Wintertime Rooting From Trees

~ By Aletha ~

Come winter time you might think to get a rooting from a particular hardwood tree and you try but fail; well don't give up it can happen but sometimes it takes up to 6 months to root.

Here is some information that will help. When you cut a branch mark the top with a marker this is important. You want to make sure you have a Nod on the branch, so you are going to make a fresh cut near the nod and we are going to dip this into hormone (rooting compound) and after that put it into the waiting pot. Your branch can be up to 9 inches long but no longer than that.

You want to make sure you bury them half way up the stem. So now we need to put plastic or a soda bottle over them to hold in moisture; do not do this with evergreen it will fry it. You need to remove all soft tips and leftover leaves also if you are doing an evergreen branch you remove the bottom half of the needles.

Now we want to fill the pots with bark, perlite and peat do not use garden soil at all; make sure you do not let this dry out and do not make it soggy. You want a pot big enough to hold 4 cuttings of the hardwood, you might only get one out of the 4 but hey that is fine.

If you are doing evergreen you want it in bright light indoors not direct sun light and the ones that have no leaves on them do not need any light until you see growth on them. If you tug gently on them and feel a little bit of resistance it is starting to grow roots.

Once the danger of frost is no more you can take them outside to a shaded area and each day you move them a little bit into the sun it has to be slow; you do not let them dry out, they are still babies and you need to feed them some light weak house plant fertilizer.

Come fall you can move them to their new homes in the garden or move them to a bigger pot and make sure you only have 1 to a pot now. So good luck and happy rooting your hardwoods.

         

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