Well my job this week is pruning back the types of Cornus/dogwoods the delight us all winter with their stunning stem colours. Of course, one the delights from Cornus is that they tend to root petty easy from their stems just touching the ground. This trait means they are pretty easy to propagate from hard wood cuttings. Unlike most hard wood cuttings, an ideal time to to take these hardwood cuttings is just after you have pruned them, some of this waste material makes great cutting material and I have put together an easy step by step guide on how to do it
First of all choose your woody material, I prefer something that is about a year old, pencil thickness and straight. That’s not too say something thinner or thicker doesn’t work, it’s just I have found this size produces more plants
Then I make a cut at the bottom near a set of buds, a square cut us is fine but an angled one maybe better for the last stage
I like to have at least 4 sets of buds on each cutting, so I trim it down to just above the 4th bud and if the material is long enough, I sometimes can get a couple out of it
Next stage is to push the cutting into the ground, this is why an angled cut maybe easier to do. The ground doesn’t need to be too loose and can be even next to the dogwood you have just pruned down.
I push this stem down until it’s half between the 2nd and 3rd bud as per picture above, this leaves 2 buds under the soil and these buds are the areas the roots will grow from
A completed row, they don’t need to be in a row, can be done randomly around the area you require them but they are so easy to do and make such a great use of wood that would be burned or shredded. I would now leave these for a few months and when they are growing away strongly you know they have taken. Sometimes leaves break out and then die, this is the plant using up the stored water and then sadly dying afterwards. This also works with any Salix or willow with coloured stems
Good luck and I hope you get loads of free plants
I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I first saw it but it does look like a good quality compost, fine, dark in colour, a great feel when rubbing it though your fingers, a great deal of sponginess when squashing it in your hand, yes I was a little impressed.
Now I prefer to use peat in some form when sowing seeds, I have found that looks based ones can hold too much water for me , coir doesn’t hold enough so I am always look for another peat free compost for sowing seeds and my little brain is thinking it maybe the right product to replace peat with.
As I found at the show, the compost felt right for a seed mix, so I filled up a few pots and firmed it down, sowed the seeds and watered and tbh I couldn’t tell it wasn’t a peatfree compost, it behaved just as I would like it too. Not matter how it felt, the proof is in the growing so will shall see how the germination rate goes and also how the little seedlings cope until they get potted on. In the next blog in a few weeks time, I shall have a look at how well they have germinated and of course how easy they are to prick out and pot on
