SPOTLIGHT ON: HARDWOOD CUTTINGS
If you fancy new shrubs for free, the best way to raise them at this time of year is from hardwood cuttings.
A lot of deciduous shrubs are easily propagated this way, such as hydrangea, cornus, weigela, winter jasmine, ornamental elders, shrubby salix, buddleja, leycesteria, plus roses.
First prepare your ground. You need a sheltered spot that gets plenty of winter sun with good, fertile, well-drained soil. Dig over, working in a bucketful of sharp horticultural sand per square yard.
Unlike softwood cuttings, taken in summer from the soft tips of shoots, hardwood cuttings are made from stiff-ish pencilthick woody stems. Use secateurs to snip 8in-10in pieces from the tips. Snip the top few inches of softer material from the top and discard it, cutting just above a bud,
then trim the base immediately below a bud. Keep them the right way up – they won’t grow upside down. Commercial growers make a straight cut at the base and a sloping cut at the top. Dip the base into rooting hormone liquid or powder. Not every shoot will root, so
take three times as many as you need. Push cuttings into the ground, 3in-4in apart, leaving the top inch or two showing. Water them in, label and leave for a year, watering again if soil looks dry. Next summer they’ll grow leaves, but leave until that autumn or the following March, then pot the best ones individually to grow to planting-out size.