Well this has blown me away. After trying all these years with different methods of rooting Passion flower cuttings, I thought I had the best and practially the only fool proof method. Using Oasis cubes and a gelled rooting hormone in trays under humidity domes was the only way I could root them and KNOW 95% of them would root. We've tried so many different methods with varying degree's of success but over the last couple weeks I tried something new just because I was rooting other plant's that way. Via using a bucket with water, Maxicrop and a few drops of Superthrive and an aquarium airstone blowing bubbles to keep things fresh, I was intending to root many Brugmansia's, coleus and a few others. I needed to prune my Passiflora Lavender Lady so I took 4 cuts off the trimmings and used a razor to scrape away the bark our outter "skin" on the area I planned the roots to emerge from. All be darned if all 4 didn't root and 2 rooted in less than 2 weeks! The scraping of the stem is called root or stem scarification somewhat like preparing a stem for air layering. Well I only scraped 1 side of all 4 cuts and they rooted along these lines looking much like a mustache comb. Several small roots 1 on top of the other and i didn't use any rooting hormones.
I'm going to take cuttings off of my other Passi's to see how well it does on other cultivars. If I remember correctly, Lavender lady has always been the easiest to root so I'll put several others in there this week and see what happens.
I also have some Tropical Hibiscus in there that look like they're going to root aswell. From now on, I'm always going to scrape a layer off the end of the stems of most every cutting I'm trying to root. It not only decreases the time it takes for them to root, but increases the overall success rate several fold.
I'll keep cutting away and I'm setting up a second bucket so I'll have room for more. I'll also try to get some pictures up ASAP, my digital camera is down right now. I just had to share this with you all as it's just to easy. All I've done is add a little water every few days to keep the level up and leave them alone.
I'll let you know how the others go.
JD
Rooting Passiflora again... w/ a BUBBLER!?!
This is great news and very interesting. I have never been able to root passiflora and I have tried many times. What type of cuttings are you taking . . . the new green ones or the larger ones? Also how many leaf groups (nodes) are included in your cutting. I can't wait to see pictures because when I think of a bucket, I think big. Also are the hibiscus soft green cuttings are hardwood cuttings. Can't wait to hear all the details.
All cuttings are around six inches long and all green tip growth and 2 of the passiflora's were the 6 inches below the 1st two cut tips. Every plant in there is a branch tip except those 2 Passiflora's. The passies have about 3 nodes cut clean and 3-4 nodes with leaves left on them. Brugs have 2-3 clipped nodes and 1-2 nodes of foliage. I'm using a 2 gallon paint pot right now for my bucket. I have a small piece of plastic covered folded in th bottom and 1 folded over the top so all the cuts have a support system w/o being tyed up. The only reason I used the small bucket is I was too lazy to empty the full 5 gallons and clean out the empty ones. I'm setting up 2 5 gallon buckets up now. My theory to why the bucket is working this time is the water level is no more than 1-3 inches away from the bottom foliage and I scraped through the outter layer to the "meristem"( I'm not sure about terminology). The plants being so close to the bubbles keep the foliage almost as moist a a humidity dome and I spray them atleat twice a day with the same solution they're soaking in.
Pleae let me know if I left out any details. I know these cuts are tiny compared to what most people take. The biggest diameter stems in there are pencil sized coleus. the passie's and hibiscus are about twice the diameter of a tooth pick. I learned to take cutings short so they'd all fit under the humidity dome that come with some black seed trays. These are around 7-8 inch tall domes so the cuts had to be short. Oddly enough, the 2 passies that rooted first were the 2 that didn't include the newest growth tip/ the new leaves are on this little tip.
In the past, the 1st to root have always been the ones that were the very tip of the stems but that was when I had them in trays and using Oasis cubes/rooting gel. I'm thinking the lower cuts maybe better as they don't have the new growth to focus on as well as roots to form. In the next bucket, I'll test that theory too and see whats up.
