Propagation by cutting is a good choice for multiplying plants

I am in love with the weather we are currently experiencing at the end of June. Who would have thought we would be wet and in the low 80’s right before Independence Day? My plants are loving it as well. I have noticed a lot of new shoots towering over the old growth of several of my ornamental trees and shrubs. Seeing all this new growth reminded me it is time to start taking cuttings to replenish all of our stock we lost this winter.

Propagation by cuttings is a great way to grow your own plants on a budget. We started propagating plants by cuttings about 5 years ago so we could grow affordable plants for our nursery. Some plant species can be a little tricky, but most plants are easy to propagate from cuttings. If you are a plant lover like me, it is definitely worth trying. I ask my neighbors, friends, and family for cuttings all the time.

I mainly grow succulents, perennial shrubs, and a small variety of trees for our plant nursery. I take cuttings from my succulents all times of the year. Succulents are by far the easiest plant to propagate as long as you supply them with fast draining soil and the right amount of moisture. To propagate my perennial shrubs and trees, I take softwood cuttings in late spring/early summer and I take hardwood cuttings in winter/early spring. Normally I would have taken my softwood cuttings in late May through early June but since several of my plants woke up later than usual, I think now is a great time.

To prepare to propagate by softwood cuttings, I will gather my garden shears (after sterilizing with alcohol & fire) and a bucket half filled with water. I will also need containers and soil-less mediums to place my cuttings in. We have had success propagating our softwood cuttings in coarse sand (we use blasting sand from the hardware store), pearlite or vermiculite. For containers, we use whatever we come across as long as it has drainage holes. When using coarse sand, we like to use the cheap sink tubs or other storage containers from the dollar store and drill out several holes for drainage. QUICKTIP: Take an empty water jug (skip the milk jug to steer away from fungus/mold), cut it in half and cut or drill at least 5 holes in the bottom. Reserve the top half to sit on top of the cuttings for a humidity dome.

The best time to take cuttings is early in the day when shoots are fully hydrated. Softwood cuttings are a bit tricky to know where to cut. Softwood is the term used to describe the stage of growth on a deciduous woody plant that’s neither the new, green growth at the end of a shoot nor the stiff, woody growth near the base of the stem. The softwood lies between the two. The best way to know if a shoot has reached the softwood stage is to bend it. If the softwood snaps, the shoot is ready to be taken as a cutting. If the shoot is very flexible and doesn’t snap, it’s too green. If the shoot is not flexible at all, it is too old. Lateral shoots, or those that grow from a leader, make the best cuttings. I avoid weak and thin shoots, as well as overly thick ones. Once I have determined where the softwood is located, it is time to make the cut. I like to have 2 sets of leaves above my cuts. I normally cut 1-1 ½” below the second set of leaves. Generally, the cutting will be about 3-6” but this will differ since plants will not have the same distance between leaf nodes. Immediately after cutting the piece away from the plant, I will place the cutting into my bucket to keep it hydrated until my cuttings have been stuck.

To prepare my cuttings for rooting, I remove the lower set of leaves to open up wounds on the shoot. It is at these wounded sites that rooting will occur. I also wound the end of the shoot’s tip by laying the cutting on its side and shaving away a strip or two of bark. At this point, it is recommended to dip the wounded parts of the stem into a rooting hormone but if I don’t have any readily available, I am totally OK to skip it. Using a pencil or similar tool, I will stab a hole into my medium in which I placed into a container with drainage. I stick the cutting into the hole so that the bottom leaf nodes that were wounded are just under the medium and the top set of leaves sit above the medium without touching. I secure the cutting into place by pushing the medium firmly against the base of the stem. After all the cuttings are inserted into my container, I water the cuttings and the medium and let it drain. At this point, I like to create a humidity dome for my cuttings. Using trash bags or Ziplocs along with sticks, bamboo, or BBQ skewers, I will create a tent like structure. I want to place the plastic canopy over the cuttings using the supports to keep the bag from touching any part of the plant’s cuttings.

I watch my cuttings daily to make sure they look like they are happy and check that the medium is still moist. I will start examining a few of the cuttings for roots after a couple of weeks. If I feel a slight resistance when I carefully tug on them, I will carefully dig up one or two of the cuttings to check for root development. If the cutting hasn’t began rooting, I would simply place it back into the medium for a little longer. Rooting usually occurs in 4-8 weeks for most deciduous species. Once the cuttings have a well-developed root system, they will be hardened off in preparation for transplanting. I will remove the covering, but I won’t allow the cuttings to dry out (it is important to keep the rooting medium moist). After a few days I will carefully remove the cuttings from the propagation dish and transplant the rooted cuttings into individual pots using a well-drained potting mix. The young plants can be planted into the ground in a few weeks or grown in a pot until they are large enough that they will not be forgotten about.

Charla Ingram is a plant, nature, and golfing enthusiast who, along with her husband Chris, owns and operates C&C Gardens in the small town of Bessie, Oklahoma.