The post Bottom Heat? appeared first on Hormex.

When I visited a home in Holland with a quarter mile of perfect myrtle hedge, I had to ask how often the avid gardeners pruned it. The answer didn’t surprise me – it takes a full day every other week for six months a year to keep it all in sync. I am not a constant pruner but something needs a clip most every month in my Zone 8 garden. I cannot help the sense of waste if I burn or compost healthy plant material and must try at least a couple of cuttings. Since not all of these pruning jags goes by the calendar, my habit leads to rule breaking as I try to root “wrong” woods at the “wrong” time.  I have stuck cuttings indoors and outdoors, in garden soil and in rooting media, with powder and liquid rooting hormones of different strengths. Nothing has made as much difference in my efforts as bottom heat.

I first encountered a heating cable when my job was to monitor its temperature. It was a snake winding its way through rooting media in a huge wooden box under a greenhouse bench where I worked. With a soil thermometer and a clipboard, I recorded daily and it never missed despite being 10 years old. I don’t know, but there’s probably an app for that now. I liked the idea of the heating cable and it worked well, but didn’t enjoy cleaning it when refilling the rooting box. Soon enough I found heating mats and have used them ever since. When shopping for either kind of soil warmer, look at its measurements. Cables will be calculated in square inches with layout diagrams in most packages while mats come in several standard sizes. I like to fill pots or flats with damp rooting media and put them on the mat for 24 hours before sticking the cuttings. It probably doesn’t matter but I keep my plant room air temperature cool and want to avoid soil conditions that might be cool and thus promote fungus development.

No matter what time of year it is, I find wood in these prunings that is bendable and some that is hard and I try both. I have stuck cuttings of fringe flower from every kind of wood except very soft new growth and, not surprisingly, this vigorous shrub roots anytime. I take tip cuttings 6 inches long, roll the base in Hormex #3, and stick one cutting in a 3 inch pot so 2 inches of stem is below the soil. Camellia sasanquas can be problematic since they bloom in autumn and pruning more than a month later can cut off next year’s buds. The rules also say that a flowering branch will not root but I have clipped off six inches of stem, removed only the tip and old flower and had success. I was pressed into this way the year I pruned sasanquas for a client with 3 varieties that I wanted to clone. Bottom heat and Hormex #3 made it happen in a flat filled with ground bark and sand.

I worked at an office that was expanding that summer and had two problems. There were 10 huge yaupon hollies that would badly overpower the new entrance but removing them was not an option. At the same time, the new parking lot would need a windbreak soon. I cut back the yaupons by half their size even though it was midsummer. That meant a loss of berries and very mature wood in the cuttings. Undaunted and no doubt full of myself, I decided to root foot long cuttings. Thankfully for my reputation, the combination of bottom heat, Hormex, and several applications of dilute soluble 20-20-20 fertilizer resulted in a 50 per cent success rate.

Of course a mist system would increase my successes considerably but my little rig broke and I’m rethinking its design and location. Hmmm…send me your suggestions!

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The post Propagating Succulents appeared first on Hormex.

Grow What Pleases You

I think about being more sophisticated in my succulent choices, even of branching out to grow a few other Haworthia relatives in the Gasteria group. But ordinary jade plant (Crassula ovata) and kalanchoe (K.blossfeldiana) are always with me as is this common Haworthia. Pearl plant (H. margaritifera) has had my heart all these years and always will. Pearl gets her name from the raised white dots that decorate the backside of each leaf. What starts as a dotted pointed leaf in the center of the plant soon opens to reveal the solid green topside. To my odd eye, that makes her look like a girl in a green dress with a dotted swiss petticoat underneath. You will certainly see that the leaves are thick, less chunky than most of the family, and extend to a sharp point at the tip. Because the rosette expands up as the plant puts on more leaves, pearl plant bursts with optimistic charm. Each pointy leaf holds its place in the petite symmetry and reminds me that each victory should be celebrated, even the smallest ones.

Horticulture Heaven

The original pearl plant of my youth lived in the padlocked succulent house next to the floriculture greenhouses at my alma mater, LSU. If you were very good, you got to go into this inner sanctum of glorious, truly exotic life. The small, glass pane Lord and Burnham greenhouse with a peaked roof had a gravel floor, concrete path, and raised benches like the other houses. These benches were solid and sided, however, with sheet metal bottoms to hold a bed of pea gravel. Also unlike the growing houses where uniform size pots stand at perfect spacing, the succulent pots were a wildly varied lot. I learned that most were chosen to crowd the roots slightly with enough room at the surface to encourage reproduction. The succulent house was home to representatives of every succulent family and its object was propagation. There I met rosary vine, burro’s tail, starfish flower, and dozens more, but the first one I ever got to touch was pearl plant. I watched as the green nubs grew, noting their progress with glee when they got large enough to divide and multiply.

Propagating Succulent Sideshoots

Last weekend I thought about that day as I divided yet another pearl plant, this one left too long as a crowded mother. It was really simple to slip the rootball out of the pot as this one was a pair of plants and 10 babies in a four inch pot. Left much longer, it would have broken the pot and to tell the truth, that is often a good way to know when succulents need repotting. That is the first step – to slip the rootball out of the pot – when you want to remove pups. It is tempting to pull or cut them off the mother plant right there in the pot, but less successful for most people, including me. Each pearl plant puppy is its own entity with strong ties to its mother. I’d like to think that describes my children! Most of the time you can separate the baby pearls with your fingers by gently working each one away with a few roots after you unpot it. If you must use a knife, make one clean slice through the separating tissue, usually roots knotted together from overcrowding. Sometimes there are no roots at all even on a pup an inch tall but any roots that are present need encouragement to prevent dehydration after division. Pearl plant and similar succulents present a good opportunity to use Hormex Liquid Concentrate. Soak the roots and base of the plant for 3 minutes in undiluted HLC and plant in a very well drained potting mix. Grow them forever in a warm sunny windowsill.

