What's the timing for doing dormant cuttings??

I've heard a couple of people mention propagating from dormant cuttings, taken in fall and stuck in the ground or in a sheltered pot to overwinter. However, I'm a little unclear on the timing. Do I take cuttings now, before shrubs have gone completely dormant, and then the cuttings go dormant after they are stuck? Or do I wait for the shrub to go completely dormant and *then* take my cuttings?

Also, if you've had good luck with particular varieties for propagating by this method, I'd like to know what you propagated and when you took the cuttings.

Thanks!!

Same thing I was going to ask...

Yes, are you the one who brought this up in chat room? I figured if we started a thread we could get some advice...

Anyone? Please?

Hi Critter,

I have a book by Ken Druse called "Making More Plants". Here is some information from the book -- the first 2 passages below relate directly to your question and are straight from the book, but I thought you might be interested in his method, so I put it in my own words so DG wouldn't get in copyright trouble, and any errors would be mine. Believe me, I can't think of too many people I would type this up for besides you!

Hardwood Cuttings - especially good for Decidious Hardwood Shrubs

Use fully mature sections of stems produced during the previous growing season on deciduous woody plants.

Cut them any time after a plant's leaves have dropped, late autumn through late winter, prior to bud swelling and emergence of leaves & new stems.

Use unbranched stems about 5 nodes long.

Several pieces may be cut from a single branch or shoot; the terminal tip must be discarded.

Be sure to mark the bottom and top so you can tell which is the rooting end (toward the base of the plant) the container could tip over a week after you make your cuttings and if they're not marked you might not know which was is up, so to speak. He suggests an arrow pointing up inindelible marker.

Rooting hormone is essential, and he gives 2 formulations -- .5 percent IBA/.25 percent NAA dilution in water or .08 % IBA in powder (Rootone?). For difficult plants, make a diagonal cut on the anterior (rooting) end with a sharp knife and put rooting hormone on the cut. There are several kinds of cuts he describes, two are the mallet cut & heel cut, both of which are done on a shorter length of branch and you take a bit of the branch it came from. You can also wound the root end by stripping the bark 1/2" or cutting 1/4" vertically up into the branch (like you might do if you were using the branches as cut flowers.)

Now that you have the cuttings, and they've been lightly dipped in hormone following package directions, you have several choices. The bottom line is they need a cold period to form a callous. The willow family needs the shortest period of time, so they can be done last -- like in Feb? The refrigerator will work, but so will outside.

He seems to favor a box -- like the ones Clementines come in...do you know what I mean? It's a really cheap and small wood crate. The sturdy shoeboxes that tennis shoes come in would work, too, I think. Put an inch of sand in the box to cover the bottom and LAY the branches on the sand and then totally cover them with more sand. His pictures are beautiful, basically a dozen twigs, all the same length, tied with Martha Stewart-like brown wooly twine with a tag of what they are. More than one kind of cutting can go in the box as long as you have the name on them, and more than one bundle can go in each box. Moisten sand until it is just damp. Ideal temp for callus formation is 40°. You can use refrigerator, cold frame or dig them into the garden so the *top* of the box is 1 foot below ground. It is not essential that they don't freeze -- it might slow them down. It is pretty imperative they don't get too warm, tho, because that will induce top growth which you don't want until spring temperatures have settled down, by that I mean after last frost, or whatever is normal for that particular shrub.

Unearth the box in early spring and examine the twig bundles. They should all have formed calluses. Now you put them upright (in other words, plant them) in a nursery bed with good, free draining soil about 1/3 to 1/2 of each twig should be underground. They will root quickly. The nursery bed needs to be in a place where they can stay for a whole year -- they would be planted out the following spring.

Shade them for the first few MONTHS!

He uses Rose of Sharon, hardy hibiscus, deutzia, edible figs (but they are not hardy), Pussy Willow (all willows) If you choose willow, save the "willow water" as a root stimulator in spring for softwood or other cuttings. He gives instructions for non-hardy plants, but they are the same instrustions -- just put them in a place that is guaranteed not to go below 32.

Now that I have typed all this, I want to do some Diablo ninebark and Azaleas. Anybody got some red or pink deciduous azaleas? I can trade for bright orange or pastel peach with some yellow!

Critter, and Mitch, too, If you need clarification on what I typed, let me know,

Suzy





This message was edited Nov 13, 2006 1:16 AM

This message was edited Nov 13, 2006 1:40 AM

Suzy, you are a GEM! Thanks for the info! I'm glad to know I can take the cuttings any timein the next couple of months. :-) Dang, I think I just trimmed back the "dead" branches on my hardy hibiscus and tossed them. I think I will try his method on some cuttings and stick others into pots in a sheltered location against the house. I liked your description of his little bundles tied Martha-style.

Given the crazy cold-warm-cold winter weather we have, I don't have any place other than a refrigerator where temperatures will stay below 40', but I've been thinking maybe it's time to get a little fridge to put in the garage for these sorts of things. I wonder if they can go in the regular fridge, but I'm guessing it's like with bulbs, that they shouldn't be stored with fruits & veggies... I don't suppose he addresses that question?

I do appreciate all that typing!! As recompense, let me point you to a couple of threads I posted in this forum that also involved a lot of typing....

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/589725/ -- lots of info on the way I start from seeds

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/597232/ -- Tom DeBaggio's method for (non-dormant) cuttings

Suzy

Thanks for all the wonderful information. I have been looking for this type of info for some time, even on the chat room.

