I think the only place it is able to grow a shoot is at a node.

I have certainly seen shoots grow up from nodes on cuttings that were under the soil level. I guess it depends on how far under the soil.

As far as what to do, for me it would depend on where most of the roots are growing. If you have a lot of roots below the top (underground) node, it's probably OK to uncover the node, thereby losing the roots that are above it, and hopefully stimulating that node to grow a shoot. But if most of the roots are above that node, I would just leave it alone and hope for the best.

Rob

Thanks for the advice Rob!

Hi athom,

I don't know if cuttings do the same as regular trees, but I literally hacked my older Celestes to pieces both last year and this and cut off quite a few very thick limbs. Both trees began, almost immediately, to pop buds out all over their wood and not just at nodes. The buds sprang out of the wood all over the place.

I think that your cutting will either pop buds out like that, or shoots will emerge from the nodes that are under the soil. If it's got roots, it's already growing and that's great! I would be ecstatic if I had cuttings with roots like that. :)
noss

Thanks for the vote of confidence Noss. I was pretty excited to see the roots. Tried using pine bark fines this time and it's working awesome. Roots on three out of three so I'm pretty excited. Hope I haven't messed around with them too much.

Noss,

Just wondering if it's possible that on an old, weathered tree, it might be that there are nodes that are very difficult or impossible to detect. Could it be that the bark has sort of grown over the node, but underneath, there's still a node there, and that's where the shoot is coming from? I have very little experience with older trees. I have seen cuttings from older wood that is so gnarly sometimes it's hard to tell where the nodes really are. And sometimes there are many many nodes in close proximity for whatever reason.