pow wow
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Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:55 am
Location: Alberta Canada

Taking cuttings, digging up bulbs and tubers etc, for winter

It was absolute agony for me to dig up the last of my Begonias today but we will have frost in a few days.
My geranium cuttings are already rooting in water. I use to do the root hormone and potting mix way but several years ago I had only three cuttings make it. From them I have managed to restock my supply of these ones and able to sell many in the spring. From that near disaster I switched to rooting in water and have lost only a couple cuttings a year. I am trying another method just to see if I have any success. Digging up the plants, drying and hanging in paper bags. Anybody here have experience with this method?
All my Cannas are dug and drying as well as my glads.

My last two begonias right before I dug them up today. Setting up my heat mat to test the germination on my santa cruz fiberous begonia seeds that I collected and my cuttings are coming along, the geraniums, impatiens, portulaca, and some dragon wing begonia cuttings have already rooted for me.

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applestar
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Cool! I wondered how you were managing to keep yourself supplied with the gorgeous flowers. It TOTALLY makes sense that you take the trouble to carry them from one season to the next this way. Fantastic! :D

pow wow
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Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:55 am
Location: Alberta Canada

Thanks, I'm trying to drastically cut back on my seed buying. I have spent way too much money buying petunia seeds. One tiny seed costs me fifty cents and they don't all germinate. So I am testing the germination on what I have collected. 17 different varieties have been collected from my yard and the first five are being tested. If I can keep my little business going, propagating more and more of my own geraniums, tomatoes, petunias, and impatiens, I will be pleased. With buying the seed every year, I don't make much of a profit, too small an operation and I only have so much room. But I enjoy having people depend on what I grow. And just by word of mouth, I pick up a few new customers a year. I like it that way, slow growth.

ButterflyLady29
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Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:12 pm
Location: central Ohio

Do you take petunia cuttings? I've grown several plants from cuttings. I've had good results when I put the cuttings in potting soil. I haven't used rooting hormone and they do quite well.

pow wow
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Posts: 227
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:55 am
Location: Alberta Canada

I have tried twice but failed. I think my timing was wrong, I was too busy with other gardening chores and neglected them. Now the only petunia plants that haven't produced seeds for me is the original old purple waves. I still have a couple plants that I haven't tossed and chopped up, the only problem is room. They would have to be under grow lights in the house until early march when I turn the heater on and start moving plants into the greenhouse.

ButterflyLady29
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Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:12 pm
Location: central Ohio

Yes, the room under the lights conundrum. What to save, what to let go. Last winter I propagated several Purple Queen Wandering Jew plants. They spent the winter on a shelf over the bathroom door. They toppled a few times breaking off branches in the process. And I planted those branches too. I had high hopes of selling the little plants. Now they are big plants that didn't find new homes over the summer and I am debating if they really are worthy of the precious space under the lights. Especially since there are a few other plants I really want to keep and propagate for next year. A couple are the glorious double pink petunias that my mom grew from seed in the spring.

pow wow
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Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:55 am
Location: Alberta Canada

I suppose if you root a few cuttings from your double pink, you can just keep trimming them back until spring.
I do like the blooms of the double petunias but I hate how the plants hangs. I don't know how to describe it really. The ones I've tried several years ago always had big open spaces that just ruined the full look of blooms and foliage that I want. Kind of hung in clumps, looking like my hair when I wake up in the morning, needing a good brushing to tame it.lol Perhaps they have improved them now?

imafan26
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Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I'm glad, everything can stay where it is most of the year. I don't envy having to put anything to bed for the winter or not having anything growing but snow for a few months.

It probably would not be a bad thing to clean up the garden once in awhile. I could use some winter kill on these perennial weeds. I end up neglecting a lot of my plants because there are so many that I don't cut them back or fertilize them enough. My culling process is that when I finally get around to cleaning up an area, then I find the empty and dead pots.

Which reminds me, I have to make a space for the garlic and onions. Ginger has not bloomed yet so another two to three months before I have to dig it up. Turmeric has started to bloom so when the rest finishes, it can be dug up then.

Glads, amaryllis, pelargoniums will stay in the ground indefinitely and only need dividing, compost and fertilizing. The nasturtiums are starting to pop up again so it must be getting cooler for them. I grow Dahlias and renunculus from seeds but they behave more like annuals. They make tubers but it doesn't get cold enough to wake them up again.

pow wow
Senior Member
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Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:55 am
Location: Alberta Canada

Hello imafan,
How long do your dahlias bloom for you in Hawaii? So they eventually tire out and you put in your new plants?
I've been storing a few of mine over the winters for several years and they are getting to be huge. I have never divided Dahlia tubers before. Next spring I think I should do some research and give it a go.

ButterflyLady29
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Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:12 pm
Location: central Ohio

This is one of the better double petunias. I still haven't decided if I'll take cuttings from it or not.
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pow wow
Senior Member
Posts: 227
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:55 am
Location: Alberta Canada

Oh, those ones. I did pinch a couple stems from a city park basket several years ago. They were about to be tossed out. I had my eyes on those blooms all summer. I did root them and had them in a couple baskets for a summer. I did something wrong and they didn't root for me that fall. I haven't spotted them on my bike rides the past few years.

Just checked my petunia seeds. They are just sprouting so no buying seed this fall! Shame to throw the little guys out but I need room, my geranium and begonia cuttings are rooting and need to go into pots.



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