Here is a side view. In a couple of weeks, I'll give them a very, very gentle tug to see if they are rooted. If they don't give, they are. If they slide out, of course they are not. The bright green leaves lead me to believe they are indeed growing though!
Yes, we got over 4" of rain and it got very windy, but my little greenhouse didn't even flap around in the high gusts of wind. I used very heavy clear vinyl and lots of clamps, so far so good! There is now a plastic roof under the clear plastic. I bought what is actually supposed to be a ceiling cover for flourescent lights. It is like a square honeycomb. White and about 1 inch thick. As the weather here goes to both extremes this time of year. One minute it is in the 40's and by midday it's in the high 80's. The greenhouse needed a breathable roof and this is working very well along with some black shade cloth I can drape over the sides to keep the full sun from hitting the new cuttings. Cold winter sun is going to be essential later on.
Here are the Flash cuttings at 4 weeks now.
I know it doesn't look like there has been any changes, but that is a good thing!
No more loses, no mold and fungus, and everyone is a bright healthy green. They are just busy making roots and we'll know when they suddenly start to grow, that they have been successful.
Here we are at five weeks and these guys are already doing much better than the poor neglected Gartenmeister Bonstedt's did! This is the difference more care can make. These guys have also been benefiting from my new mini greenhouse. It gets up to the 80's in there even on a cold windy day like today. Because the sun it out.
If you look close, you will see that both Flash and Grace McCarthy have also formed a few flower buds!
I gave them a gentle tug and they are definately rooted. And if you look close, you can see that they have new growth.
Time for them to move up into a sunnier portion of the greenhouse :-)
A bit of a closer look.
Willowwind2 sent me some beautiful cuttings and one rooted plant. They arrived today in wonderful condition. I believe the rooted one (which I potted up before the photo) is Fuchsia magellanica.
Of the cuttings, she mentioned the one with foliage like the magellanica, has larger flowers, so I am thinking perhaps it is F. magellanica var 'Riccartonii.' We will find out!
The one with tiny leaves, I believe is F. minutiflora. I have a F. microphylla and it's flowers aren't quite as tiny and don't have the so very bright "cerise" sepals this one does. Making cuttings for minutiflor and microphylla is a bit of a challenge!
I will post photos of everyones progress.
I'd also like to mention Willowwind2's use of a beverage cup with it's lid as a means of transporting the bareroot plant. It worked great! And the base of the cuttings were wrapped in wet papertowels. Sopping wet and in plastic bags with the foliage inside of the bags as well. It worked great!
PS The stake in the photo is actually a dried stem from my Jerusalem Artichoke harvest this year. They can grow to over 8 feet tall and be over an inch accross at the base. So when they die, I cut them and stack them to dry so I can use them in place of bamboo. They don't last as long as bamboo, and aren't as strong. But most of the time, what I am using them for, doesn't require permanent support anyway.
Here is the Magellanica Willowind2 sent me just over a week ago. I cut it back a bit after potting it up. And I've decided to keep it indoors as part of my experiment in growing fuchsias indoors. So far, it is doing very well! It not only arrived in bareroot form, the soil was regular soil from the ground, not potting soil. As you can see though, it didn't mind at all, it arrived in excellent condition.
This message was edited Nov 6, 2009 7:28 PM
Is it better to have them growing in potting soil? Mine are all out in the garden.
And here is a photo of the tray of cuttings made from the three varieties Willowwind2 sent, including the cuttings made from the plant I potted up. They are just over a week old now and are being kept out doors in a mini-greenhouse with no heat yet. So they are exposed to a temperature range of low 40's to high 80's almost daily.
The tray with Flash is doing well also. Those haven't changed much, so I am waiting for the flower buds they are producing to put on a bit more color before I post another photo of them.
This message was edited Nov 6, 2009 7:26 PM
Willowwind2, don't worry, you did fine starting that guy! Yes, they would grow better in potting soil. But it doesn't have to be potting soil. Potting soil is isn't really soil at all if you look closely at it. It is just better for rooting cuttings and potted plants because it is lighter and can hold both more water and more air than regular ground soil. So there is room in a pot for more roots. Which is vital for potted plants. Because a plant in the ground will generally have a root mass twice the size of the plant you see above ground. That can't happen in the small containers and pots we ask plants to grow in!! So we have to help them out by providing something to allow for more roots in a smaller space. The plant you sent was very, very healthy and doing just great!
