What is the best way?
anyone ever rooted crepe myrtle?
There's an active thread over in the propagation forum about crepe myrtles... It's about some esoteric new variety, but all the folks chatting seem like old hands at rooting them.
Kind of a fun way, that I think would work where you are, is hardwood cuttings. Cut them in the fall, them just stick them in the ground. When spring comes, they think they're trees and start growing.
They also sucker madly so you can dig up some suckers and plant them. Winter is best time as well.
Thanks
The method I use almost never fails. Everything else I write is opinion.
The easiest to root is softwood cuttings, then semihard cutting, then dormant wood.
None are hard to root.
Softwood take a 4 to 6 inch cutting with the growing tip.
Strip the lower leaves up to 1 to 2 inches of the top.
Now dip the cutting into rooting compound using directions from the bottle.
I almost never use rooting compound, it is almost always where it should not be.
I recommend using a 1 gal pot full of any good potting soil. Slightly damp.
Take a pencil or simular object and make a hole in the soil to place the cutting and not scrape of the rooting dust.
Stick the cutting in hole in the soil.
I then I make sure the soil is around the cutting so it doesn't wiggle.
Then soak the pot with all the water the soil will hold. This will fill any voids in the pot.
Now you need a dome to cover the pot to keep it humid.
The dome is a 1 gal water jug. Cut off the bottom above the thick plastic.
Now you have a dome the fits right over the 1 gal pot.
Place the WJ dome, with the lid on, on the pot with the cutting and set in the shade.
Now the work is done in 15 minutes or less except looking at it every day to check the progress.
At some point you will need to remove the WJ lid. Check often the first day you remove the lid. If wilting starts replace the lid and try again later.
DO NOT OVER WATER.
I do semi-hard and hardwood cutting the same way with exception of a growing tip being absent.
You now can grow the cutting until planting size and never have to repot.
This message was edited Jun 29, 2010 9:10 PM