On Monday while all three of my children were napping at the same time (that is a major feat!) I spent some time preparing some cuttings. Until Monday I really haven’t had many opportunities to get outside and garden. The weather has been too cold and with my youngest, who doesn’t seem to like taking naps during the day, I haven’t been able to do much!
Since the historic napping was in progress I went out to the garage to prepare some hardwood cuttings. All the cuttings were about 6-8 inches in length and all of them were treated with rooting hormone prior to sticking. There are two differences between what I did on Monday and what I usually do. First you may notice that I used a soil mixture rather than sand. Why? It was close at hand and I had more of it. It’s also lighter and contains nutrients that plants will need right after rooting. The second difference is that I placed all the cuttings into bundles and stuck them together. Bundles are an easy way to do many cuttings at one time. Each pot pictured below holds 10-15 cuttings! Two of the pots have already rooted lilacs that I divided from a mother plant and one pot holds three hardwood lilac cuttings.
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| Schip Laurel, Cherry Laurel, Butterfly Bush, Leyland cypress, Purple Leaf Sandcherry, Lilacs |
By using the bundles I can make many cuttings in small amount of space! Now I just need to wait and see how many root. It may be spring before I separate the rooted plants but for now they are safely resting in the garden shed!
The answer to yesterday’s Guess post was the Cherry Laurel! Prunus caroliniana
Wow, I'm so impressed with all the propagating you do! Even in the dead of winter! Amazing.
So nice to have some garden activity going in wintertime to keep the blahs away. I tried propagating some climbing euonymous for a friend who asked for some and was surprised to find it had rooted well and was putting on new growth. Does a gardeners heart good.