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
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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.