Rootings
- By : Sarah
- Category : Food Forest, Gardening
- Tags: berries, perennials
Now that I have this new future home we areobviously going to be leaving this one, and everything we have grown here, behind. I was lucky enough to have rented a place where I could plant a pretty good size garden. I spent lots of money buying plants and bushes that I want to bring with me. That would take up a lot of space though, ha ha. If only I could take a mini version of each one of them with me… Clearly it’s time for me to learn to do rootings. I broke down and ordered rooting hormone right away. I guess you can use willow in some way for a natural type rooting hormone, but I couldn’t get a hold of any for some silly reason. Anyway, this is what I did. First, I took my nice sharp clippers and cut the growing ends
of my blueberry plants. I’m not really how big they needed to be, but mine are about 6 inches. Then I pinched all the leaves but one off of the stem. If the plant has too many leaves, it will waste energy that could be spent on growing roots. Once your pieces look about like this, get a very sharp knife and shave away the outer covering of them stem to about an inch from the
bottom. This will be where the new roots are to form. The outer covering could prevent root formation. Next I filled all my little pots with compost. You want soft and fluffy so it can hold water well. Unfortunately, I waited too long to get something better, so my compost is kind of crunchy. I dampened the compost and made a hole in each with a stick. Then, I dunked each piece of blueberry plant in the rooting hormone and wiped off the big drips. I put each one in a prepared hole and lightly tamped the compost down around it. Try not to move the pieces around too much, you could wipe off the rooting hormone. This might not matter much, but I’m not sure. I read a couple places that you could take a plastic bag and rap it around each pot to make a mini greenhouse. I probably
wont do this step. And that is about it. Very simple so far. Now I just have to remember to keep them watered. One last thing to add. When cutting the raspberry plant, it was still producing berries. I wasn’t going to sacrifice the berries, so I tried to cut the part of the plant that was just the leafy branch and not the growing end. It didn’t work. They withered in a day. Hopefully, the rest of the berries will ripen before it gets too cold so that I can still get these plant ends. Now we just wait and see what happens, and remember to water!
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