You don't say what plants you are starting from cuttings, but hopefully they are evergreen. Cuttings usually start roots better(sooner)if the soil is warmer than the air temperature. For this reason most of us use a bottom heater. Covering is beneficial if it maintains the humidity and admits the light, not sunlight. No one WASTES time propagating plants, every season brings a new learning opportunity. Al

Hi Al, and thank you for the info and comment. I have been propogating small shrubs from cuttings for a few years, but not tried evergreens yet. The cuttings I recently took are from shrubs (and some shasta daisy and obedient perennials.. though I expect they're more the long shot). I currently have summersweet, azalea and sm leaf rhod, inkberry, holly (oops, they're evergreen!), forsythia (failing quickly), weigela, and blue mist spirea (hope I rem that right.. caryopteris?).. I'm near Philadelphia, PA, just into Zone 6, and would like to do whatever I can to still get these to root. I've read about bottom heat but don't currently have mats.. do I do that indoors (eg, in my garage where there're outlets?)?

Thank you again, for any advice/input... we're getting closer and closer to our first frost here.

Deb.