This page is for the people who have purchased my large cuttings. I've been making cuttings for more decades than I will say! For most plants, large cuttings is a bad idea. But for the few cuttings that I offer for sale, the larger the better works very well.
These are plants which have fleshy or "furry" stems which do not work well when made into small cuttings. They tend to just rot and die instead of grow. So when large cuttings are made and they are buried up to their tops with good potting mix and then monitored on a daily basis, you can grow somewhat difficult to find plants.
One of the reasons why these plants are difficult to find and/or very expensive to purchase as live growing plants IS the difficulty in growing them from cuttings which are, in my opinion, too small. Would you believe I grow 5 gallon size lavender bushes from huge cuttings that fill the 5 gallon pot!? Yes, I do! The cuttings are not just long, they are very dense and bushy. I bury all the stems right up to their leaves and within a year I have a large bush growing lavender I can harvest.
Anyway. When you receive your cuttings, they need to be planted in quality potting soil into pots deep enough for you to bury the entire length of the stems up to the leaves at the top. If you use one gallon size pots, you can plant 4 or 5 per pot, spaced as far apart in the pot and you can. It is better to not plant them one per pot because they will not use up the water in the soil fast enough and may rot instead of grow. Then water them in well making certain they have been soaked and then making certain they have drained completely.
You do NOT want your pots to be sitting in water ever!
Then use the plastic bags I shipped them in, to cover them in such a way that the plastic does not touch the leaves. Close, but not touching. I use bamboo skewers to do this.
Keep them in a warm bright place but never ever in the full sun until they have begun to grow.
Depending on the type of cutting you purchased, you may want to mist the leaves occasionally. Like the Justicia and the Impatiens which have glossy leaves. But not plants like the Fuchsia bolivianas that have "furry" leaves. It will make them rot.
One of the reasons why I only sell cuttings in sets of 10 and then usually even send extras, is because you are going to lose some of them. Depending on your level of experience, location, time of year, etc. you might get all of them to grow and you may only get one to grow. Since you have at least 10 cuttings, you can also experiment with different methods and enviroments to see which works best.
As soon as possible, I will take photos of the different kinds of cuttings being planted and add the photos to this page.
Thanks and good luck! I want you to be successful in growing your cuttings!!
No comments:
Post a Comment