Garden Shed Plant Propagation Update

This year was the first year I’ve been able to house my cuttings in the garden shed. It’s been great so far. There’s no heat but the plants have been protected from the coldest of the winter lows. Essentially I’ve moved them 1-2 heat zones south without having to leave my yard. 

Here’s a look at the garden shed plants:

Several hydrangeas are sending up new foliage. Hydrangeas are so easy to root – a great beginning propagator plant.

The Japanese maples that were grown from seed overwintered very well. I’ll keep them inside the shed until I’m sure they can safely survive outside. I’m concerned about late winter and spring frosts.

This lilac cutting was either an offshoot of another plant or a cutting. I can’t remember which I took the picture of but either way they are all doing fine right now. Lilac suckers can be removed from the mother plant to make more lilacs. These came from my parent’s garden.

My red twig dogwood cuttings are putting on new growth. That doesn’t always mean they have roots but since red twig dogwoods are so easy to root these cuttings are most likely well rooted. If I remember right (I really should use labels of some kind!) these are the variegated Tartarian red twig dogwood (Cornus alba).

At first glance you might not see much in my roses but despite the dead foliage the buds are swelling. If things worked out right I just rooted some roses!  To root these roses I cut a 5 node stem and added rooting hormone to the base then placed them in a homemade potting soil. I watered them when needed over the winter – which wasn’t often. In a couple weeks I’ll separate the rose cuttings and see how much rooting I really managed. I have no clue what plant they came from (or at least the variety) but the cuttings came from my in-law’s garden.

My salvias are looking good. I need to cut off the brown foliage but other than that they’re coming along nicely.

A viburnum – this one is a Shasta viburnum. If you don’t have a viburnum in your garden – get at least one!

Another viburnum – Shasta also!

I’m proud to say that my Yoshino Cherry cutting is doing great! Sorry for the fuzzy picture. The shed was getting dark and the flash washes everything out.

Of course not everything made it. This ‘Otto Luyken’ laurel cutting rooted but must have succumbed to one of the cold dips we had over the winter. It was a late season experiment to see how late I could take a cutting, root it, and get it to overwinter. I guess I learned something!