John Elliott wrote:
Amir Salvatore wrote:
I do not have any willow near by, will anything else work as a rooting solution?
Oh, there has to be some growing in your neighborhood. Just pull over, leave the engine running, and snip a few branches.
it was on a major road, and it felt weird to just start digging to china out of no where with a shovel
Oh pshaw, you're already an eccentric by being a Permie, what's a little more digging on a public right-of-way going to do? Now excuse me while I go take some more cuttings from up the road and see if I can get them to root.
Roberta Wilkinson wrote:I successfully rooted a passion vine cutting in a jar of plain water, so I think they're pretty willing rooters. Fingers crossed!
Any chance you have some willow around that you could use to make a rooting solution to water the cuttings with?
Joylynn Hardesty wrote:My experience...
While visiting friends, I admired her passion flowers dotting the pastures, "Do you want some?" Why, of course! How could you ask such a thing?
As we continued to wander the property, she delegated the digging to the kids. I would have been a bit more careful, myself, but hey, free.
They dug up 20ish, most of which had broken roots. We put them in a Wallmart bag with just enough soil to cover up the roots, ran water over them to ensure dampness, and parked them in the shade. For 3 hours until I left. Then I threw the bag of plants in the trunk, and drove for 2 1/2 hours. Since I have insufficient skill to balance a flashlight whiled digging holes, I left them in the bag, but not in the trunk. The next day I found out I was out of potting soil AND pots. Ooops. So I plopped them in the damp dirt under the blackberry bushes. They were planted sometime before noon.
I don't have the precise survival rate, as I didn't mark each one, but enough made it through the experience to make me happy. I think they are fairly forgiving plants.
Caution: I now tend to take the attitude of plant enough of X and some will survive. I was getting way too stressed over the survival rate of my plants.
John Elliott wrote:Get yourself a good sized shovel and dig it out by the root. If you get your spade under the main part of the root, you may be able to lift out a good size piece of the vining root with it. That it what the plant will grow from.
I dug two plants out of the ditch up the road at the end of last summer. They both suffered from transplant shock after I moved them and looked dead, but one started to put out new leaves about a month later. That one overwintered and is now growing, albeit slowly. I think the best time to try and dig them out is right after a heavy rain. I didn't try digging them after they went dormant in winter; I figured I would try it again during the growing season this year.