Making the most of what you have!

T2 Soft Wood Cuttings, originally uploaded by pennyeast.

Part Two in the series about different types of Fuchsia cuttings. Scroll down for Part One.

There are times when cutting material is in short supply, or you need to propagate a large number of plants for a specific purpose. Here is one way to stretch the material you have. (More on this topic will follow later!)

If you can only get one cutting of a cultivar you really want to propagate you can divide that up to provide a few young plants - also means you don't have all your eggs in one basket! At least one is likely to thrive!

Here cutting number 1 has been divided into 3 pieces.

a is an extreme tip cutting which, if planted so that the rooting medium comes half way up the lower leaves, will root easily and produce a good plant.

b is a nodal cutting. The node buried in rooting medium up to the level of the lower leaves will rapidly develop roots, and two shoots will develop from the node above ground. This might not develop a well balanced plant for show purposes, but the new shoots can be used to take good tip cuttings.

c is an inter nodal cutting. Because it is soft young wood it should root fairly easily and also produce two shoots from the node above ground. Plant this to the level of the node.

Cutting number 2 can yield 5 cuttings although all of them are inter nodal - always second prize in my book! This is worth doing for something really special if you are not sure that you can get more cuttings if this one fails!

a is an extreme tip cutting and should produce a well balanced plant, the others will all produce two shoots and will be good for multi planting, (3 - 5 plants in a pot or basket) and for providing more tip cuttings!