Please let me know if I didn't explain myself well. I'm tired and raely proof read.
Thanks, JD
Well I got the camera out. the 1st picture is trying to show the roots growing inline only where the stem is scraped. I scraped the stem in 3 places, 2 side by side where the roots are and 1 on the lowest node. In the past, I always had roots on the lower or lowest nodes so this kinda throws me for a loop. The other plant in there is Brug. Charles Grimaldi and I was trying to show how green shoots of new growth tips root aswell or better than older woody stumps.
OH BTW. I took 4 cuts total. 2 cuts were from the very end of the vine with new growth on the end and the other 2 were the stem directly below the 1st two. Since my last post, the 2 with the new growth tips have wilted away almost completely even though they began to root slightly. Both of the lowers rooted fast and never went wilty or lost a single leaf. The discoloration on the leaves is due to foliar spraying with Maxicrop and it's a very dark liquid seaweed. Here is that shot of the same cuts.
In the next few days I'll be taking many more new cuttings to try and back up my opinions/theories. If you'd like, I also have a bunch of coleus and a few other species in there that are much shorter cuts and all rooted really well. Oddly enough, the brugs, coleus and others are all new growth tips/shoots!LOL I'm thinking the reason the Passie's behaved like this is due to them being vines perhaps? I'll fill up anothr bucket with many other cultivars of Passiflora to see what happens. If I recall correctly, these P. Lavender Ladies are probably the easiest to root of the bunch.
Don't touch that remote! LOL theres more coming!
Everyone, please chime in and share your take on these results.
Please excuse my lack of spelling and grammar, I'm tired and too lazy to edit;)
JD
I have some Passiflora seeds, what is the best way to germinate them?
Any info would help, cause I haven't a clue! Bj
BJ, soak them in OJ for a while and then plant them. Some grow and some don't. Just don't expect bloom the first summer. It doesn't usually happen.
Had to come back and say that I sterilize the soil, and once planted, I put the whole pot in a clear plastic bag until germination starts. Keeps the fungus gnats out. Besides, you don't have to water again as long as it is sealed tight.
This message was edited Mar 25, 2005 3:14 PM
OJ =like orange juice??? hummm, that's interesting.
I would think that they wouldn't bloom for several years. I'm sure I will have to put it in a large pot because I think it is too cold here for them to be out all year.
I have made it a common practice to srerlize any thing I start seeds in & do the plastic bag thing also. Those darn fungus gnats can come out of thin air, I think! Thank-x. Bj
How exciting for you!! I hope it works as well as it did on the passi's with everything you try.
I am especially interested in how the tropical hibiscus do, as well as the other passi's!
I will be watching and trying to figure out this bubbler thing! I saw it in the brug forum and just couldn't quite get it figured out enough to go buy what I needed to do it. But maybe this time if I look at if I will be smarter!!!haha
aknapp You need 4 items for a bubbler.
1 aquarium air pump
1 piece of aquarium air tubing/hose atleat 3ft. long
1 aquarium airstone
1 bucket of most any size. Bigger plants=bigger buckets. I'm taking small cuttings so I'm using paint pot a tad smaller than 2 gallons.
The directions on the box your airpump goes in should show you how to hook it up to airstine.
Take the hose and connect 1 end to the outlet on the air pump, connect the other end of the hose and connect it to the airstone. Plug in the pump and drop the airstone into a bucket of water. WALLA! You have a bucket with bubbles coming from the airstone. Depending on the airstone, you may need to attach something heavy to the airstone to keep it at the bottom of the bucket. you can use a rock, fishing wieght or anything heavy and attach it with string, rubberband or twisty tye.
You can buy everything for this at any pet store or at Walmart. I think the bigger the airpump, the bigger the airstone you can use which gives you more bubbles/oxygen. I use a bigger dual outlet air pump and a long airstone.
It's too easy and you can't go wrong I promise. It's cake.