@TheDerek , in you opinion when it is more productive to root the cutting in spring or now? I have just 5 bushes to get cuttings from and 3 of them very young, and I need to make at least 15 new bushes. I can’t really afford to loose a lot of cuttings - it will be no replacement.
In all the years that I have been rooting green cuttings, I have never once had freshly rooted cuttings bloom and develop fruit.
Recovery after the flood is very slow. It often rains, nothing really dries, and it’s supposed to rain again, so we’re waiting for sunny weather. Tonight and tomorrow we have to be on the alert again, because there should be extreme precipitation. Well, summer is quite pleasant, without extreme heat, but with high humidity.
Kinda depends how long your season is I guess. Ive probably had better luck with rooting softwood or semi hardwood cutting, but where I am, if I take cuttings to late in the year, they may not harden properly to survive winter and Ive had significant losses of rooted late season cuttings over their first winter. Hardwood cuttings require more wood from my experience to root successfully than softwood cuttings do. I have good success with just one set of leaves on softwood cuttings, so you can make a lot of cuttings from smaller plants like that. Ive been having good luck lately using 1 gallon ziplock bags with coir or peat, under 24h light inside.
In my opinion, green cuttings are more successful. I cut about 3 weeks after flowering.
I described the method above. This year is very successful and I rooted almost everything. I’ll see how it overwinters.
Now I remember that I also cut the lateral shoots, because I had few regenerating vertical branches. I didn’t do that before. It was probably these side branches that flowered.
This is also how some people root green cuttings in our country, with quite a lot of success. They do it similarly, only they put it in a container, wrap it in foil and hang it somewhere under a tree.
The advantage of these plants is that they can take root relatively quickly and gradually renew plantings for better and more effective varieties that suit me. I’ve already done it several times and I’m still gradually renewing it and not stepping on the spot. But the prerequisite is to have more bushes. Another advantage of Aurora is that it is a bit later, so secondary flowering does not occur during warmer winters. It is also more resistant to freezing of small fruits during spring frosts.
On the contrary, the Honeybee variety is very susceptible to frostbite of small fruits. Well, it’s a pollinator, so I didn’t plant many of them.
I am preparing to plant Aurora from this year’s rooted cuttings. The roots were quite strong and the plants suitable for planting.
Looking nice!
I place a supply of ash at the bottom of the hole and cover it with compost to prevent the roots from coming into contact with the ash. I then surround the plant with compost. This planting method has proven successful for me, and I no longer plant any other way.
I feel like out of all those you mentioned, this is probably the most applicable to most of the propagation attempts in general I’ve observed on this site.
Hardwood cuttings look great! Do you use rooting hormone on those?
@TheDerek what kind of percentages do you get from sticking in the spring? Do you use any hormones or just let em ride au naturel?
they will root without hormone, but I usually use hormone as it seems to cause better root systems. I have concentrated hormone that has dilution rates for softwood, semi hardwood and hardwood cuttings. I use the rate for softwood cuttings on my hardwood haskap. Honestly I dont know what percentages I get, I just stick a lot of cuttings and pull out the ones that arent growing after a couple months. Id guess I get 50%ish maybe.
that’s about what i get also. its trimmings id throw away anyway so why not get some plants out of them.
Ok, that all sounds reasonable. Thanks for the thorough response. There’s a lot of conflicting info out there on honeyberry propagation, so every little bit helps.
Now the trick will be finding some cuttings of Aurora and the Boreal series to try my hand at.
I got plenty Jay. be glad to send you some to play with.
Thanks! I’ll send you a PM.
I’ll share a few pictures of the cuttings that I took during the summer.
I built a Mike Kincaid-style box that I filled with coco coir.
I used Clonex gel on some of the cuttings.
Stockholm, Sweden, 22/6. I took cuttings, maybe a bit late. I’ll anonymize the varieties.
23/7 a cutting before I rinse off the coco coir.
Variety 1, top row without rooting hormone, bottom row with RH.
Variety 2, top row with RH, bottom row without RH.
Variety 3, with RH.
Variety 4, with RH.
I think I had better results last year but most of the cuttings that has roots will probably still survive the winter.
Hej @Anton.se ! Those look great - I also am looking forward to hearing how they do for you in Sweden!