Between the two of us (as a hubby and wife team) we have a plethora of history with plants and shrubs. On her side is the Rhodes Garden Center. A family run business that has been in operation for a few generations. On my side, well... gardens have been in my family from the time I could crawl across a yard and sneak a carrot or pluck a few peas. Plants are kinda our thing so to speak. Ok, and chickens. And rabbits too lately. Plants were first tho!
We have spent a decent amount of $ to establish our own orchard. Nature has been adamant about punishing us for our effort at almost every turn. Feral rabbits or mice like to girdle our trees. Deer like to over-zealously prune whatever survives the rodential attacks. (yea, rabbits are not technically rodents....I know...) And none of those boogers have the nerve to even ask for permission before they get to work. Sheeesh! I mean, I like nature. And I guess I could plant something for the wildlife to appreciate. But man, gimme an RSVP so I know how many -and WHO is coming by for a snack. Yikes! Maybe there would be enough for everyone if nature would just stop NUKING my fruit trees to bits. (#head-desk)
So, instead of spending gobs of $ on replanting various fruit trees every year, I have been dabbling in cloning and propagating my trees that have survived. In this case, I am working with some sort of fruiting cherry tree that has managed to thrive, despite all. I had to prune it this spring, so I saved some of the trimmings to make a bunch of scion wood cuttings. Here's the pile of twigs before I get to sorting out what's what:
All of those twigs have multiple years of growth on them. You can tell how old the branch parts are by looking at them. Between each year of growth on the branch, you will find a "collar." Usually, the bark will be different colors on either side of the collar. The wood I want to select is going to be stuff that is at least one year old. So, starting from the outer tip of the branch and working down to the "stem" just count the collars. In this case, there is one just a bit above the 2 branches. Notice the change in color on the bark as well:
I don't want either of the branches, nor the bit at the very tip. So, I cut them all off. Snip, snip, sni...bandaid!!! You think I'm dangerous with a set of pruning sheers? You should see me swing a hammer. I'm told it's painfully (really is..) amusing. Well, not for me! It hurts. Like, a LOT.... but, back to work. (black electrical tape is my best friend btw... Instant bandaids)
So, after sacri... salvaging my fingers, I'm left with a bunch of cuttings, like so:
-__- um, So... I had a brain fart and didn't take any shots of the actual cuttings #facepalm my bad, sorry.
Just use your imagination for this next bit: I clip off all the unwanted parts and I end up with a half dozen or more sticks of 1-year-old wood that are about 12 to 18 inches long. Each of those I cut into small sticks about 4 to 6 inches long. I left the top most bud on each short stick to remind me of what end is up, and what end is down. I'm getting old(er) and I need cheater notes like this now and then. (don't tell my wife! It'd just give her crazy ideas or something...shh!) On the bottom end of each stick I take my pocket knife and lightly scrape the outer most bit of bark -ever so gently. I'm not trying to carve it off, just scuff it a little. Then I dab that end in a bit of rooting hormone. After that, I jabbed it into a pot of soil. I ended up with half a bucket of cuttings. If even a handful of them work out, I'm ahead of the game. If they don't work out, then I will go to another method of cloning my tree.
Oh, I do have a photo of the bucket after all:
Please note, that since I'm working with 1-year-old wood, those "buds" are most likely flowers, not leaves. I will have to snip them back to encourage each cutting to root out instead just making pretty flowers. What's with the empty side of the bucket you ask? It's not really empty. I used that side to plant a bunch (more like a universe's worth) of ornamental maple seeds. So that side should germinate out into a few hundred seedlings in month or so.
So, the bucket will grow maples, or cherries, or even both. Sometime ya gotta stack the deck against nature. I'm catchin on....slowly. -_- Oh, can the eagle-eyes amongst you spot the non-cherry cuttings? Give ya an easy hint, there are 3 of them. Have fun!