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I should have also said that I will be using small plastic bags to store the cuttings in the cooler.

Like you, I have gotten unrooted mum cuttings that have been dipped and shipped to me but it is likely they were cut no more than 10 days before they arrive. The issue is not how long the hormone will stay effective, but what condition the plant material will be in after a month in storage. To accomplish your goal, I would consider two options.

1)      Cut and dip the mum stems and put slightly damp perlite (only perlite, no potting soil) into the plastic bag. The perlite will help to maintain the condition of the cuttings and if they try to root, they can.

2)      Take cuttings slightly longer than you want to root, pack and transport them. When you take them out of storage, make a new cut and apply Hormex right before you stick the cuttings.

Whichever way you do this project, you might also consider Hormex Liquid Concentrate as a dip or re-dip right before you stick the cuttings.

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All this often comes to an end along with garlands, wreaths, and trees and poinsettias get tossed into the trash. Too bad, since even a few leaves left on the stems have potential to regrow and in the process, provide cloning material. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that many, but not all, poinsettias have plant patents clearly stated on their labels. Those that are not can be cloned at will, while the protected varieties must not be propagated for any commercial reason. That means that if you decide to grow poinsettias to decorate the church next year, choose a non-patented variety.

Once you have chosen the color that you want to keep growing, find the right place to put the new mother plant for the long term. In warm winter climates, that may be the sunny porch outdoors. Elsewhere, a heated greenhouse is ideal and next best is a warm sunroom, but I grew a poinsettia for several years in a group under artificial lights. Stuck with a room that had no windows, I lined the walls with light fixtures and plants and frankly, never grew a better bunch of assorted species.

Whether you start with a sad plant or one still in its glory, the first step to propagating poinsettia is to cut the mother plant back. The stems that have already made bracts and tiny yellow blooms have less potential than new growth. Clip off at least 3 inches of stem below the bracts, preferably half of its total length. (I know it’s hard – if the plant looks nice, wait a few weeks to do this and then proceed.) Repotting is not usually needed, but a regular program of water and fertilizer is important. Once the new stems are six inches tall, take four inch cuttings and immediately drop them into a cool place such as the produce drawer of a refrigerator for a day. The chill stops latex flow, stiffens the stems, and improves their condition for rooting. You can clone poinsettias in any clean rooting media, but they are particularly successful in rooting cubes made of oasis (like the floral foam). It’s long been a ‘secret’ that tomato seeds start readily on oasis. To use the classic product, it is necessary to soak it in fertilizer and water, then cut the block into cubes. Thanks to the hydroponic world, better cubes than you can make are readily available. They are denser, more efficient water managers, and already full of nutrients. Roll each stem in Hormex # 3 or dip in Hormex Liquid Concentrate for 1 minute and then slip it into the rooting media or cube.

Professional growers root poinsettias under mist for the first 2 weeks. During that time it is important to keep the leaves hydrated since the stems are busy forming callous and have no roots yet. An alternative is a plastic or glass cover over cuttings but its management is slightly different from most cloning cloches. Instead of opening it daily to ventilate, leave these cuttings enclosed until moisture builds up to obscure your view of them. Air exchange is important but you are advised to keep it to a minimum in this first period. After that, ventilate as needed to keep conditions moderately humid inside the chamber. In about 8 weeks, the poinsettias should be well-rooted and ready to pot up. Another advantage to using cubes is the ability to see roots creeping out the sides and that’s a gift worth giving to yourself!

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Here’s my answer and then some additional comments.

A: Hormex #8 rooting powder is recommended for grape vine cuttings to assist in callus formation and subsequent rooting. When you move them up to the tube pot, I would suggest adding Hormex Liquid Concentrate to the water monthly during rooting. Mixed at 1t/gallon of water, HLC has done a good job for me in similar situations.

I visited your website, www.volkvines.com, and am very pleased to make your acquaintance. Congratulations on your most recent awards! Since you are more than experienced in the field, I want to tell you about my grape vine. My radio audience includes amazing gardeners like Joe Mobley. At 90 years old, he takes as his mission to pass along what he knows and grows. He picks bushels of bunch grapes in east central Mississippi, heat and humidity be damned, because he grows from the same vines that his grandmother did in the 19^th century.  There are many who attempt bunch grapes here, but very few who succeed. Lately he has been propagating by layers to spread the grape vines around to his family and brought one to me even though I live in a warmer zone where muscadines thrive. The Mississippi Blue grape as he calls it has made it through 2 stressful summers and I have great hopes for its future.  Having lived in California, I know the chances for bunch grapes here in the South are always slim, but I am determined to try, for Joe’s legacy.

It is wonderful to hear from you, and please let me know if we can be of further assistance.

The post Inducing Callusing on Dormant Vitis Vinifera Grape Vine Cuttings appeared first on Hormex.

• Hormex Home Garden Packs are available at the website in 2 different sets of 3 concentrations. Give one or both to suit every rooting desire.
• Grow Lights in fixtures with plant racks use just a little electricity to deliver the full spectrum to rooting beds, seed starting, and indoor gardens.
• Single-bladed Knives useful in propagation are sold as Budding and Grafting knives. The best are larger overall than the average pocket knife with a similar design except for a blunted blade and bark lifter.

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