‘Black Dragon’ cryptomeria (Cryptomeria japonica, USDA zones 6-9) is a beautiful evergreen tree for the garden. The foliage is a dark green with some twisting shapes that create an unusually contorted figure. It’s an amazing evergreen specimen for Japanese gardens or as focal points. This past spring I took some cuttings of our cryptomeria and this winter I found that they had finally rooted. Here is how I propagated our ‘Black Dragon’ Cryptomeria.
Rooting ‘Black Dragon’ Cryptomeria from Cuttings
In spring I made several cryptomeria cuttings about 3 inches long. I want to experiment with the length of the cutting in the future and see if longer cuttings may root faster. Then I placed the cuttings in a sand medium and put all of them under the shade of a tree. The shade slowed the transpiration of water and kept the cuttings from drying out too quickly.
Loss of water is one of the primary reasons for a cutting to fail.
I watered the cryptomeria whenever I watered my other cuttings with a light spray and checked on them periodically. Throughout the summer no roots formed. Several of the cuttings failed and then in January I checked this cutting and it had roots.
Since the root that formed is rather small I carefully put the cutting back into the sand mixture to let it form more roots. I’ll check it again in spring then pot it up. I’ll leave the other remaining cuttings alone until that point and hopefully have several cryptomeria cuttings to pot up at the same time.
Cryptomeria grows to about 10 feet tall and wide at maturity and prefers a full sun location.
You can see a little more of this cutting in the video below. I’ve cued it to the section on Cryptomeria.
Are you interested in learning more about plant propagation? Here are some past posts that may be interesting to you!
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