Propagate from cuttings

Hi, everyone! These lists are fantastic, thank you.

I started trying to learn more about live staking after reading Daron's great recent blogpost about it (thanks, Daron!). Then I was reading Gary Paul Nabhan's recent book Food from the Radical Center, and in Chapter 3 he writes about a project he did in Sonora, Mexico (on the flanks of the Sierra Madre Occidental, I think) documenting the traditional practice of collectively building and maintaining living fencerows established by live staking cottonwood and willow in the sandy streambeds "along the banks of the floodplain that edge arable fields, pastures, and orchards." They also weave leafy branches between the saplings' trunks.

We'd love to add this practice in on our property in the monsoonal desert, slowing down floodwater but also perhaps contributing to a living fence that could eventually keep the cows out since we haven't accumulated enough fence materials yet for a dead fence. We'll keep our eyes peeled for our local true willow (Goodding's -- most of the "desert willows" around us aren't actually Salix spp. but instead Chilopsis linearis and I don't know if they live stake), good cottonwood stands, etc. I've heard that ocotillo live stake well (even before I'd heard the practice called that), and those could help keep the cows out. Great to know that elderberry and mulberry and currants will live stake, so we'll collect cuttings of those in spring, too, to place inside the living fence. I think such plantings could help us with our pond project (an area of heavy clay soil on our property where water pools) if we live stake along the downhill side, too, yeah?

Daron's blogpost linked above has a good list of live staking species, and I found another good list from USDA NRCS here. Hope that will be helpful to others as it is to us!

I have accidentally had success live staking the Malvaceae  Hibiscus syriacus, sometimes known as Rose of Sharon. We'd taken down some trees that had a number of good straight branches in mid December. I cut garden stakes to use the following spring. Next thing i knew seven of the stakes rooted and took leaf. I tried the same with apple cuttings this past winter into spring, but no luck.

Has anyone rooted winter prunings? Perhaps keeping the branches in water outside and letting freezes occur? or not?  Maybe wet sand all winter?

Hibiscus moscheutos is a native plant here. I've two yearling shrubs that i've gotten in the ground: i hope i'll find some ease in propagating them.

I've air layered magnolia successfully.

My hazelnut cuttings have all given up except 5. I couldn't wait any longer to see if those 5 would have roots, they don't have roots in the classic sense, but there seem to be round ball like structures attached to the stem at the bottom of the three fat hazels. I don't know if anybody here recognizes those ball like structures. Anyway, i've repotted the whole bunch together in some homegrown compost and sand mix, hoping for the best!

Madeira vine’s extremely easy to propagate. Just drop the cuttings on the ground and if any of the nodes are touching the soil they’ll grow roots. It’s no wonder it’s an invasive species!

I now root cuttings by putting them in a jar of water on a kitchen window sill. No need to control humidity, temperature or anything, just change the water now and then. I’m tired of watering cuttings in materials and seeing them die anyway. When I plant them I keep them out of hot sunlight for a few months to let the roots establish better.

Grafted passionfruit are $14 each where I live, and they produce hundreds of suckers. I pulled  five suckers out, rooted them in a water jar, then next year I’m doing my first attempts at grafting them (the desirable passionfruit cuttings need to be trimmed every Spring anyway). I should probably root a few dozen more and give them away.

Only one hazel cutting is surviving, i started with many,many so, not doing great, the one refusing to give up is still in full shade, didn't like half shade. If it makes it, it has been worth it. Big if.
I've started a small tree/shrub nursery under the oaks next to a ditch which fills up when it rains. Willow and Cassis ( Black Currant).
The oaks will keep it shaded over the blistering summer, last summer all black currants died that i'd planted in full sun. The ones in the shade survived.

I stuck some currant and blueberry cuttings in the ground around the yard. The currants are budding out but the blueberries are just staying the same, but not turning brown so I think good.

I also potted up 5 branches of my existing blueberry bushes. I am going to wait until spring 2021 to cut the branch and plant out the (hopefully) rooted plant.

The pics are from planting day.  

Update: The Currant cuttings all seem to be doing great.  I pinched off the flowers and fruit that formed, and left the leaves, which are still slowly getting larger.  The Blueberries in the ground, half seem to be alive and well.  I am assuming that having green and growing leaves is an indication that roots are forming, and the plants where the leaves grew then died had no roots forming.  The branches in pots are alive, lots of flowers which I am leaving on these . . . a man's gotta eat!

edit: OH!  Also, i stuck some apple sticks in the ground for peas to grow up.  The sticks are leafing out and look great :)

I’ve been eyeing up some wild hazelnuts for a while now and think I may take some cuttings this fall. I can soak them in willow water and try rooting them in coarse sand along side the other perennial shrub cuttings I have going.

Or maybe if I actually decide where I want to plant them, I could just transplant some suckers in the fall. Although it’s easier to run around taking cuttings from different clumps of wild shrubs than digging them up!

My last remaing hazel cutting died.
In the same time i’ve grown some twenty from seed. Layering works i’ve heard.
Hope others have more luck

For a lot of perennial flowers that come up with a clump of new shoots in the spring, I simply break off the shoots and stick them in the ground. The shoots should be old enough so the base is starting to get woody. Some have flower buds developing do it before it blooms. So far I have propagated many plants this way to fill my garden beds: garden mum, stonecrop, swamp milkweed, bluestar, aster, sweet williams etc.