support the plant. The others will
develop roots as they leaf out. By fall, the cuttings that survived should be pretty
well rooted. You can transplant them once they are dormant, or you can wait until
spring. If you wait until spring, make sure you transplant them before they break
dormancy.
The end
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Gardening In October, complete book. * budding * cuttings * cutting secrets * dogwood * in the fall * fertilizing * grasses * rose maple * money garden * mulching * pruning * rootmoney * training * More Tips * Meet Michael J. McGroarty Do your model railroading outside in the yard. Install a Rain Garden. Six Indoor Plants that Love the Dark. |
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