Maple hardwood cuttings - what to plant them in

[JasonRedwood]

Hey everyone, In a few weeks after leaf fall i'm going to take a dozen or more maple hardwood cuttings. My question is simple - what should i put them in to grow? I've tried before in ordinary potting mix, but they were much to wet.

For my trees I use diotomite and pine bark - but i fear this will be too coarse and dry for cuttings to root.

Advice is welcome. I have a few weeks until i'll take the cuttings - and i'm planing on using rooting hormone.

 

[discusmike]

Many people use sand

 

[JasonRedwood]

sand doesn't stay too wet?

 

[Darthamphibious]

I was thinking of doing the same thing but in springtime with a Sango Kaku. You can do it in fall? How big are the cuttings? How long? Do you keep them inside?
Darth

 

[Bunjeh]

Pumice and peat with rooting hormone.

 

[Smoke]

The sawdust of foemina is great...

 

[JasonRedwood]

@Darthamphibious This is my first try at hardwood cuttings in fall/winter. It is my understanding that once the trees are dormant, or close to dormant, the cuttings will have a lot of stored energy available to them in the form of sugars. I am going to take cuttings of all different sizes - from pencil thickness to half an inch (I need all different kinds for what i'm doing) - most or all will be about 6 inches long with 2or so inches of bark removed down to the cambium. Going to use root powder as well.

I will be keeping them inside, but only because I have a more controlled grow setup inside - a few t5 lights, and strategic CFL bulbs - and the ability to sort of control humidity levels along with heating mats. I have read that you can just leave them outside until spring as well.

@Bunjeh what relative ratio of peat would you recommend? Diotomaceous earth is very similar to pumice, so i might just try that. I'll likely experiment and do some in sand, some in diotomite, and some in diotomite/peat.

 

[0soyoung]

@JasonRedwood, I think your project could be quite entertaining!

I have some thoughts relating to your plans.

1. I think the dormant cuttings will have lots of energy stored as starch, not metabolizable sugar. It is the repeated daily temperature swings above-below 40F of early spring that stimulates amylase to convert the stored starch back into sugars.
2. I also don't think the leaf buds will break and produce new leafs unless they have a sufficient number of chilling hours.
3. I think photosynthsis is necessary for the growth of new roots.

I'm 'rooting' for you .

 

[Eric Group]

I dug a large JM this Spring and when I cut half the tree off, I decided it was time to go all in making cuttings. I took dozens of hardwood cuttings of various sizes from This tree and used a rooting powder- miracle grow, the cheap stuff...- dropped them in perlite, pretty much 100% for the most part... Some had a bit of compost along the bottom of the pot, some had a bit of Bonsai mix in there.. Primarily it was perlite though. I did this right around the time the tree was leafing out, and had surprising success. I think around 25-30 made it. A pretty good ratio, but the most interesting part for me was that the largest pieces rooted the best/ fastest! Some as large as 2-3 inches in diameter...

No heat mats, no mist systems... Just some rooting powder, a good medium and a bunch of cuttings... I am sure heating mats and stuff might increase success rates, but I have had great success rooting all sorts of trees lately without doing any of that stuff.
I have never heard of people taking cuttings in the Fall/ Winter after leaf drop? Any reason you cannot just wait until early Spring?

As a second option for mediums- I believe Brent from Evergreen Gardenworks said he uses 50% perlite, 50% peat... And he is probably one of the most prolific producers of cuttings in the Bonsai business...

 

[JasonRedwood]

@0soyoung Maybe I will stick a pot of them in the fridge as well to see if giving some chilling hours will make a difference. Taking the cuttings after leaf drop is for two reasons - experiment, I just want to see if it works - and also because i want to get them growing before next spring inside. I'm planning on doing a forest, and it would be nice to see what i'll have for the following year (to plan spring cultivation).

Thanks for all the input, and thanks for the correction on the amylase and starches - I am definitely not a botanist (I am a physicist).

 

[0soyoung]

I am a physicist

I was too - it isn't a permanent condition.

 

[JasonRedwood]

Now don't tell me that, physics is the only thing i can stand to do. Plants do eventually die, or we eventually die and the plants outlive us. Physics however is always there - non-subjective, ever changing. No, I think this is quite permanent for me

I'll mention here as well what i'm planning to do with all these cuttings - last spring i gathered 3 cool maples from some woods year my apartment. None of them are going to be very suitable for bonsai on their own (my largest one may be an exception, it has some good character, but i'm going to have to ground layer a new nebari this spring). I have decided that though i'm new to bonsai, to try to do a group planting of 5-11ish maples, depending on how they do this winter and next summer. The three I have right now are going in a group "pot" (shallow plastic zip-lock container) in spring after dormancy.

I'll start a new thread for this soon with more detail - including what i've been doing to the trees thus far.

 

[Bunjeh]

@Bunjeh[/USER] what relative ratio of peat would you recommend? Diotomaceous earth is very similar to pumice, so i might just try that. I'll likely experiment and do some in sand, some in diotomite, and some in diotomite/peat.

60/40ish

 

[Hump]

If anyone is still watching this thread I have a question. Newby here, but when taking cuttings and removing the leaves from the bottom half of the cutting, do you remove just the leaves or the leaves stem with it?

 

[roberthu]

If anyone is still watching this thread I have a question. Newby here, but when taking cuttings and removing the leaves from the bottom half of the cutting, do you remove just the leaves or the leaves stem with it?

Cut the leaves very close to the stem or simply pull the leaves off.

 

[Pavipx]

I dug a large JM this Spring and when I cut half the tree off, I decided it was time to go all in making cuttings. I took dozens of hardwood cuttings of various sizes from This tree and used a rooting powder- miracle grow, the cheap stuff...- dropped them in perlite, pretty much 100% for the most part... Some had a bit of compost along the bottom of the pot, some had a bit of Bonsai mix in there.. Primarily it was perlite though. I did this right around the time the tree was leafing out, and had surprising success. I think around 25-30 made it. A pretty good ratio, but the most interesting part for me was that the largest pieces rooted the best/ fastest! Some as large as 2-3 inches in diameter...

No heat mats, no mist systems... Just some rooting powder, a good medium and a bunch of cuttings... I am sure heating mats and stuff might increase success rates, but I have had great success rooting all sorts of trees lately without doing any of that stuff.
I have never heard of people taking cuttings in the Fall/ Winter after leaf drop? Any reason you cannot just wait until early Spring?

As a second option for mediums- I believe Brent from Evergreen Gardenworks said he uses 50% perlite, 50% peat... And he is probably one of the most prolific producers of cuttings in the Bonsai business...

Hey Eric,

I read your post about hardwood cuttings around February and decided to recreate what you did just about JMs were about to leaf out. I was just wondering how long did you leave them in the rooting medium? How did the container that you used look like? Was it sealed and pretty humid? At what point did you make it less humid? Did the sun hit the cuttings at any point of time? What is your plant hardiness zone?

I am a month into this process and a bunch of them leaf out and they seem to be doing great. Yesterday though I opened the container and saw a few cuttings had mold, so I am wondering about the humidity in my medium or if the cuttings that don't make it just end up looking like that.

Thank you!

 

[Gabler]

The sawdust of foemina is great...

It’s never occurred to me to use sawdust as a potting medium, at least not before composting it. I would think willow sawdust would be good for cuttings.