One of the Flash starts is blooming :-)
When making cuttings, I do my best to remove any flower buds from tip cuttings. Even little tiny green ones. As the cutting needs to be putting energy into growing rooots, not flowers. But it is not unusual for fuchsia starts to bloom as soon as they have a few roots. They are not quite ready to transplant. And if it was spring, I'd say it wouldn't be long now. This tray gets to stay in the mini greenhouse for the winter. I might transplant one Flash to bring indoors. I am going to start a new thread today about growing fuchsias indoors.
And Willowwind2, here are your little babies in their second week. The row in the back is a lantana I have been meaning to make cuttings of. It is a rosy orange one and has been swallowed up by the plumbago it was potted with. This summer, it finally made it's way up throught the plumbago canes into the sunshine. There is no way to seperate the two. They have both (as well as a struggling Princess Bush) grown down through the bottom of the pot and the pot itself is falling apart.
The Princess Bush (Tibouchina urvilleana) was supposed to be the main plant in that container years ago...
Anyway! Everyone is doing well in this tray :-)
They are looking good. You are brave to take so many small cuttings off the larger ones.
Thanks! I felt that the plant would adjust better to being transplanted, if the root system didn't have as much foliage to support. So since I needed to trim it up a bit anyway, I figured I might as well make some cuttings.
And it turns out I was able to sneak a few Princess Bush cuttings in there as well. Tibouchina urvilleana is one of my favorite plants and I was really sad that the person who decided to prune that container some years back, almost destroyed it. Just a few wisps have been able to squeeze their way out of the plumbago and as soon as I see a bit worth making a cutting of, I do. I have two one gallons now and one of those is about to bloom! I was looking for sources here at DavesGarden today, and a nursery in Canada sells them as houseplants! I would never have thought of them as houseplants.
Love all the pictures and information about rooting fuchsias. I love F. also. Thank you for taking the time to share the pictures and information.
Thanks! I hope we will be hearing from you!
Here are Willowwind2's cuttings in their third week. Every single one is doing fine. Even though the temps get down into the high 30's at night now. The temps in the mini greenhouse oftern get up to almost 80 in there when the sun is out.
And here is one of the Flash cuttings right before I transplanted it to bring indoors. Future photos of the progress of the Flash cuttings will be posted to the thread I started on growing fuchsias indoors. So will photos of the F. magellanica Willowwind2 send with the cuttings.
You can see that after 8 weeks, this Flash start has a nice ball of healthy white roots! If you saw how they looked when they arrived (photos were posted here in Sept), then you can see how tough fuchsias can be and what they can survive.
Here are Willowwind2's cuttings in their 5th week. Everyone is doing fine. I lost a few of my Princess Bush cuttings, but I was expecting that. They don't root well in the cold. The lantana look fine though.
Sometimes it is a bit dicey to combine different plants in one tray because the growth rates and needs can be so different. But fuchsias themselves have a wide range of differences also. You can have 100% success with one cultivar and have every single one of another cultivar right next to it, die.
Still haven't identified these guys Willowwind2. All I know is that the Encliandra type you have, is not the same as the one I already had. I think it is a F. minutiflora instead of a F. microphylla. The leaves are so much tinier!
Aw, they look so good.
Lookin Good! Sure hope your cool spell hasn't caused any problems with them.
We started getting some freezing weather the end of November so I took some cutting of 'Flash and Margaret'. I knew it was late in the season for doing this but thought I would give it a try.
I found some peat pots I had stashed and a clear tub type container and so far they are doing really good. I noticed some roots growing out of two of them today so I will have some indoor Fuchsias for the winter.
:)
Yours are looking very healthy and vigorous GGK! I will make sure to post an update tomorrow. The minigreenhouselet (as my friends call it) has been doing a great job. And I am very glad I used clear plastic roofing. As I was able to take the shade cloth off of the southern side of it and now every shelf is getting lots of winter sun. The seed warming pad under the lowest shelf, did a great job of keeping the temps above freezing in there. Ha, I look forward to your posts in the "Indoor Fuchsia" thread now!
Hi PC, I took a couple of tiny pieces of that miniature and just stuck them back in the pot when I took your cuttings and they are still alive. They are outside so they aren't growing.
Here are Willowwind2's cuttings in their 7th week. I know they look the same as before, but that is a remarkable thing. As they are outdoors and it is winter. The little minigreenhouselet is not heated. It only has a heated seed warming pad under the very bottom shelf that keeps them from freezing because heat rises. If it is a sunny day, it can still get up to 80 degrees in there and some fuchsias are blooming. But again, I am just thrilled that everything is alive!
