advice on cuttings

[Dave E]

i've made a couple dozen failed attempts at rooting cuttings.
i used a couple kinds of hormone,differnet types of soil,square cuts,angle cuts,exposing the cambium,not exposing the cambium,cutting near a bud,cutting on or near a node to just randomly making a cut,everything from a quick dab in hormone to a thorough dusting,wetting the cutting prior to hormone, soaking the cutting, and using the cutting dry.
i do wrap the growing container in plastic,or use like a plastic clamshell container.

i started some juniper and some mugo cuttings 6-8 weeks ago and had a good feeling about them-so far the only type of growing going on is some mold

there just seems to be info left out about doing this.
any advice would greatly be appreciated

 

[discusmike]

It can be disheartening, I get 1/4 of the cuttings I take to root,timing is important with different species,as well as tool cleanliness n soil,sharper the scissors the better,if the medium is holding to much moisture or not enough can cause problems.

 

[discusmike]

I've never took Evergreen cuttings,but I've seen someone doing zuisho and they were using a mister set for like every 20 minutes or so,no dome or anything to trap humidity,dapled sun.

 

[michaelj]

I used to use domes and similar methods, and I had almost no success. It was too hot and humid, with no air circulation. I maybe rooted one cutting successfully in every batch on average. And they took months.

Then I started doing them on a set of plastic shelves, out in the open, against a north-facing wall that gets morning sun only. I put misters over it and did 2-3 mistings a day. That got my success rate much higher. Sometimes more than half took. I am fairly certain that a better, automated misting system would have made it much better. When I started them early in the season, I would put them on a heating pad at night.

Now, however, I put them in a small greenhouse. You can get a small greenhouse for as little as $40. I'm misting by hand 2-3 times a day, but preparing to hook up an automated misting system. The greenhouse is not only yielding higher percentages of success, it's rooting the cuttings much faster.

 

[Dave E]

i just left lowes and almost bought one of those greenhouses-i'll have to pick one up

thanks for the advice

 

[Stan Kengai]

One of the most important things, and somewhat counterintuitive, is to keep the cuttings out of direct sunlight. I keep mine on the northeast corner of the house, where they get bright indirect sun

 

[JoeR]

I also struggle with cuttings for whatever reason.

I have finally got one to strike though! Ironically, it was the only one that I didnt 'baby'. I just stuck it in dirt under my bench; no misting, tent, etc. Whereas the other cuttings that didnt take got misted etc.

 

[sikadelic]

The two main things that I focused on that improved my success rate a tad was the time of year and the moisture content of the soil. If you use a dome or greenhouse, you can make your soil mix a bit more dry than normal. If you don't, use a slightly wetter mix.

Keep trying and you will eventually find something that works for you. I still only get about 25% but when you finally get it, it feels good!

 

[zelk]

For me the breakthrough in cutting success was timing and shade cloth.

 

[M. Frary]

I just started taking cuttings last year. I just shove them right into the pot of the tree they just came from. They do pretty good. No shade. No misting. Of course they are just elms and amur maple.

 

[leatherback]

Been taking cuttings of everything I come across for the larger part of 25 years. Key is balance between giving enough light & substrate heat to stimulate root formation, with air circulation agains fungus while prevent them from drying out. Big benefit with junipers is that they seem to be able to take up a lot of moisture through the green parts.

Junipers I get over 80% successrate. I plant them in the gardenm, without any special treatment (Clean cuts, branches of up to 3 years old, little dip in rooting powder) and I plant them between other plants. So the get half-shade, the air can circulate but is relatively moist. If the soil gets dry I take a watering can and just quickly givethem a little bit of water, mainly to keep the foliage moist. No matter which time of year this seems to work. After a year I normally get my first real growth. Deciduous plants typically go in a propagator (One of those $5 window sill greenhouses)

For three years now I have been trying , but I cannot get maples to root, and have a fundamental flaw in my approach, which I would like to solve. Right now I have some dozen trident cuttings sitting in a propagator, in a shaded spot.

 

[Eric Group]

The secret is substrate- perlite. That was the best advice I have been given for cuttings. You can mix in a little additive if you like, but 100% perlite works great!

I have started using a bit of Turface or oil dry with it to add some weight on the top and a little mixed in throughout can help too. You can use your normal bonsai mix as an additive too- maybe 10-20% is enough usually.

I have read Brent from evergreen says he uses about a 50-50 mix of perlite and peat I think.. Which should work as well, but I feel like the less organic I use, the better and faster the roots develop.

I don't know about Mugo Pine, but juniper should root very easy. I have heard of people saying you can just root Juniper right in the ground and done so myself, but I only got maybe 40% or so to root in the ground and probably average closer to 80%+ in perlite.

 

[Dave E]

thanks for all the good advice

thanks for the perlite tip-i'll have to try it i have a bag of it that i never use
i heard that juniper roots very easy-that's why i had a good feeling about my latest attempt

 

[Eric Group]

Some trees need more moisture than others to root. Generally it seems to coincide pretty well with their requirements as adult trees. IOW- azalea and Maples might do a little better with a tray of water under the pots where as Juniper cuttings probably do not need that.

