Take Cuttings as You Prune
Early summer pruning is one of the tasks we are working on right now in order to keep plants shaped, remove branches that are askew or damaged, allow sun to flow through to the ground and remove spent flowers. For example, the Euonymus in the photo weaves through a chainlink fence and looks nice until its stems poke up above the fence like wild hair blowing in a convertible. Today, I took cuttings of an heritage azalea at a friend's house before it is pruned for the season. So with the dipping hormones prepared, I took cuttings of a gorgeous tree Euphorbia, some trailing purple petunias and a Salvia that I replant from stem cuttings every year. Softwood stem cuttings, recently grown stem tips, are tender and have to be handled carefully.They are snipped from plants about this time of year - late spring on the calendar but early summer in the yard. A tip cutting is the tip bud of the stem and enough stem to hold 3 leaf nodes. Semi-hardwood cuttings are taken between late summer and ...