No roots after 4 weeks?

11 years ago

It's a mix of regals, zonals and angels;

Temperatures remain above freezing year-round over here, and it is a practice to sow seeds in the fall. (Mediterranean climate)

The book "Geraniums - The complete encyclopedia" by Faye Brawner states that rooting hormones are not necessary. I took cuttings in early spring (Around February) and success rate was good. My collection was growing steadily and I decided to take advantage of the cool weather of March. April is still colder than average this year and this might give me a week or two of mercy to try and practice my propagation skills.

The cuttings I took in March were not better than plastic plants: They looked the same! It's more than three weeks. I occasionally took the soil clump out to examine the root and find none. After waiting, I decided to scrape the soil. A few were infested with stem rot, as you might have expected. To my surprise, I find that most stems remained green and they seem to get all their humidity through the cutting area rather than setting new roots. The did not wilt, but they did not root either.

The exception was P. Sidioides. This one seems to root within a week, even when the air is hot.

Comment (1)

dowlinggram
10 years ago
Blackroot is a danger to new cutting and can be caused by not using clean everything for taking and rooting cuttings. It is also a good idea to let the cut end callus over for about 5 days. This cuts down on the amount of moisture the cutting can get. yes they were getting moisture through the stems much like cut flowers. Cold and too much moisture will cause the stems to rot.

Read my post on my amazing discovery about zonal geranium cuttings in this forum. I put my cuttings on a heat mat and never lost 1 cutting. I Started them the last week of February and right now they are bushy plants and 1 even has a flower stalk

I have been growing Geraniums from cuttings for 30 years or more and I disagree with Faye Brawner. Sure some geraniums will root easily without rooting hormone but not all. In my years of doing this I have found there is a difference in rooting between varieties and even colors. It casts more to buy 1 Geranium than it does to buy rooting hormone that will do lots of cuttings so why take a chance.

One thing of note--Always take your cutting from just below a leaf node. All roots come from the place a leaf has grown. If there is no node below the ground you won't get roots. Look carefully at any flower with side branches and you'll see that they too come from a leaf node
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