I am sure yours are doing well out there Willowwind2! They probably had plenty of time to send out good roots and will surprise you in the spring.
Here is one of the Flash's at 14 weeks. He is busy getting ready to bloom. And he is being grown indoors in a southern facing window. For progress on other fuchsias being grown indoors as blooming houseplants, we have thread here called, "Indoor Fuchsias." I can't wait to see him bloom!
PC
They are all looking so good! Nice to see a healthy bunch of cuttings turning into future bloomers! Flash is sure doing good. I was thinking about growing a couple of standards for this year and Flash is one I want to use. Another one is Lady boothby.
Both Flash and L. boothby are really avid growing fuchsias from what I've observed so I may get good quick results.
Here is an update on my cuttings I lost 3 but they are doing quite well.
Yes, yours are looking good too! I wonder, are you fertilizing them and if so, with what and how much? They certainly are a healthy green. And when you make your standards, how are you going to over winter them? Did you read the home page article, where the author even uses warm Christmas lights to keep things warm?
I realize that there are fertilizer which advertise feeding via the foliage. But I don't like the idea in general. I would be concerned about excess salts drying onto the surface of the leaves. I prefer to use a solution with even numbers like 18-18-18, but that is hard to find unless one orders it. So I usually rely on Miracle Gro and during the winter, I use a 1/4 strenth solution with every other watering.
Time released fertilizers are not good for our purposes because it is not possible to determine when it has run out in these conditions. I don't like time released in general because plants have such a wide range of growth rates. Even if one didn't factor in the affect of weather on how often a plant gets watered, and thus the granules releasing fertilizer, how do they factor in the huge range of differences in growth rate?
I wouldn't want to find out my plants had run out of fertilizer sooner than anticipated by their sudden lack of growth or overall health. Because by then, you have lost weeks or maybe even months of potential.
Here are Willowwind2's cuttings, now in their 11th week. I know they don't look much different, but remember, these ones are growing outdoors in the winter. If it is a sunny day, it might get up to the high 70's in there. But at night, the only source of warmth is a seed warming pad on the bottom shelf as insurance against freezing. If you have been tracking the thread on growing fuchsias indoors, you will note a huge difference in growth between the two! I am just thrilled that most everyone is alive and the tiny one even has an open blossom. Which is, much to my delight, is not the same as Lottie Hobby. Now I need to find out which one it is! The photo isn't very clear, but the flowers sepals and petals are two different colors.
Your little GH has worked out really well for you this winter. They all look so green and healthy and when the time comes for there move they will be instantly ready! I hope you find out the ID of that little one.
Well after our big freeze I noticed that F. Sharkie still had some life left in a few branches. So just after Christmas I did some cuttings and they are rooting. I seem to have the bug for trying cuttings late in the season. Just after I had them indoors for a week I noticed a serious infestation of aphids and sprayed them with Raid House and Garden spray and it took care of the problem.
Here is how they look today.
Those Sharkie's look like they recovered very well and will be ready to go outside as soon as it is safe! Yes, you have done very well with late winter cuttings. I have considered it a few times these last few weeks, but have told myself to just wait. All of the sunshine indoors is occupied and I don't want to move anyone out of it.
But last year I was able to start rooting cuttings outdoors by February, and that is just a few weeks away, I just have to be patient....... I have about 12 varieties which didn't get big enough to make cuttings from before winter set in, and I am anxious to get at least a couple off of each plant as soon as I can. One never knows when something is going to happen to one specimen and it is good to have back ups. My Pink Pearl and Mood Indigo's are both examples of this!
Hey GGKin, how are your cuttings doing?
Just found this thread, and am delighted to get this info. I am in a much colder climate than you, and have tried wintering my pots for the last 2 winters now. The first time, I had absolutely no luck, and none of my plants made it. I tried it again this last winter, and to my surprise, I do have 3 or 4 that are now putting on new leaves. So glad that I can try to take cuttings and see if they take! Do you know, does this work with the fuschias that are not necessarily hardy? I am not sure if mine are hardy or not, as here, they still would not be hardy enough to winter in the ground.
Wow, zone 3b! I have family in Laramie Wyoming. Do you know the names of your fuchsias? And yes, you can make cuttings of any fuchsia, hardy or not. I have learned a lot from reading in the forum here also. Before this winter, I'd of declared it impossible to grow them indoors at all. But I did it myself this winter in a sunny southern facing window and they did great, they even bloomed. So now I am keeping a couple of the smaller and slower growing varieties indoors as blooming houseplants permanently. I hope you post photos of your fuchsias here.
