Earlier in the winter I dug up some Japanese Anemones and my sole clump of Eryngium with the idea of lopping off some roots and propagating from them. I’ve tried this once before but with poor results (ie 0% success rate). I moved the tray of anemone root cuttings into the recently constructed heated propagator last weekend and that appears to have made a big difference. There are now signs of life! Green is emerging from some of the cells in the tray. I suppose it’s possible they’re weeds or other stray seeds, but I don’t think so. In fact I’m sure.
The first thing that happens with most root cuttings, I gather, is new stems sprouting from the top of the rump of root – this is why its important to get the root cutting for these plants the right way up, they would struggle to produce new growth upside down. This top growth should be followed by new roots over subsequent weeks at which point I’ll need to give them a good feed. Getting ahead of myself!
These first signs of new shoots represent more progress than I’ve ever made with root cuttings so I’m pretty pleased with that.
If I’d thought about it more carefully I might have split the cuttings and put some in the heated bed and left some in the unheated part of the greenhouse, by way of a trial. Never mind, I’m pretty sure the heat made a difference. We shall see how they get on over the next few weeks.
I’ll be back.
PS there are some plants whose roots grow horizontally and root cuttings from those should be laid out horizontally. New growth should spring from nodes along the length of the root.
The Propagator 
I think propagating is one of the most fascinating sides of gardening. I find a heated propagator makes a huge difference to my success with seeds, and cuttings. Last autumn I took basal cuttings from Nepeta and Salvia, both were successful. It is always good to make notes as a reference to what you did and how long things take. I use a spreadsheet and find it is immensely helpful to know how long germination of the plants I usually grow from seed takes. It is very consistent from year to year so if a tray of seeds doesn’t germinate in a similar time I know there is a problem either with the seed (out of date) or the compost.
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thanks for your comment Christina. I think I might actually prefer the process of propagation to the end result! I can already tell that the heated propagation bench is going to revolutionise my propagation activities this year, I hope greatly increasing my success rate. Doubly so, as I built it myself in January. I started this blog partly as a way to keep track of what I’m doing, so I’m hoping this serves a similar purpose as your notes and spreadsheet, all of which sounds commendably organised. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
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Congratulations, it is so rewarding to have success following failure. The benefit of having a propagator?
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Well so far I am chuffed with it (the heated prop bench), whole bunch of things going bananas in there that were doing bugger all before.
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