Reverse Bottle Propagation – Trial with 250 Bottles

[ShaharyarSalman22]

Hey everyone,

Over the next month, I’m aiming to collect and root around 250 cuttings from fallen trees, mostly stuff with good movement and decent trunk thickness.
I was inspired by two awesome posts:

• Rooting whole Japanese maple branches
• Mark Moreland Visit – Leics Bonsai Club

I wanted something fast, scalable, and with minimal daily attention – so I created this variation using water bottles I saved up all winter.

Most methods suggest cutting a bottle in half, adding a slit for drainage, filling the base with water, and placing the cutting above in a mix (See image 1 and 2). But with 250 bottles, cutting and slitting each one didn’t feel efficient.

So I flipped the design

Instead of slits, I simply removed the bottle caps, and placed a rock inside to weigh it down and keep the mix from falling out. This allows water to drain slowly and keeps the substrate intact (See image 3)

To ensure that the humidity from the water goes upwards we need a tight fit, so I stacked the bottles tight together by pushing them down against each other, but left a little space for the bottom reservoir.

The last image is all of them, took me about an hour and a half to do them all - next time I could definitely do it within an hour. My grandpa and I are really hopeful!

Tomorrow, I’ll fill them with a 80/20 mix of perlite and potting soil and begin inserting cuttings

Let me know what you think of this setup or if anyone’s tried something similar at this scale. I’ll update with results as the roots (hopefully) take off.

 

[ShaharyarSalman22]

Today I planted the first batch of cuttings. Most of them are red maples (I believe), since they were the most accessible, but there’s also a mix of elm, mulberry, and a couple of unknown species with decent taper or branch structure.

Image 1 – Cuttings were soaked overnight in water after collection. You can kinda see their thickness

Image 2 – Brought the bottles outside for setup.

Image 3 – Mixed 1.5 bags of perlite with half a bag of potting soil. This is what I used as the rooting medium.

Originally, I was planning to use plastic bags to cover each bottle for humidity, but with over 200 bottles, that became impractical. I needed a faster solution that would make misting easier as well, so we used a plastic box.

Images 4 – My grandfather and I packed the bottles into large plastic boxes, fitting about 28 bottles per box. Simply filled the bottom reservoir with water and then we put the rock to prevent the mixture from falling under. For some of the thinner cuttings, I placed multiple cuttings in one bottle to save space. You can see the variation in trunk thickness in Image 5.

Image 6 – Covered the box with a clear plastic sheet and used bricks to weigh down the corners of the sheet. The boxes are placed in a semi-sunny location outdoors—bright but not full sun. I only had one box so the project right now is halted at just 28, though this week I will buy another 6.

I also collected more mulberry cuttings for the next round. They’re currently soaking in water and will be planted soon using the same method. Image 7

No rooting hormone for the thinner ones, unless their taper was really good, but the thicker ones did get enough rooting hormone

Now just a thought, once I see roots, I can simply just take the top half of the bottle and put it in a larger soil pot.

Gonna leave these alone for two weeks, let's see what happens!

 

[ShaharyarSalman22]

Planted some Mulberry and Elm cuttings today. These were sitting in water for a couple days


The bottles:


Cuttings:


The bucket:

 

[MalsRFun in TN]

Keep us updated. I have saved a lot of bottles and plan to try this too.

 

[ShaharyarSalman22]

Planted Some Dogwood, Staghorn Sumac, Poplar, and others today



Next Week I'll open the first box (on the left) let some oxygen in and give an update:



Any suggestions for trees you want me to try?

 

[Bonsai Nut]

This is great! Did you try any conifers?

 

[Tahoebonsai]

Awesome! I came across this recently and am trying it myself with cuttings from a California mountain maple

 

[ShaharyarSalman22]

This is great! Did you try any conifers?

Not yet; I have a ton of Pine, Spruce and Thuja on my property. I'll try that this week!

 

[ShaharyarSalman22]

yesterday I opened the first tote from about 2 weeks ago

Here are the results:
3...
2...
1...

Success!!!





Summary:

• It seems that the thinner Red Maples are opening
  • Nothing from the thicker maples; perhaps because I didn't leave a shoot
    • however based on scratch test they are alive! I'm still hopeful
• The Elms, regardless of size are sprouting
• Larch seems to be sprouting as well

Seeing these results made my grandpa and I really happy; I am officially addicted haha(Thank you @eplov90)
The tote has been recovered; next update for this one in 2 weeks
Still have another tote that is full (update next week) and three buckets (update next week)

Today I tackled this elm that fell on my property; That Poplar took it down:



also found a random Birch that I pulled out; its still alive


Here's an example of the type of cutting my grandfather and I cut; stuff that would be respectable if it survives and shoots out
I also planted some cedar shoots and Pine shoots let's see what happens

I think I'll make this post larger; here are some really thick cuttings we collected in the process too:

I laid a plastic sheet under them and made a sort of dome out of it


Elm


Poplar


We then covered it with another plastic sheet; I planted these in potting soil because Perlite is expensive, rooting hormone was applied

The current problem with this method is that the plastic bottles set up takes too long, and wouldn't be worth it for the basic material;
Therefore I have another idea that takes the humidity principles of this and expands it so that I can plant more and faster.