Fall pruning and cutting vs. waiting?

9 years ago

I started planting and plunging plumeria around my pool 4 years ago. I am up to about 30, having had good luck with cuttings, and they are getting pretty humongous. But I noticed that the best flowers tend to come from the younger plants, even though my larger trees (6 ft) are in 10G pots. All pots are sunk in the garden soil, as free standing potted plummies don't do well in the Texas heat. Now that it's close to winter, I am going to have a hard time fitting everything into my 2 pop up greenhouses, especially the taller ones.

So, I was wondering if anyone has tried pruning and planting cuttings in the fall? If it works, could I get a head start on the growing season?

By the way, if there are any austinites here, I am going to have a lot of babies to give away next summer!! :-)

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the_first_kms2
9 years ago
I like to prune in late winter or early spring. That way i don't have a bunch of cuttings laying around getting dehydrated. The drawback is...storage is harder and if its a late spring then you get behind since its pretty hard to visualize how to prune plants which are "tetris'ed" into a greenhouse. This year I am marking target branches with blue painter's tape at the planned pruning location. Then in February I will start pruning.

There are a few of us in the Austin/San Marcos/San Antonio area. I am sure the others in the area will post soon.
jandey1
9 years ago
Hi Karl! Nice to see another Austinite here. Thirty plants is not too bad, LOL.

I've rooted a few cuttings over winter, but most won't root until spring. They usually need either extra bottom heat or close top light.

My NOID red cutting from Hawaii surprised me by rooting under the kitchen sink light last winter. But I guess 12 hours of light a day and 70 degrees will do the trick :)

It is possible to store your big trees bare-root if they're over 3-4 years old.

I did this one winter and the tree bounced back fine. Took a bit longer to grow back the feeder roots so it had a slow start, but then this one is slow every year even if it's in a pot.
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