I don't have a "misting system" either but from what I read they help a lot.. And ground heat helps when taking them early in the season. (Again, I haven't ever used those things, just what I have read... If I had a nursery where profits depended on increasing production, I'd probably step my game up and get a system like that going)

As for timing- it seems the earlier the better for Juniper. February seems ideal in my area or even JANUARY. They should be well rooted by May... Perhaps a little later for Maples, though I have had success both before and after the leaves break. If the leaves are already out when you take your cuttings, remove most of the leaves completely, the ones that remain you can cut in half to reduce transpiration, but I usually try to leave the growing tips alone. It seems that allowing the growing tip to run forces the branch to either create roots or die and like any livi thing there is a "survival instinct" or something comparable at work there. I don't know of anybody getting 100% success on JM cuttings, but I probably got 40% success this year and I took a BUNCH!

You also hear (or read) people saying it is best to take new growth that just hardened off, or cut from last year's growth... Hogwash. I tried to root probably 50 cuttings this year and of the ones that took MOST were the LARGER ones! 1-2 inches+ across at the base! A lot more energy is stored in a cutting that size than in a little 1/16th- 1/8th of an inch whip.. I had some smaller ones take as well, but you are so much farther ahead of the game when you take a 2 inch cutting vs something from this year/last year's growth! Go big! I have about 20+ new JM bonsai now and they didn't cost me a dime except the cost of the perlite and some water... Gotta love propagation. Perlite works as a great substrate for LAYERS as well. Both air and ground layers.

Good luck!

 

[gar732]

I'm in the same boat you are in. I've try before but admittedly put no real effort, just stuck them in pot and see what happens, which yielded no results. This year in May I took a bunch of maple cuttings and planted them in a tray with 50/50 mix of perlite and peat and used a root hormone. This tray was placed in a white plast garbage bag loosly tied at the end so they get some air and misting a few times a week. I haven't gotten the results I hoped I would but out of the 5 or 6 that I pulled one had a small 1/2" root. I let the rest be in hopes that I will get at least a few to over winter.

I have been searching for a good source of info but can't find anything that covers the process start to finish giving reasonable time frames. Everything I've come across tells you how to start them and nothing else. A good write up stickied at the top of one of the forums would be great.

 

[JoeR]

Some trees need more moisture than others to root. Generally it seems to coincide pretty well with their requirements as adult trees. IOW- azalea and Maples might do a little better with a tray of water under the pots where as Juniper cuttings probably do not need that.

I don't have a "misting system" either but from what I read they help a lot.. And ground heat helps when taking them early in the season. (Again, I haven't ever used those things, just what I have read... If I had a nursery where profits depended on increasing production, I'd probably step my game up and get a system like that going)

As for timing- it seems the earlier the better for Juniper. February seems ideal in my area or even JANUARY. They should be well rooted by May... Perhaps a little later for Maples, though I have had success both before and after the leaves break. If the leaves are already out when you take your cuttings, remove most of the leaves completely, the ones that remain you can cut in half to reduce transpiration, but I usually try to leave the growing tips alone. It seems that allowing the growing tip to run forces the branch to either create roots or die and like any livi thing there is a "survival instinct" or something comparable at work there. I don't know of anybody getting 100% success on JM cuttings, but I probably got 40% success this year and I took a BUNCH!

You also hear (or read) people saying it is best to take new growth that just hardened off, or cut from last year's growth... Hogwash. I tried to root probably 50 cuttings this year and of the ones that took MOST were the LARGER ones! 1-2 inches+ across at the base! A lot more energy is stored in a cutting that size than in a little 1/16th- 1/8th of an inch whip.. I had some smaller ones take as well, but you are so much farther ahead of the game when you take a 2 inch cutting vs something from this year/last year's growth! Go big! I have about 20+ new JM bonsai now and they didn't cost me a dime except the cost of the perlite and some water... Gotta love propagation. Perlite works as a great substrate for LAYERS as well. Both air and ground layers.

Good luck!

Ya know,

I think he is spot on with the size thing. Out of all the cuttings I took from the cherry, the biggest one rooted. It makes sense to me to use older stuff because it has much more energy to expend before it withers away and dies. They also probably have a better survival insticnt/reaction with the 'grow roots or die' issue.

Younger shoots that I have used for cuttings droop almost immediately and soon turn brown without even a chance of survival. The cherry cutting I stuck never drooped even a little.

Plus, who wants pathetic little twigs when you can get trees!

 

[discusmike]

Gar scratch the peat from your mix and use just perlite,I switched a couple years back and have gotten better results.

 

[discusmike]

My daughter stuck this 12" jap maple in the ground after pruning as buds were swelling in spring,no hormone,nothing,its growing!I need to start letting her do my cuttings

 

[yenling83]

I'm no cutting master but I've had much better success lately compared with in the past. I built this little structure and covered it with plastic. I use a mix of 50/50 perlite and sand, I use a strong rooting hormone and water approx once a day. the bottom of this structure is covered in plastic and has tons of holes for drainage. Right now I have the top covered in what I think is 50% shade cloth. I think monitoring the temp is important, because they will fry if it gets too hot. Playing around with the number of leaves you keep is important. I usually leave a very small number of leaves on or cut many in half. For Juniper you don't need a structure like this.

These are ume, I got a high success rate with them. However there are some Manzanita that died on the right hand side of the pot. It was my first time trying manzanita.