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steiconi

azaleas from cuttings

steiconi
9 years ago

a friend gave me an armload of azalea cuttings, and they've been sitting in water for a few weeks.

Can I just stick the cuttings in a pot of soil like vireyas (it's very acidic here), or do azaleas need some kind of special juju?

thanks!

Comments (4)

  • drmbear Cherry
    9 years ago

    I stuck a lot of the cuttings I made into a very wet mix of peat and sand in a one gallon pot. Then I took the whole pot and put it in one of those 2 gallon ziploc bags and zipped it up. I left the pots in a place that gets plenty of light, but NO direct sun. My instructions say to leave them like that for at least six weeks. I just opened them up, and the cuttings are rooted. It says that they each can now be planted in individual pots, where they are kept for at least a year, protected from freezing weather. After that, planted in the yard. I figure I will keep them from freezing over the winter, then plant them in the yard next spring after frost even though not a year. That way, by the time they are a year old, they will have had some time growing in the yard before facing next year's winter.

  • steiconi
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    What's this "freezing" and "winter" stuff you're talking about?
    :-)

    Thanks for the directions; sounds like I can treat them just like the vireya and they'll do fine.

  • akamainegrower
    9 years ago

    To increase the chances of rooting it would be a good idea to cut off the parts of the stems that have been in water for six weeks, Then wound the lower part of what's left and apply a rooting hormone. Best rooting medium is probably half screened peat moss and half coarse perlite. Stick the cuttings and use poly plastic "tent" to maintain high humidity.

    Many evergreen azaleas - which I assume these are - root very easily. Others are more difficult.

  • drmbear Cherry
    9 years ago

    The freezing and winter stuff I was talking about is something in the directions I have for dealing with the cuttings and new very small plants. They say that after you get the new plants rooted, they need some time to get roots established before they are exposed to severe freezing. Look at the schedule of things - cuttings are normally taken after flowering is done, and after some healthy shoots are growing, so maybe mid summer. Then the cuttings are sealed in a plastic bag in the peat/sand mix for at least six weeks. So around the time they are rooted, they are still tiny with just new roots, and I put them into individual pots, maybe around the beginning of September - right now actually. For me, here in zone 7, we have maybe just another six to eight weeks before we have freezing. If I put these in the ground, the likelihood of them surviving is about zero. The suggestion is to keep them someplace where they are prevented from complete freezing, maybe in the garage or protected greenhouse or coldframe (when I was a kid my mom always kept them over winter in a coldframe). I'm thinking that when I move them back out next spring, I can start putting them in the ground, even though small, but I may hold some back in pots, more protected, in case the ones in the ground don't make it.