Many of us who have been growing brugs for a long time know some brug cultivars can seem almost impossible to root, while other cultivars will root just laying on the ground. This winter I happened upon a way to get those harder to root cultivars to co-operate.
Cultivars such as Rothkirch can be a pain to get rooted, even for those of us who have been growing brugs for many years. It has been suggested by a very experienced brug grower and breeder to just keep RK in clean, cool water until it roots. I tried that, but was seeming to not have any success, so I came up with this method.
Use a very coarse, sterile soil-less mix (peat moss, vermiculite and perlite) as a potting medium. Make sure the container that you will be starting your cutting in is not too large for the size of the cutting. Better to use a container that will dry out faster, than to have one too large and the cutting rot. If your potting mix is already very moist do not water the cutting when you pot it, if not water it once when you plant the cutting. There after keep the soil barely moist.
After you have planted your cutting use a clear plastic bag and tent the plant only, DO NOT TENT THE POT!! You can use mini-blind slats, sticks or whatever you have on hand to hold the plastic bag off the cutting, make sure that they are a couple of inches taller than the cutting. Gather the plastic around the cutting and your props near the soil line, say an inch or so above the soil line, and then tie it loosely. By not tenting the pot as you normally would with cuttings, you are able to allow the soil to "breathe" and stay drier and not too moist. When you do have to water, be very careful and water the cutting with just a couple of tablespoons of water or so, depending on the size of the container.
I then placed the cuttings on a temperature controlled heat mat, under a set of lights. Like I said, I was not having any luck with Rothkirch in plain water. But since that I used the above described method, the cutting has started to put out new leaves and is beginning to root. I also used this method a month or so on another hard to root cultivar, it rooted very well and is full of new growth, it is still tented.
Another positive that I have also discovered about having the cutting tented like this is; I do not have a problem with mites on the tented plant as I do with my un-tented plants. I guess that the pests can not handle the near 100% humidity inside the tent. This may be a chemical free way of getting rid of and/or controlling pests such as spider and/or broad mites on a small scale.
This may be worth a try to those of you who having a hard time getting some of your cuttings to root.
A Tip On How To Get Hard To Root Brugs Rooted
Thanks so much David ! I need all the help I can get when it comes to raising my baby brugs! God bless you and Debbie both and I hope 2007 is very good to both of you. Margo
This message was edited Jan 1, 2007 3:43 PM
Thanks , I added to my rooting notes
David, excellent instructions for rooting. Thanks so much for posting!
I have grown Rothkirch now for about 4 years. I diecided several months ago to no longer keep it in my brug inventorey and I gave the entire plant back to the person who had orignally given it to me.
During the course of my growing it never once did I ever experience any difficulty in propogating it. I rooted numerous cuttings of it and had a 100% succuess rate in doing so.
I dont know if its the climate that I live in or what but conditions apparentl were just right for me to root it without any problems. I rooted everything from semi-firm small cuttings all the way up to 5ft Y'd side shoots (sorry dontkow the correct terminology)
In other words my mother plant had 3 main stalks coming from the ground and I removed 2 of them when they were between 4 and 5ft tall (had already bloomed) and rooted them with no problem.
I used no special methods of propogation in rooting Rothkirch. I filled a one gallon pot with soil as was the method I used when rooting any brug,dipped the cut end into rooting hormone inset it into the soil and let it do its thing!!
I've had as many as a dozen or more cuttings of RK going at once and havent lost one yet.
dmichael
I've also heard that Rothkirch can be a pain to root - but didn't know that when I got 4 cuttings of it a couple years ago. Rooted them all in water, in the summer. No problems. If I tried it now that I know ..... it probably wouldn't take. LOL I'm very lucky with rooting in the Spring and Summer, but it all goes downhill for me in the winter. I don't get cuttings in the winter if I can help it.
Mary
*BIG grin*
Mary, please, please send me any unwanted (or needed)`cuttings you don't want. I lost a lot of my "planted in the ground" brugs this Winter due to 3 days of extremely (27 degrees) cold weather. I even lost my AxelRose with a seedpod in about her 4th month, I think, sighhhhh. I'm definitely not Brug poor, but replacing my Day Dreams, Pink Petticoats, Equador Pink, Rosamond, Everlasting, Pink Velvet, Mystic, Cypress Gardens, Goldeness Kornett, Dr Seuss, Isabella, Herrenhauser and around 5-6 others will take time. Most were 2+ yr old trees (except DD) that I always cut back to 6" and mulched heavily every Winter. I was out of town when the cold snap got them. I did get a couple log cuttings from DD but the rest were pure mush all the way into the dirt. With prayer, luck and the mulch they have now, I may get shoots off the root system, but I'm not counting on that. I'm watching EBay for favorites but moving slowly for this time of the year, except for seeds.
I'll be fine. I'm going to grow lots of seeds and pray lots of prayers for color :))
God bless everyone and Happy, Happy New Year ! Margo
I am a new addict, just this year... Didn't know what a brug was before June...I now have about 70 or so but they are all rooted cuttings and not very big yet. Besides it is not a good time of year to make cuttings now. But I may be able to help you out later on with some of the ones you named. Everlasting, Dr Seuss, Isabella
Thank you Carol, that's very generous of you and very appreciated. God bless, Margo