I have an empty raised bed, the one next to the strawberries with the grape vine. In the past I have put them there covered with snow but there is indeed some winter kill. This year I plan on stashing them on my sauna which will keep them out of the wind but not out of the cold. I’m looking forward to see how that turns up specially with the smaller ones.
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After about 2-3 leaves they looked very promising, but since then the growth has stopped and the leaves are starting to wilt. I think I’ve lost them. Oh well…try again next year.
My honeyberries look rough and defoliated at present, but, be optamistic, for they’ll look much better in spring. Hope your little plants make it.
For our neck of the woods I’m coming to the conclusion that hardwood cuttings in the early spring are the way to go. New Haskaps seem to do two grow spurs a year; one barely putting leaves before switching to growing some roots and then another grow spur in the late summer. The problem is that if you start them in July they barely get a chance to put a single grow spur as our growing season ends sometime in September. They end up going into dormancy without enough roots.
Take a look at these two girls: the one on the left was started in late April from hardwood cuttings, the one on the right in mid July from a cutting. On the big one, it stopped growing from late May and in early August it had the second grow spur. The 3 branches going straight up (which I pinched so it would bush up) are from that second spur. The July cutting started with those two trimmed leaves and you can see it put a tiny amount of growth before stopping.
Basically pick your poison: lower success rate with hardwood cuttings but much higher first year overwintering rate with them.
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Any updates on the cuttings you stuck in July?
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Me? Yeah, that one on the right.
If I was in the lower 48 with another month+ that one would get its 2nd grow spur of the year and be able to bulk up for the winter. Here in Alaska the trees are shedding, first frost is coming any minute now.
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I was directing that to @TheDerek , but I appreciate all updates you provide as well. Thank you for posting your findings.
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i got about 20 wowza to root and many of the haskap, they have been moved from sand to soil now. i actually just stuck a bunch of new cuttings, late but I’m hoping they root before winter. i buried a heating cable under them on one side so I’ll see if that helps, it should… timed mist is definitely easier than the humidity domes i had used previously
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i also added 320w of led to my propagation enclosure… i run it for about 4 hours in the morning before it gets direct sunlight and 6 hours late afternoon/night…
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Finally transplanted the honeyberries that I stuck in my prop bed in fall 2019 (after they went dormant). I had about a 95% success rate. Most of them were about this size:
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they grew well!
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Yes, I’m very pleased with the outcome. This year, after everything goes dormant, I’m planning to stick some in my prop bed as well as where I want them to grow. I will put something around the ones that I stick out in the field to protect them from animals. I am also planning to stick some in pots and put them in a little grow house that I have. The scion in my prop bed will be my insurance, since I know that they will grow well there, but I’m really hoping that the field grown and pots do just as well, because that will save me the step of digging them up later on down the line.
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I also transplanted. The rooting was very successful and I have a lot of plants. I’ll see how they hibernate.
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I noticed something interesting with my plants this summer. Mid summer I cut several of them back aggressively taking cuttings to root. I assumed they would break buds and recover, but several of them died. It was kind of interesting because at least one did break buds, new shoots even grew for a couple inches and then they just wilted and died. So it seems like removing too much vegetative growth mid season can cause what appears to be a delayed system failure. Some did recover and grew back rapidly, but some just DIED. These were healthy 3 year old plants, that were well established. So my recommendation when taking cuttings during the active growing season is to NOT remove most of the growth expecting they will recover… haha When I did this I cut them back from maybe 2 feet tall to 6-8 inches, I did leave some leaves on the plants but apparently not enough.
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And your cuttings didn’t root either?
the cuttings rooted well, but I wasnt happy about losing my mother plants…
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Sure, but it didn’t cause a complete loss. I’ve not had much luck rooting the cuttings, so your research continues to be of much interest.
Thanks for sharing your story.
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I have a very no fuss approach…I have a raised box on the north side of my house, it gets sun only in late afternoon, otherwise it is shaded all dayby the house, lots of ambient light though. It is made from 6" wide wood and it has a mix of mostly perlite with some of my clay/ clay loam soil mixed in. I take cuttings in the fall or spring right after harvest…and I think I have also done very early spring…usually 6 to 8 inches, i remove all the growth except the end leaf or bud or two. I have sometimes use hormone powder sometimes not…doesn’t seem to make much difference. I dont mist or anything , but I do push most of the twig into the ground…say 3/4 or so. which gives a few nodes to grow roots from. I have about a 33% success. …which is fine for me because i have no shortage of bushes to take cuttings from. It’s all outdoors , nothing to look after indoors or fuss over, I water it when it doesnt rain for a few days, it happens to be right by my outdoor hose …so when i’m filling up water for my ducks and geese i give it some water. I find it helpful to not worry too much about it drying out…I am experimenting with other cuttings indoors at the moment again in perlite…I think the key for many plants is for them to sense that water is present but not so available that they are sitting in it…then they grow roots to reach for it.
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33% of 100 cuttings is still more than I can fit at my house haha… If you put a layer of plastic around the box, maybe you could increase odds, or even sealing the exposed ends with wax or parafilm or buddy tape?
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