Cuttings Cuttings Cuttings!

Back in August 22, I took some trident maple hard wood cuttings. I reduced the leaves to a degree, but I didn't fuss over it too much. I took a cavalier approach and didn't want to invest too much time in this experiment. Figured heck, if they make it they make it. If not, then I'm not out much time and resources.

So what I did was I cut back that year's growth and put the cuttings straight into some soil. Nothing fancy, no rooting hormone. Just snip, strip leaves, and plunge them into the dirt and I'm done. I actually planted a bunch in this manner into two one-gallon pots I had laying around.
As expected, there was some die back. All of it from softwood. But the hardwood seemed to do okay. Most of the leaves from the hardwood cuttings made it until fall. So now I have a bunch of little sticks stuck in a couple of pots. I don't know if they're still alive, but I'm assuming so. I'm assuming they had some root growth or at least have their energy stored and will burst forth with roots come spring. Inspired by my apparent success, I then went forward and did a bit of winter branch pruning. With all the leaves gone, I could do some needed branch pruning. This left me with a good amount of material.

So now I have a few hardwood cuttings of the following:
Crabapple
trident maple
Zelkova.

I made sure I kept each type of cutting separate. I went for about 4-6 inch cuttings with a few nodes. I neatly tied up each bundle, tossed them in some cold water to soak, then wrapped them in newspaper, then plastic bags. I then placed all my bundles into the coldest part of the fridge to await spring.
It's still not spring. However, my crabapples have begun to bud out. Not the bundles, but the crabapple trees that have been outside on the bench all winter. I looked at some of my trident maple seedlings and they too have begun to leaf out a little. Just barely starting to wake up. So I dug out my hardwood cuttings that I've stratified in my fridge and I planted them. This time I'm using rooting hormone.

For now, I'm going to leave the zelkova cuttings in the fridge. My zelkova bonsai is still dormant, so it's probably too early in the season for it.





I should also mention that I did some pretty drastic pruning on my crab apples. I cut them back hard. After Aaron and I put up the shade cloth as a deer deterrent, they put on quite a bit of growth. I want to keep them short and stumpy, so perfect opportunity for hardwood cutting material!

We're in the process of looking for a place to rent, so I'm not going to plant seeds this year. I think I'll focus on growing out the seedlings I already have and use cuttings for propagation.

All for now.