 Backyard Farming in the River Valley Podcast
August 28, 2009
Cutting Propagation (3:56 minutes)
Audio/Video Script:
Dustin Blakey, County Extension Agent - Agriculture
[Title slide - River Valley Gardening, Cutting Propagation, Dustin Blakey County Extension Agent, University of Arkansas Division of
Agriculture]
[Dustin Blakey sitting in a garden] Hi, this is Dustin Blakey at the
Extension Office here in Sebastian County. We’re here at the Learning Fields
today and we’re going to do some demonstration work on propagating plants from
cuttings, so come along and we’ll show you how to do that.
[Dustin Blakey demonstrating to a group how to propagate plants.] There’s a
number of ways you can propagate plants but today we’re going to talk about
taking cuttings. This is, generally, a way you propagate named varieties of
plants.
Here I’m propagating rosemary.
The basic procedure is to take a plant, find the part of the plant that is
going to be used to propagate; you need to remove a section of the leaves; in
this case I use rooting hormone; and then I’m going to stick it into a
peat-based medium to grow it on.
All right, we’re going to do rosemary first…and the secret to rosemary—when
you do cuttings with rosemary—you have to have the right kind of wood otherwise
it won’t do anything. If it’s too woody it may never root, so you’ve got to have
one that’s in the process of going from greenish and flexible to hard. And so
this part down here is probably too hard, too mature, to work very well. Right
up here is perfect. I took these long but I’m not going to use them so long so
you’ll want to cut off some of that extra stuff.
Here’s a close up of the rosemary so you can see the kind of wood we’re
talking about propagating and how I remove the leaves. I’ve used rosemary as an
example, but you can also do flowering plants.
Here’s a miniature rose.
You want to remove the flowers of any kind of tip cutting of flowering
plants. The flowers will draw energy from the plant that could be used to
produce roots.
For doing rosemary, and several other plants, it’s a good idea to use a
rooting hormone. Rooting hormone will speed up the rooting process; however, all
plants do not require this. Some things like sedum will root on their own quite
easily. Coleus is another example of something that does not need a rooting
hormone, but you’re probably not going to hurt anything by using it even if it
doesn’t need it.
There are several kinds of rooting hormones available. Commercially they
usually use a liquid, but homeowners will find a talc. Usually that contains
something called IBA, and that works fine for homeowner uses.
Some people are familiar with rooting things by sticking them into water. And
that does work for several things but generally it’s better to root them in
something like a potting mix that has a finely ground medium like peat moss. It
gets more oxygen to the root system that’s going to be developing.
Now here’s an example of using a “6-pack” container to put cuttings in. You
could also use plug trays…there’s lots of different things you can use. You can
even use 1 big container.
[Picture showing cuttings in trays] After you stick the roots in the rooting
medium you’re going to need some kind of humidity to keep those cuttings from
drying out while they take root. [Picture showing cuttings in trays on a bench
with misters above.] I use a mist bench because our greenhouse has one, however
if you don’t have one of these at home—and you probably don’t—a good way to do
it is to put your container inside a plastic bag [Picture of a pot in a plastic
bag]. The kind you get from the grocery store or discount store work really well
for that. Just seal them up and use some sort of wire like a coat hanger to keep
the bag from laying on top of the plants.
[Picture of Dustin showing a plant with roots] Typically it takes about 2
weeks for most things to root, but some things will take much longer. [Video of
group placing cuttings into trays] Some things, no matter how hard you try, just
will not take root.
Propagation is a lot like cooking. Your best success rate is going to come
from following a recipe. In this case it’s hard to find recipes, but if you
contact your county Extension office we have resources to tell you how to
propagate just about anything.
[Dustin Blakey standing in a garden] If you have questions about propagating
plants whether from cuttings, division, or any other method, contact your county
Extension office and we can help you out with that. [Questions? Contact your
Extension Office U of A University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
dblakey@uaex.edu]
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