It is with heavy heart that I tell you I am an eejit. I should know better. I thought I’d got away with it. Such hubris! Such impatience! A serious case of “do as I say, not as I do”. A particularly pointless piece of not practicing what I preach. All the ‘p’s.
When cuttings have rooted, it is very tempting to tip them out and re-pot. As I have evangelised before, this is often fatal if done too soon, before the roots have properly established. One or two weedy roots is not enough – a veritable forest of roots is what you want. If there are not several fronds of roots surging well clear from the bottom of the pot, IT’S TOO SOON!
Very pleased with myself, I ignored all my own advice, not to mention the expert advice upon which mine is based, and potted up some lovely little cuttings. Here they all are looking super duper.
Like some form of propagation Somme, most of these innocent foot soldiers are now dead, thrown into battle by a foolish general. Poorly equipped for the ravages of, um, the heated bench, a bit of mildew or perhaps botrytis finished them off. I think with a better, more robust set of roots more of them would have survived.
From this batch, all the euphorbia is gone, nearly all the gaura, all but one of the penstemon, most of the lobelia, most of the salvia. All I have to mark their passing is my own little Commonwealth Cemetery, labels the folorn grave markers, albeit considerably less neatly arranged than the real thing.
Suitably chastened, I am leaving my other cuttings well alone in their humid little homes. They all seem happy enough and many have signs of the top growth that tempted me last time around. I am resisting, I hope to last until the spring.
Sigh. I’ll be back soon, hopefully with happier propagation news.
The Propagator 
So sorry to hear about the demise of your cuttings… I’m commenting here, because I just took my first cuttings a couple of months ago, and wanted to say that reading this is good for my development as a newbie propagator. The Hydrangeas I cut back in late summer are doing great, and even starting to sprout. The Buddleija globosa from a few weeks back – well, it’s too soon to tell. No signs of aversion, though, and I guess that is a good sign. Actually should go check on their moisture levels right now… Wish me luck!
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Oh there’s more bad news to come. Cuttings Armageddon. More on that in a later post I think I have zeroed in on the main cause….
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I’ll keep an eye out for the post!
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You’re too hard on yourself. If you don’t get failures in gardening you’re playing it way too safe. I do cuttings in cells, 20 to a half-tray size. Avoids root disturbance and doesn’t take up too much space. You have to watch the watering though, each one is in a very small volume of compost. Like John, I’ve had good results with coir. Currently using Melcourt seed and cutting compost, which seems good and because they don’t use green waste, won’t have weedkiller in it.
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Thanks Jim. I shall do a trial or two next year on cuttings mix I think. Like I said above, this is all progress last year they’d have all died before rooting!
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Awww. So sorry to hear your sad news. And see all the discarded markers. 😦
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One lives and learns.
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I’ve never got involved in this multiple cuttings in a single pot malarkey. Most of the time it’s one cutting in the middle of a 5cm square pot or, if they’re little, I use half-seed-tray-sized 20 cell trays, again one cutting to a cell. Then it’s everything for itself. OK, the greenhouse is heated to 10C through the winter. I just wait till there’s a good show of roots down under or the plant’s showing signs of stress before potting on. I breed ’em tough though don’t disturb the roots. Using coir also helps, I find, as roots don’t have to push through heavier compost and they also have more air. But they have to ask nicely if they’re hungry. I use (sparingly) a liquid feed which is made specifically for coir. I’m a control freak but find my approach does produce good root growth (usually).
And I’m philosophical. Some cuttings die. Fact of life. Don’t blame yourself. It was probably due to weedkiller in the batch of compost you used. Which, of course, is another plus point for coir.
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Some cuttings die, indeed. But not most of them! Ah well, such is life. I might try your single pot idea although it sounds like it takes up space.
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Ah yes, but it reduces that later problem of, when potting on time comes, not having space for the pots you’re potting on into. And your high death rate was why I mentioned the possibility of contaminated compost. You’re not exactly a novice at this propagating thing, are you? Delaying potting on means roots of different cuttings tangle together and there’s more damage from untangling them. Plus, of course, I almost always start cuttings off in water to begin with, the main exception being root cuttings or divisions of course. I believe the science behind placing multiple cuttings around the edge of a pot is that this provides air to promote root development and so have doubts that a cutting in the centre of a pot filled with normal compost would work so well as in much lighter coir.
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I feel a trial coming on. Next year!
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Still feel like a novice. Maybe a 2nd year, but still in short trousers. Still, progress. last year the cuttings would mostly have died before they rooted.
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