PLEASE SHARE INFO ON ROOTING HIBISCUS CUTTINGS

Hello Hibiscus forum people;)
I'm new to this particular forum, I don't know why I haven't found this forum in the past. I'm wanting to expand on my hibiscus collection and I was wanting to see if you guys/gals had any info on taking/rooting hibiscus cuttings. I'm going to try rooting some cuts on the 2 tropicals I kept indoor's the last few winters. I was wondering if any of you could share your experience with me? Is it best to try rooting green new shoots or older woody growth? I'm sure there are many other variables I need info on, this is all that came to mind right away. Please chime in guys if you all can help and/or have any suggestions. I'd also like to ask some of you to share some cuttings if you have any to share. Rooted or not and I'll pay S&H plus for your time and effort. Trading/sharing/buying cuttings is how I've aquired most of my tropicals in our gardens now. Mostly all Passion flowers and Brugmansia's until now. I figure if we can do it with these plant's I mentioned, surely Hibiscus can't be too much harder and hopefully a little easier. I guess I'll soon find out, man if I only had a greehouse so I could carry out this experiment on a larger scale.
If anyone is interested or cares to play along, please read below as I've described rooting methods that have worked really well for me on other tropicals, annuals and perinials. I'm hoping to find out which is the best and fastest way to root hibiscus cuts and to see if it's worth the time and effort. Luckily I already have all the stuff needed to do what I'm planning from other plant's. Anyhow, below is a description of a plan that I posted in another thread and I figured this trial is worth it's own thread.

I kept 1 huge tropical bush and 1 large tropical tree indoors over winter, both of which are in need of a haircut so I'm going to take multiple cuttings of each and use probably 2-3 different methods of rooting them. Some of the prep work I do on every cutting is to use a very clean and very sharp blade so I get clean cuts at the very bottom of the cutting. 1 set of them will go into a bucket that contains a solution of maxicrop and superthrive with a large airstone in the bottom. Maxicrop is nothing more than a fancy/selective liquid seaweed I've been using for many years for foliar feeding and it also works wonders for bringing plants out of shock and/or rehydrating. The superthrive is nothing more than a mix of many hormones and essential vitamins that tell the plants to focus on rooting rather than producing foliage. I use the exact same mixture for soaking seeds(with a lil H2O2), bulbs or whatever.
The 2nd method will be using a gel rooting hormone and placing the cuttings in a soiless mixture under a humidity dome directly under bright flouro light strips.
The 3rd method will be identicle to the 2nd except I'll be placing the cuts into Oasis cubes rather than a soiless mix. The cubes do a slightly better job of drawing air into the root zone as the watering solution is sucked into them too. I place the cubes on top of a 1/2inch layer of vermiculite so the roots will have a medium to reach for when the roots do finally emerge from the cubes. I like the cubes for another reason too. After they root, you have a nice block of foam to handle the cuttings rather than just a stem covered with roots. That keeps the majority of the roots from being disturbed when transplanted as they're contained w/in the cubes. The cubes degrade/disolve over the seaon and don't ugly up your flowerbed's.
FYI For those that aren't familiar with Oasis cubes. You know that foam florists use for floral arrangements that is greenish and you can squish it into almost dust if you pinch it when its dry. That's more or less what oasis is and I find it much easier to use than Rockwool.
All of the cuttings will be misted only when moisture is needed and I'll mist with the same solution of maxicrop and superthrive. I love maxicrop as it contains many trace elements and not enough fertilizer values to burn anything. I think the values of Maxicrop are 0.1-0-1.0 which isn't much but it sure does wonders
Over the years I've practiced with this stuff so much. There have been days when a plant or 2 will dry out to the point of going totally limp but not dead. I spray it w/ maxicrop/water mix of 1 cap ful per gallon of water and mist the limp plants as well as water. I come back in 20-30 mins and the plant is standing back up as if nothing ever happened. Its truly amazing stuff IMO.

If anyone has any suggestions or comments, I welcome them bigtime as I'm always looking out for something new. The methods I'm using above are tried and true, some work better with certain plants. ie. Passionflowers root best in the cubes than any other way as they're very stubborn to root before dying. The cubes seem to be the fastest way too for some reason but it is only practical for small stemmed cuttings(less than 1/4 inch in dia. cuts)as the cubes are small. The bubbler's in buckets work awesome for Brugmansia's, datura's and many other plants. Since I don't know what a hibiscus preffers, I guess I'll do all 3 if room permits.

I look forward to some input from you other hibiscus fans. Thanks everyone for reading along and joining in.
JD

I read on a thread yesterday and still looking for it, that one DG member takes her cutting and just puts it in water and waits for it to root. You might take 1 cutting and try it.

That was me and it works really well. Just takes a bit of time.

When we moved here we brought all our potted hibiscus with us. When we were unloading it, a good sized likb broke off. This was in Oct. I walked over a few feet and pushed it into the ground about a foot, leaving 2 feet out. Next spring it came out and grew like it had always been there. The ground was muddy where I put it and it never dried until the following summer. We now have all Hibiscus in the ground and all are doing great.

trois

I take cuttings, put them into a damp soil cover with a plastic bag and leave them alone until I see new growth. It works for me...

Anna

Thanks for the info. It sounds like my best bet will be the same methods as I use with my Passiflora's. Using a humidity dome to keep the floiage healthy long enough for the stem to root. I'll also use a rooting gel and stem scarification as that seems to help roots from having to grow through any bark or thick "skin". I usually use Oasis foam cubes for rooting cuts in. I think this time I'll do some like that and a few in a well established(living) soil loosened up with vermiculite.
I have 3 cuttings going right now in a bucket with an airstone pumping air/bubbles into the solution. Rather than plain water, I use water mixed with a little Maxicrop and Superthrive and the airstone also keeps the solution from going stagnant. I scratched through the stems just deep enough to reach below the bark. With other plants, I almost always get roots to form in the areas where I've scraped through the bark just a little. I don't have any kind of humidity dome on this bucket but the water level is close enough to the leaves that when the bubbles break the water surface, they create a very fine mist that gives the foliage about the same amount of moisture that a humidity dome does IMO.
In the same bucket I have a few different plants for experimenting and most of them have already rooted. Coleus roots in 7 days on 75% of the cuttings and the others had small roots by no later than day 12. I have atleast 6 Brugmansia's in there too and over 1/2 of them have rooted by day 14, I'm hoping the others aren't too far behind. I put 4 Passiflora Lavender Lady cuts in there just for kicks, I've never gotten any to root using this method in the past. They all have kept there foliage and look great until turning to mush eventually. I was very suprised to see that 1 of them has rooted this time. It rooted exactly where I scraped the surface of the bark off, it looks very odd as the roots are poking out of the stem inline. ! right above the other, it looks like a fine toothed comb.
I'm hoping the hibiscus will root soon but I'm going to start a few the other way too just so I'll know which way works the best and how long it takes. This way I can expand my collection bigtime by "borrowing" small cuttings off of other hibiscus. I can't wait until my different hardy hibiscus come up so I can experiemnt with them and see which cultivars tend to like compared to others.
It never ceases to amaze me how simple some plants will root with absoloutely no effort as described above. I've had many plants root like that when I'm pruning then when I do try hard to root cuts and break out all the trays/hormones etc...Sometimes it's 50/50 at best. LOL these plant's love to keep us guessing.
Thanks for the input and I'll update this thread as I go.
JD