Cuttings

[MamIDdau]

When I moved in here, I planted my 2 honeysuckles into the front garden because I couldn't keep them in pots anymore with them getting too woody for the obelisk things I "borrowed" whilst at the other house we were renting.

ANYWAY. I now want to take some with me to the new house and have also discovered a passion flower growing in the front garden which I never noticed before.

Just wondering how to take cuttings off them to take with us?

I know you can peg them down and then separate them off or something but we haven't got time for that.

[andy]

Have a good read through gardenworld.proboards103.com/index.cgi?board=prop&action=display&thread=1159639195 further down the first page and onto the second, i gave some diagrams for passiflora cuttings...honeysuckle are just the same and i'm sure some honeysuckle can be taken as hardwood cuttings too

Hope this helps

[carolann]

Could anyone tell my how to make a standard Fuchsia tree/bush please? I have heard that you look at the plant and see if there are any branches with 3 leaves coming from the same place, I dont know if this is correct but I have rooted a cutting like that in water which is doing very well (never done it before) after that I am not sure what to do with it. Any help please.

[andy]

Carolann....creating a standard fuchsia (geranium, marguritte, osteospermum etc) is fairly easy and straightforward but it may take a year or two.

The rooted cutting needs to be grown as normal....fuchsias love it hot and humid with very rich soil. But you need to train the growing tip up a cane and you do this by removing all side shoots until the fuchsia is about 12" shorter than the intended height.

So if you want a fuchsia that's 36" tall (including the "head"), you need to grow the cutting to 24" tall. You can, of course, go taller if you want.

Then, when it's reached that height, you remove the growing tip and allow the top 3 sets of side shoots to grow....meanwhile constantly removing the lower sideshoots.

When the 3 sets of side shoots have 2 pairs of leaves on them, pinch out the growing tips again and keep doing this untill you have a decent framework to form the head.

I used to grow all the standard fuchsias for Brighton parks department and we used to take the cuttings around september time and the plants would be ready for a year and 7 months time.....although we'd always have a succession going.

Don't over water in winter....the cutting will obviously need cold protection, and feed lots in summer.

If there's anything else you need to know, please ask.

Andy

[carolann]

Thanks Andy, I have copied and pasted your reply to my inbox just in case it gets lost with all the threads. Would you recommend that I fetch the cutting into the house over winter as I have no heat in any of my GH's. When you say very rich soil could I put some well rotted manure in with the compost? It is home made peat type compost that I have. Also would you spray the plant say once a week or put it in a tray with pebbles and water to keep it humid?

[andy]

Yep...try to keep it warm throughout the winter which will hopefully prolong the growing season.

I used to use shredded well rotted manure in my fuchsia compost....they seemed to love it but only when potting them on in spring, it might be a bit too much for the slower growth in winter and scorch the roots.

Yep, spray the plant daily if you can in spring summer and use the pebble tray.....i've seen fuchsias absolutely thriving in closed up poly tunnels with no ventilation in the middle of summer....god knows what temps and humidity levels were in there !!!