It’s been a month or so since my last update. I persist in trying to propagate this shrub which has proved highly resistant to my advances in the past. The news is that there is no news. No news very much being good news with these particular cuttings.
The few straggly remainders of the greenhouse cuttings, originally four pots in two test groups, have not obviously deteriorated any further. I have left these untouched since last time, with no cover, on the unheated staging. They look pretty weedy.
The stars of the show, the tough-love cold-frame group, are still looking exceedingly perky. I did remove just one stem the other day, I thought it had the beginnings of some blackness on the top leaves. Just in case.
I still do not see any signs of rooting, nothing emerging from the bottom of the pot. Come to think of it, the stem I removed earlier in the week did not have any sign of roots. Rooting is clearly a long game with ceanothus, that’s probably why cool, non-humid conditions suit them better.
Still, they are still very much in the game, I’ll continue to take that for now.
I’ll be back in a few weeks with another update.
The Propagator 
Love your writing style.
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I have 2 grown like standard trees, and have had both for around 6-7 years. This year they have flowered twice, and now in October, one has another handful of flowers that have appeared! They must like where they are. The other I have is a ground cover one, and it has gone mad! It has spread, and needs curtailing as it’s taking room from other evergreens in my evergreen raised bed. I am going to take masses of cuttings, and see if any survive. I just love them
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I have successfully propagated Ceanothus from cuttings. I had the most success when cuttings were taken during the months of March and April. This was in Southern California so you may have to adjust. You want to take cuttings when they are pushing new growth but are not in bloom…these periods tend to overlap, so I have pinched flower buds with some success. Look for fat but mailable stems. Cuttings were kept in a mist house with bottom heat. I used liquid rooting hormone, and a particularly high concentration, but I don’t recall exactly how high. The cuttings were placed in 9:1 perlite to potting soil in 4″ or 6″ plastic pots. I also recall that I occasionally would knock of calluses and would redip in hormone, and it would take up to 3 months to properly root. They also have very stiff and brittle roots, so don’t pester them too much, or you might go and knock their fledgling roots off. Ok, sorry so long. Hope this helps anyone who is interested.
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Thank you! Shortly after my final failure the parent shrub died. I took it as a sign from the gardening gods that ceanothus did not have a future!
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I live in their native home, in San Francisco, and have had no luck propagating them (have tried for two summers), but I’m sure that the commercial nurseries propagate them by cutting, so I’m going to try again! Thanks for sharing your methods.
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Good luck! I gave up in the end, then the parent plant died. C’est la guerre!
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I’ve found they’re pretty easy to propagate by seed with a hot water treatment. Or are you trying to grow a specific cultivar?
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It was mainly bloodymindedness! I gave up in the end. In fact I also dug up the parent plant, it was past its best. I have since bought another cultivar which i plan to wall train.
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Key’s in the name – “Californian Lilac”. My original croaked after about 25 years and the only successful cutting is just about to go the same way. Pity- it’s a beautiful plant and a Bee magnet. My 1 cutting came from peeling off a shoot, dipping it in hormone powder and sticking it in a plastic, vase-shaped think full of water on the kitchen window sill.
I might try that again!
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Yes. A tough nut to crack. I gave up then the grew itself died.
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I have never grown ceanothus from cuttings but I have read that there are 2 months to do it. June for deciduous varieties and August for evergreen varieties. In a cold frame with rooting hormone powder and half a bottle of water on top.
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My Ceanothus became a big unruly tree over the years! I was planning to replace it with a plum tree but you gave me an idea! I will take some cuttings to start a life cycle again!
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Good luck! I am finding it very tricky to propagate.
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I have never grown those, and I have never asked others how they grow them. They seem so impossible; but I know that they must grow cultivars vegetatively.
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Yes, widely grown here in the UK. They all come from somewhere! Cool is better, mostly grown commercially from cuttings, in a cool tunnel, i gather.
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They seem like an odd choice for there. Even in their natural environments, they do not live much more than five years, and rarely beyond ten years. I would guess that they would not last as long in a different climate with cooler and damper weather.
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10 to 15 years not unusual depending on variety and planting location, can do 25 years. They live fast and die (relatively) young. Like I say, commonly grown garden shrub here.
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I have seen them growing wild in the high mountain passes of Northern California.
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