Easy Fall Propagation Techniques

As a home gardener, fall is a very special time for us. It's the best season for plant propagation, especially for those of us who don't have the luxury of intermittent mist. The technique that I describe here can be equally effective for evergreens as well as many deciduous plants.

The old rule of thumb was to start doing hardwood cuttings of evergreens after at least two hard freezes.

After those freezes, the trees are completely dormant.

However, based on my experience, it's beneficial to start doing your evergreen cuttings earlier than that.

So instead of doing "by the book" hardwood cuttings, you're actually working with semi-hardwood cuttings.

The down side to starting your cuttings early is that you'll have to water them daily unless it rains during that time. The up side is that they'll start rooting sooner, and therefore will be better rooted when you dig them out to transplant them.

Setting Up Your Area

Before you start to root your cuttings, you must first select a site. An area that's about 50% shaded will work great. Full sun will work, but it requires that you tend to the cuttings more often.

Clear all grass and other vegetation from the selected area. The size of the area is up to you. Realistically, you can fit about one cutting per square inch of bed area. You might need a little more area per cutting. It depends on how close you stick the cuttings in the sand.

Once you have an area cleared off, your next task is to build a wooden frame and lay it on the ground in the area that you cleared. Your frame is as simple as four 2x4s or four 2x6s, nailed together at each corner. It will be open on the top and open on the bottom. Just lay it on the ground in the cleared area, and fill it with a coarse grade of sand.

This sand should be clean (no mud and no weed seed), and much coarser than the sand used in a sandbox. Visit your local builders supply center and view each sand pile they have. They should have different grades, varying from very fine to very coarse. You don't want either.

You want something a little more coarse than medium grade. But then again, it's not rocket science, so don't get all worked up trying to find just the right grade. Bagged swimming pool filter sand also works and should be available at discount home centers.

The Propagation Process

Once your wooden frame is on the ground and filled with sand, you're ready to start sticking cuttings. Wet the sand the day before you start, which will make it possible for you to make a slit in the sand that won't fill right in. In this propagation box you can do all kinds of cuttings, but start with the evergreens first—Taxus, Junipers, and Arborvitae.

Make the cuttings about 4" long and remove the needles from the bottom two thirds of the cuttings. Dip them in a rooting compound and stick them in the sand about an inch or so.

Most garden centers sell rooting compounds. Just tell them that you're rooting hardwood cuttings of evergreens.

When you make the Arborvitae cuttings, you can remove large branches from an Arborvitae and just tear them apart and get hundreds of cuttings from one branch. Tearing them off leaves a small heel on the bottom of the cutting. Leave this heel on. It represents a wounded area, and the cutting will produce more roots because of this wound.

Deciduous Trees

Once the weather gets colder and you've experienced at least one good hard freeze, the deciduous plants should be dormant and will have dropped their leaves, and you can now propagate them.

This is a short list of just some of the trees and woody plants that root fine this way. Taxus, Juniper, Arborvitae, Japanese Holly, Blue Boy/Girl Holly, Boxwood, Cypress, Forsythia, Rose of Sharon, Sandcherry, Weigela, Red Twig Dogwood, Variegated Euonymus, Cotoneaster, Privet, and Viburnum.

Make cuttings about 4" long, dip them in a rooting compound and stick them in the bed of sand. Not everything will root this way, but a lot of things will, and it takes little effort to find out what will work and what won't.

Immediately after sticking the cuttings, thoroughly soak the sand to make sure there are no air pockets around the cuttings. Keep the cuttings watered once or twice daily as long as the weather is warm. Once winter sets in you can stop watering, but if you get a warm dry spell, water during that time.

Start watering again in the spring and throughout the summer. The cuttings should be rooted by late spring and you can cut back on the water, but don't let them dry out to the point that they burn up.

By fall you can transplant them to a bed and grow them on for a year or two, or you can plant them in their permanent location. This technique takes 12 months, but it's simple and easy.

Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit his website, www.freeplants.com and sign up for his gardening newsletter. Then grab a free copy of his ebook, "Easy Plant Propagation."