Are you keeping them moist and in the shade, Angie?

I've had success putting my 4" potted cuttings in an old aquarium (out of direct sunlight) and covering the top with cling-wrap. That keeps the humidity high. It has worked with every thing I've tried - so far. Keep in mind though - this is my first year to try this. Smaller cuttings seem to do better than large ones. I use the rooting hormone, too. I started smoke tree, gardenia, lantana.

I used regular baggies for some montezuma cypress cuttings last year and it worked quite well. The bald cypress didn't do as well though.

I think indirect light and humidity for the new cuttings may be the key.

J.D.

I tried a butterfly bush, a hardy hibiscus and obediants. The BB & obeds didn't wilt fast - but eventually. The HH wilted in 2 days. They were all moist and out of any direct sun. I have them on my patio (which faces south).
I didn't cover them...but I will retry it and cover this time.
Angie

Scuba-gal,

The definitive book on propagating plants is Jill Nokes' How to Grow Native Plants of Texas and the Southwest (ISBN 0-292-75573-2). It covers propagation methods, seed gathering, germination or success rates, and gives nice descriptions of the plants, too! If you want to make more plants, get the book--you will love it!

Angie, Here is a link to a thread on the Plant Propagation forum. It was posted by our own little_dani9 (Janie), and is excellent. It is a long thread, but the info you need is in her original post.
Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Easy Propagation Chamber

I have used the info from this site obtained from the propagation forum. The most helpful was this post about creating your own propagation chamber. I have used this a lot, and it works great for me. I use a bigger tub for my cuttings as the shoe box size never seemed to be big enough for my cuttings. One thing to keep in mind is that things root at different rates (some two weeks, some months).

I also have a book called Secrets of Plant Propagation Starting Your Own Flowers, Vegetables, Fruits, Berries, Shrubs, Trees and Houseplants by Lewis Hill. I really liked this one and it has been voted one of the best 75 books by the American Horticultural Society. It has pictures, list of how to propagate each kind of plant, propagation methods, equipment needs, how to start seeds and more... I got mine at Barnes and Noble, but I think it was the only copy - you might just need to ask them to order these books for you. I still think it is funny that they had ONE book on Plant Propagation, but had ELEVEN books on how to grow POT! LOL... The lady at the counter didn't think that was too funny, but I sure did!

LOL FG...that is funny!
Thanks everyone...i'm off to read all about it!
~Angie~

Well, REALLY!!!! Pot grows like a weed (not that I have ever grown the stuff myself)! Who needs ELEVEN books on how to grow it!?! Grow it, dry it, smoke it, get on with it!

They had **ONE** book on Plant Propagation and **ONE** book on Daylilies... COME ON! I guess we just have a whole lotta Potheads around here...

There are a couple of other books that are great for growing your knowledge of plant propagation.

One is called "Making More Plants" by Ken Druse, and is just excellent. Very easy to read and understand and very well illustrated.

The other is "The American Horticulture Society Book of Plant Propagation". All the good stuff about the former book goes for this one too.

Then there is the Dirr book, but I can't afford that one. I am saving my pennies tho, one of these days..............

Good Luck!

Janie

You could probably just check out the Jill Nokes book from your local library. I know they have it at the Allen Library. It is a lot cheaper than buying that book. It is an expensive book. I suppose you could check your library for any of these books or just look for one on plant propagation. Also check out the Plant Propagation forum here on Garden Web.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Propagation Forum

One super easy way to propagate things:
Get peat moss and sand. Mix them together, using half peat moss half sand. Wet the mixture down. Grab handfuls of the mixture and squeeze the excess moisture out. Put the handfuls into a gallon storage bag. Make 1 big clump of it in the bottom of the storage bag. Take your cuttings, nick the sides of the cuttings, add the rooting hormone, and stick them in the peat moss/ sand. Seal the bag. Put the bag in a shady spot. Leave it alone. You will eventually see roots in the bottom of the bag. Once the roots look pretty big, start opening the bag one inch at a time, using a stick or something to prop the bag open. When the bag is all the way open you can take the rooted cuttings out and put them each in their own pot. Keep these pots in the shade and well watered for a little while until you know that they have adjusted to being outside of the bag.
Bingo - you're a rooting pro.
The trickiest part for some people is leaving the bag closed until the roots are there. Some people just have to mess with the cuttings. But once the bag is sealed the cuttings will not need any water or anything and you can literally just leave the bag in the shade for a couple of months and never think about it then one day you'll go over and look at the bottom of the bag and see roots!
One good hint- most things root easiest around this time of the year. Winter is just about the worst time.

Believe me, the baggie method works. I have been using a misting system for 2 years but I swear that I had more success back when I was using baggies.

This helped me quite a bit. Thanks everyone for the info. I had an easy plant and got lucky, I guess that it took off right off the bat in Mel's mix. I think I'll try the baggie method as that worked great for germinating my own seeds, so why not? :-)

Can anyone say what an average time-frame would be for plants to root from a cutting? I know that they vary greatly, but am I looking at months usually or is it more like weeks? I just have no idea what to expect.

~Angela

Roses - from 3 weeks to 3 months. Same with camellias, though I swear I've got cuttings that still LOOK alive from a year ago. Hibiscus should be fairly quick, like 3 - 4 weeks to show roots. Some shrubs/trees are super slow. I've had things take over a year, like mahonias and some boxwoods.

Thanks cweathersby,,,, very helpful. I'll try that next time.

I was a bit surprised. I got a cutting to grow from my lemon tree. I don't know if that's hard to do or not. But I'm happy. I can always use more lemons.

I think the mites killed my crop this year. But that's another question for another post....

One thing I forgot to say about the baggie system -
When you're opening the baggies an inch at a time, I meant to say 1 inch per week. The cuttings have to GRADUALLY get used to less humidity. Too fast and they'll die. There's no such thing as too slow, except that if you root multiple cuttings in one bag you don't want all of the roots to get so entertangled that you have to do lots of damage getting them apart.

Awesome information, Cweathersby. I'm so glad you saw my follow up and came back to update the thread. I think your advice will help lots of us newbies. ;-)

I'm a little surprised at how long it takes, but I'm glad to know what to expect. I might have tossed some plantlings thinking that they weren't 'taking'.

~Angela

The lemon is the only citrus that can be propagated from cuttings.

Janie

The only citrus I've ever tried to root has rooted. They are Kaffir limes and Buddhist's Palm (spelling?).