I rooted some fig cuttings. Those are short ones and I place quite a few in small pots. They almost all rooted.
What is a good time to divide and separate them? I really want to separate each one to one gallon pot by spring if possible. But I realize that dormant season is probably the best time to do this. Then I’ll have to wait for one season.
Anyone has tried and had good success? I can try to divide one pot. But not too many.
I had ~10 Hardy Chicago in the same pot rooted and just pulled them out and carefully re-potted them last year. Don’t think too hard on it, just be gentle and they will be fine.
It is more on the timing. Those small rooted cuttings have tender roots. They can break easily right now. Also new rooted cuttings do not like to get disturbed so soon.
Just like to hear some real experience. I lost two rooted cuttings when I dug them out of my garden in late summer. They never recovered from the shocks.
I waited for a couple of months until the leaves were darker green than your pictures, and a decent bit more developed.
I have killed several rooted cuttings by separating (or even reporting single cuttings) too soon. Now I let them wait a while. Until the leaves are dark green, as Ryan said, and they put on a decent amount of growth.
I would definitely leave the ones in your picture alone for a couple of months
I’ve done this before and had the good luck doing it while the cuttings were still quite young as well as just waiting until they’re dormant. I guess I do it differently than some here, but I think the more you let the tops grow, the harder it is to keep the plant going with reduced roots and transplant shock if they are badly tangled and you damage too much root to support the tops, so at a certain point it is best to let them go until dormancy. It is definitely a delicate operation and I was extra careful with the young ones I separated.
Here’s what I did. I wish I had pictures, but hopefully my description makes sense.
I had about 8 cuttings in a 3-gallon pot that was filled with ProMix. They had all started growing and maybe one had 3 leaves emerging and the rest were just a leaf or 2. I put my fingers across the soil as best as possible between the cuttings, inverted the pot and slid it off so that the soil with the cuttings was sitting on my hand that was against the soil. Then I put my other hand on the bottom of the soil, which was now on top since the whole thing was still inverted, carefully turned it all back over and lowered the soil part into a tub of water. This let a lot of the soil just drop away from the roots into the water so I could separate them easily.
A few had almost no roots (like just a 1/4 inch of a start or so) and none had huge amounts of roots yet, but they were definitely on their way to being a tangled mess if I left them. l then took the cuttings out carefully and potted them into 1-gallon containers, using promix that had a lot more perlite added to keep it light and crumbly. I basically held the cutting in the air with the base inside the pot just off the bottom with one hand and kept sprinkling the soil in until it filled, then watered lightly which washed the soil down more and then filled the pots up the rest of the way and watered them again. I kept them about a week in my basement with clear sterilite type tubs over them to keep humidity up since I knew they didn’t have a lot of roots and then took the tubs off, let them sit a few more days inside and then put the plants out in the shade. A few looked sad on warmer days but perked up by the next day and I’m pretty sure all made it. Of course this time of year I would have just kept them inside under the lights after separating.
I’ve also had some pots of groups of cuttings I’ve let go a whole season. By the end of year, some are definitely crowding and outcompeting others, but I’ve had a dozen going in a 5 gallon pot. With these “community” pots that go all season, I just slip off the pot in early spring before they wake up and cut them apart with a serated knife. The roots are way too tangled to try to separate them. And since they’re still dormant they don’t have leaves to support so they are fine going right into individual pots and rebuilding their roots as they slowly wake up.
I’ve done it twice, both times were around mid to late April I think. Which is close to the last frost for me and I could just bring them back in if it got too cold. But of course it all depends when you start them and how big they’re getting. I probably started those two pots of cuttings that I separated in February so they weren’t very far along when I separated them.
These were just extra cuttings I had from pruning that I stuck together into pots, not something rare or that I only had one or two of. So I was willing to try it and it worked.
