A brief post by way of celebration.  Last weekend I got impatient and turfed out my several clematis cuttings from their place of rest with a view to potting them up.  Perhaps I should have waited longer but the foliage was beginning to look a bit sad and I could see some roots through the bottom.  They were in their cuttings compost home for 8 weeks which is about right, actually.

My lesson for the future is do not mix varieties in a module tray. It’s next to impossible to keep track of which variety you are tipping out, particularly as cuttings compost doesn’t hold together. 

Despite my best efforts I ended up tipping all the cuttings out at once, and I strongly suspect I mixed up labels and cuttings. I won’t be 100% sure till the resulting plants flower.

I’m pleased to report that I ended up with eight rooted cuttings which are now potted up in 7cm square pots.  I have put them back in the heated bench but will move them out onto unheated staging at the weekend.

I’m pretty pleased with the success rate which is substantially higher than I’ve previously achieved.  Of course, there’s still plenty of ways I might kill these rooted cuttings off, but I hope they’ll be OK.

Assuming I don’t finish them off, I’ll pot them on when I see signs of fresh foliage growth and root action at the bottom of the pot, then that’ll probably be that till next spring.  I expect the top growth to die back but all being well the roots will throw up fresh grown when it warms up again.

I’ll be back soon with more propagating funny business.