Gary

LOL! You're right -- you have done a lot of typing (did I sound whiny? I didn't mean to.)! LOL! Thanks for the links -- they both look very promising!

Gary, You're certainly welcome.

Suzy

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you were whinging! I just knew what you meant about it being a lot to type out.... But I posted those threads because I realized I was typing out part of the info here and another part over there and retyping a lot of the same responses... It was easier to try to put everything in one place so I could just post a link!

Suzy: Does this method work for azaleas? I always have a very hard time rooting them -- they rot out for me every time.

Thanks for the info and the links - all in one place! Now bookmarked :-)

Happy Mac, yes, I think you use this on azaleas, but I am not sure. The book really doesn't touch much on which plants you do which way, and there is only one reference to azaleas. It just shows a picture of a garden and says that many of the plants in it were from rooted cuttings. It goes on to say the azaleas were taken from softwood cuttings cut after the first spring growing flush has stopped. I also should say that a friend of mine came over to my house and took softwood cuttings late last June after they had toughened up a bit. I think she got 2 out of 3 to root or 3 out of 5, something like that.

I have some sort of suckers growing -- I don't know if they're suckers, but inside this huge deciduous shrub are some branches that grow straight up with no branching. Those are what I'm going to take because I know they are new this year, so must be the "current year's growth". They also ruin the shape of the shrub, so it's a no brainer to get them out of there. These are what my friend took, but there are more on the bush.

Magnolias also work. I know this because I cut some base suckers that were so straight I was thinking about making them in to a bean pole or something in my cottage garden. I saaved them off to the side of my garden and noticed they already have calloused on the end! I guess I should wait until the have roots, so maybe I should say "I feel certain Magnolias would also work."

Wish I could be of more help, but I've only done softwood roses and hydrangeas and a couple of other things I don't know the names of.

Suzy

Suzy, could you post a photo of those magnolia suckers so we can see what a "calloused" end looks like? Thanks!

Sure, Critter. Give me a day, though, will you? I lost the CD for my camera and the file that converts the pictures from the camera to the computer is corrupt on my computer (it's a Nikon Coolppix 2500 just in case anybody reading this has one and can copy the CD for me LOL!) and need to go through some mechanations to get it into a jpg for posting.

Suzy

:-) I understand... my camera cable is AWOL again...

I do mine about a month before I expect them to bud out critter.

That's good to know! I may try taking cuttings at different times and see how they do. I'm just glad I wasn't supposed to be taking cuttings before the last leaf turns!

I have found azaleas root easy with bottom heat, without bottom heat they rot. I root them with no problems but then kill them when I remove them from the bottom heat and repot. I think I over water and its cold so they die. I did hear that deciduous azaleas are very difficult to root, I have just done the evergreens.

Thanks for the information, I probably have it in a book somewhere but I like your rewriting of it in nice plain english. And I just got some cuttings on a very cool curly willow today to root. The timing was perfect!
Rebecca

Critter,
I have had good luck with Weigela, Forsythia, and Butterfly bushes...I just take a cutting that is forked and cut it with about six to eight inches below the fork.... you can take all the leaves off...since they fall off anyway...or leave them either way...then I just stick it in the ground. all the way down to the base of the fork...lol I can't tell you how many bushes I have from doing this...I hate throwing things on the trash pile. I have also done this with one of my China roses and believe it or not it worked like a charm. I think you can root the hardy hibs like you do brugs in water too...also rose of sharon will root in water, as will gardenia and magnolia. Not as complicated for me...I normally just let nature take its course and haven't been disappointed. By the way, I learned this from my Granny, maybe I just didn't now any better. My landscapers just laugh at me and can't believe I just put a stick in the ground and they grow...of course he has had to remove a couple of large shrubs that I grew this way...lol

That sounds very encouraging! I know my mom has had good luck with spring cuttings of forsythia that way... Do you do this at any time of year, including dormant cuttings in late fall?

Yes, I do it in the fall as well. I think I have better luck with them in the fall here.

Thanks! I'll give it a whirl, using both Suzy's fancy method with boxed bundles of cuttings and your direct-stick method. Who knows, maybe I'll have more rooted little cuttings next spring than I know what to do with! :-)

How important is the "Y" do you think? (the fork) I wonder what its significance is?

Where do the roots come out? At the bottom of the Y or the middle, where the 2 branches converge?

Suzy

Most likely to have a fuller shrub from the onset...I am not sure where the roots are, I never looked...LOL but I would think they are all the way up the wood that is in the ground. Here is some more info I found...

Hardwood Cuttings


A hardwood cutting is made from a plant while it is dormant or after it has completed its annual growth and the wood has had time to become hardened. Normally, hardwood cuttings are made in December, January, and February. Cuttings should be from tip growth, about 4 to 8 inches long with four to six buds per cutting. Hardwood cuttings take much longer than softwood cuttings to root, but hardwood cuttings are easier to handle and are less perishable. You can put the cuttings in an outdoor propagation box or directly outdoors in a well-drained soil. Stick cuttings deep---leaving only the top 4 inches exposed.

Plants that root easily from hardwood cuttings include althaea, crapemyrtle, forsythia, hydrangea, quince, rose, spirea, and wisteria.

Janet, thanks... that info makes this whole thing seem much more clear to me! Somehow, I never made the connection between "dormant cuttings" and "hardwood cuttings" when people were mentioning these propagation methods. I think I get it now!

Happy to have help!