Should I Mollycoddle Late Hardwood Cuttings?

I took some hardwood cuttings of some shrubs quite late - late January, possibly even Early Feb.

They are in 50:50 Perlite & Multi-purpose, in large pots, in the unheated conservatory. That gets quite warm on a nice sunny day - maybe hits 20C

One of the batches flowered - forgotten what it was, Viburnum I think. The flowers are right on the wood, so couldn't really "remove" them, but they shrivelled up.

Some leaves have appears on some and kinda shrivelled up - although they don;t look quite that bad.

I wonder if I should slip a plastic bag over them, and stick them under the table in the unheated conservatory - to conserve a bit of moisture and thereby hopefully extend their survivability rate?

 

Right!Ho! Off to find some poly-bags. Can't do any harm, and will keep the humidity up. I can't believe the blighters have rooted / much as yet

 

Now bagged up :thumb:

Note to self: In future insert cuttings vertically in the pot, rather than jutting out at a jaunty angle, to make it easier to get a standard sized Large freezer-bag over them - as a large freezer bag is just the right diameter for the pot itself ... oh! and don't be tempted to use any pots which are larger diameter than that!

Freezer is now full of loose produce - makes it much easier to select what you want I think, but I may just need to run that by Mrs K

 

I took some cuttings back in the early autumn, of a magnolia stellata, hisbiscus, hydrangea (don't know the name but it has a very flat, white flower head), from a friend's garden.

I kept these in an unheated, simple plastic, greenhouse over the winter and they have survived and are starting to shoot. I now have them out in the open and was wondering when would be the best time to move them into a larger pot.:th_scifD36:



Sally

 

I normally wait until I can see evidence of roots at the bottom of the pot.

My guess is that the Hydrangeas will romp ahead of the others, and that might make the decision for you! (if they are all in the same pot?)

 

Kristen, thanks for that. The are all in separate pots so I will keep an eye out for roots coming through the bottom of the pot.

Sally

 

Kristen knows better than me, but when my cuttings take, I don't just wait for the first evidence of roots coming out the drainage holes on the pot, I wait for several unmistakable roots coming out. I do this because what I've found in the past is that if I try to pot them on as soon as one root appears, I've found that there was only one root, and the compost just falls away, and half the time the one immature root just breaks off with it when I take it out of its pot. Nowadays I'd say I wait til its almost pot bound before transplanting.

My way would be no good if you want a lot of plants quickly I guess, because they stay in their rooting homes for much longer than would be the case if you were prepared to be more gentle, but it is the best way I've found to ensure cutting success.

 

'tis a good plan I use farly large pots - 1L or bigger - so roots evident at the bottom usually means there is quite a lot going on in the pot, but for a 3" pot (say) then the odd root at the bottom just tells you they are healthy, not that they have rooted well.

All said and done : leaving them too long is way better than leaving them not long enough :thumb: