Raise Your Own Plants From Hardwood Cuttings

Press, Volume C, Issue 29511, 12 May 1961, Page 8

Raise Your Own Plants From Hardwood Cuttings

This is the time of year when the nurseryman is busy preparing hardwood cuttings. Of all the various ways of raising plants this is probably the most satisfactory for the home gardener. It is an easy method, and although it doesn’t work with all plants, it is reasonably reliable for quite a wide range. The following list includes most plants which do give satisfactory results raised this way: Gooseberry and currants (fruiting and ornamental), forsythia, buddleia, Lombardy poplars and other poplars, willows, roses both species and varieties, escallonia, spiraea, private, rosemary, lavender, shrubby salvia species, plane, mulberry, several species of olearia. philadelphus (or mock orange), hypericum, kerria, laburnum, aucuba, deutzia. and diervilla.

Cuttings are taken from shoots that have been produced in the current season of growth. They will vary in length according to the plant they're being taken from—some plants, such as

aucuba only make 5-6 inches of growth a year, while willows and poplars make several feet. The best cuttings are between about four and 12 inches in length. Don't be greedy and cxpeet shoots several feet long to make good plants; willows and poplars will certainly root, but they give rise to plants which are bare at the base. If you are growing them for hedging they let all the ground draught through unless they’re cut back. The wood chosen must be firm

and “ripe”—that simply means hard and woody, not soft and sappy. Cut the shoots into cuttings of the appropriate length—yoU can make several cuttings out of one shoot of vigorous plants such as lombardy poplar—and cut them cleanly with a sharp knife or secateurs. One sometimes reads exhortations to cut to base and tip of the cutting just beneath and above a bud respectively. Thk may be necessary with slightly more difficult plants, but Ute nurseryman often uses a sharp chopper for the Inb nnd rote to the smtrnori-

ate length, without reference to the position of the buds. Evergreen plants should have the leaves stripped from the portion of the cutting which is to be buried in the soil. Deciduous plants will often have dropped their leaves by the time we take the cuttings, so there is no need to strip the leaves here. Actually, they give better results if the cuttings are taken just before the leaves fall, and the leaves are allowed to fall of their own accord after planting. Where you don't wish shoots to be produced from below ground level you should remove the buds that are to be buried—just nick them off with a sharp knife. Blackcurrants are examples of plants best grown as a “stool,” though, where new shoots are produced from below and above ground, and these should have all the buds left on the whole length of the cutting.

The cuttings are best planted as soon as they are prepared. Use a spade for planting. and make a nick sufficiently deep to bury about three-quarters of the cutting. The base of the cutting should sit at the bottom of the trench, not suspended with its bottom dangling. Firm the cuttings well by treading. Vigorous plants may be planted where they are to grow, but most plants will need to remain in the cutting bed a year, so the cuttings should be spaced accordingly. Rows 12-18 inches apart, with the cuttings 3-6 inches apart in the row will be satisfactory for most plants Cuttings will root by next soring but will not be fit to move, until next winter. They should then be lifted and the shoots cut back to three or four inches of the base before planting in their final positions.

Don’t expect all plants to succeed from hardwood cuttings—there are many which won’t—but you can save yourself money and have quite a bit of fun raising your own plants when you can.