Help with Rooted Cuttings

[RobertB]

Well, I have finally rooted a handful of different types of cuttings. Most of them were given to me by mellow mullet. I have a few different Japanese maples unknown cultivars, some azaleas, crepe myrtles, jap. quinces and elms. They were all rooted in 100% perlite.

My question is when should these be transplanted into bonsai soil before it gets real hot? I know some people leave them in the perlite all yr and wait till spring following before the repot. My only problem is (or at least I think its a problem) that all the cuttings were rooted pretty close to each other and they are in pearlite. I don't want to have to try and detangle all the different cuttings next spring and remove / damage a lot of their 1 yr old roots.

I tried potting up a few of the rooted cuttings a week ago and they are not doing great (half the leaves turning brown and falling off). They are not dead yet but they are not growing yet. I assume their roots are growing and will be a few more weeks till I start to get a push.

I am keeping the rooted cutting lot (still in perlite) and freshly potted rooted cuttings in bright shade (white plastic covered bench). I was misting the potted rooted cuttings along with the ones still in perlite (3 times per day) and I am stopping that today. The cuttings still in perlite seam to still like the misting. My reason behind stopping misting on the potted up cuttings is, it would seam like the rooted cuttings that have been potted up would not benefit from the excessive watering / misting as this could cause the new roots to stay too wet in the bonsai soil medium and could cause the plant to start to rot. This would make sense as the perlite is much coarser than the bonsai soil I used to pot up some of the rooted cuttings. I moved the potted cuttings to my covered bench with my JBP cuttings that are several weeks old now and will be watering these 1 x per day (in the morning) to see how that works.

I have found a whole lot of info on here related to getting the cuttings to root but not much on aftercare (i.e. watering, misting, fungicide use, insecticide use, etc). Anyone care to share their success? I assume some of this maybe a secret as it seams like this is something that can take a few years to get a hang of even after you have successfully rooted the cuttings.

Japanese Maples Cuttings (not potted up yet)



Some of the quince, myrtles, and elms potted up.

 

[Stan Kengai]

They should be fine as is. It's better to untangle 1 year old roots than to mess with 2 month old roots. They are very tender right now. If you find you can't keep them watered, which is usually not the case with cuttings, add some sphagnum moss to the surface.

 

[TyroTinker]

If you have cuttings in pure inorganic like perlite (or turface in my case) are you supposed to fertilize at all? Or is it not a problem because the roots are to new anyways?
I have a couple cuttings that I just started and I'm curious about keeping them healthy

 

[RobertB]

If you have cuttings in pure inorganic like perlite (or turface in my case) are you supposed to fertilize at all? Or is it not a problem because the roots are to new anyways?
I have a couple cuttings that I just started and I'm curious about keeping them healthy

I would recommend to not do anything like this until the cuttings have rooted and are growing good. Mine have been rooted for over a month now and I still haven't applied any fertilizer.

Anyone else with something to add? So far the ones I have up-potted are staying pretty much the same. I did loose my crabapple cuttings that were started in Feb. These have been in my propagation tray since the cuttings were made and just started dying this week.

 

[Paul F.]

I made the mistake of pulling a cutting way too soon, month after it rooted, and it ended up in a fatality. I live in the tropics too so I thought it would be fine. . I don't know much about cuttings though, total noob. I pulled the cutting and it had 6 or 7 long roots. I then transplanted it into bonsai soil and died a few days later. I was bummed. I'm still trying to figure out how long to keep them in perlite / moss mixture..

 

[RobertB]

So far all the cuttings I pulled are still alive and very slowly pushing growth. The cuttings I left in the original box they struck in are doing about the same. All are partial shade and watered every morning. I am also fertilizing for about two weeks now, weekly, with Alaskan fish fert.

 

[RobertB]

The Japanese maple cuttings still look like the original pic with no new leaves. The leaves are definitly darker though. Might stick them out in the sun or under a larger tree and water twice a day and see what happens.