PLANTS FOR A SNIP...
TAKING AND ROOTING CUTTINGS IS AN EASY WAY TO RAISE SHRUBS FOR YOUR GARDEN – AS LONG AS YOU DO IT THE RIGHT WAY
CUTTINGS are the gardener’s friend. It’s easy to raise many popular shrubs this way, from cuttings taken in July and rooted outside under sun frames.
Take your pick from roses, ribes, hydrangea, cornus, hardy fuchsia, hebe, berberis, weigela, philadelphus, cistus, euonymus, phlomis, rosemary and box.
It’s worth trying other plants too – after all, you’ve nothing to lose – although it’s unlikely to work with conifers and expensive shrubs that are normally grafted.
Don’t help yourself
Taking cuttings is a gardening term that means rooting cuttings, not stealing them.
Don’t help yourself to cuttings from nurseries, garden centres or public gardens – not even from other people’s front gardens. It gives gardeners a bad name – and you wouldn’t like it either if passers-by ripped bits off any of your plants that were within reach.
Always ask permission. Even head gardeners at stately homes sometimes say yes to a reasonable request from a fellow plant enthusiast. Once you have permission, let the donor snip off cuttings for you, or if you do it yourself, neatly remove only one or two shoots.
If you beg cuttings from the gardens of friends, relatives or neighbours, always offer to root one for them or give them a different variety in return. That way, you’ll always be welcome back to take more cuttings another time.
Collecting cuttings
Use sharp secateurs to snip off six to eight inches from the ends of strong, healthy shoots. Softwood cuttings must be made from this year’s growth, which is soft and pliable with light-coloured skin.
Avoid cutting back into darker, woodier growth and beyond because this grew last year and, being harder, won’t root so well.
If there’s sufficient material, take several spare cuttings in case they don’t all root. Place them inside a plastic bag immediately so they don’t wilt before you have time to deal with them.
If they have to travel, dampen the inside of the bag with water to keep them humid, or wrap the cuttings in damp tissues so they don’t dry out.
Preparing cuttings
Carefully strip off the leaves from the lower two-thirds of the cutting, then re-cut the base of the stem cleanly across, just under the leaf joint, using a sharp penknife or craft knife.
Don’t tear the skin, as any shreds left dangling will rot and can cause the whole cutting to die. Nip out the soft growing tip at the very top of the shoot.
This reduces water loss and also makes the cutting branch out later, which gives you a far better plant.
Dip the base of the shoot into rooting hormone, either powder, liquid or gel. It’s not essential for easy-rooting plants, but it’s a good insurance policy because it gives faster results and reduces the risk of rotting.
Have a suitable bed ready to put your cuttings into. Work half a bucket each of sharp sand and multipurpose compost per square yard into a sunny nursery area with good, well-drained soil.
Push the cuttings into the ground, leaving only the top inch sticking out above the surface.
No leaves should be buried. Insert them in rows six inches apart, spacing them about two inches apart in the row. Then water the cuttings in and cover them up with a cloche.
Alternatively, push three cuttings in a circle an inch apart and cover with a soft drinks bottle with the bottom cut off to make a mini-cloche. If no suitable ground is available, root cuttings into large plastic pots with a minimum depth of eight inches, or a patio tub, and cover them with a large, loose, clear poly bag.
Aftercare
Check your cuttings regularly and water if needed. After three months, start ventilating by removing the ends of the cloches or the caps from the drinks bottles, or poke holes in polybags to let the cuttings acclimatise for a few weeks before removing the covers completely.
Keep watered, and shorten the strong shoots that start growing, to encourage new plants to grow bushy right from the base.
Most cuttings won’t be ready to move until the following spring or even the autumn after.
Pot them up or plant them in rows in a nursery bed to grow until they’ve reached the same size as plants you’d normally buy at a garden centre, before planting them out in the garden.