Crape Myrtle Cuttings

Crape Myrtle Cuttings

By Joseph Parish

Today Pam and I took some cuttings from the Crape Myrtle tree sitting in our front yard. It has been let go so long that it looks disastrous, however a bit of pruning may help it.

For this experiment we will be completing three separate projects, but first let me explain how we went about gathering our cuttings. First, we assemble all the tools which we will be using on this venture. These include:

Pruning Shear

Plastic bags

Paper towels

Planting media

Container

Rooting hormone

Next after gathering all the required equipment and supplies we approached the tree to get our cuttings. We cut longer pieces from the tree since we can usually get several cuttings from one piece. Each final cutting should be about 5 to 7 inches in length.

If we were away from home and getting cuttings from the tree, we would place them in a paper towel and spray it with water. I would next insert the paper towel into a Ziploc plastic bag until we were ready to plant them. This was not the case in our front yard. A word of caution here is, do not leave the cuttings in the plastic bag too long or you will risk developing mold on them.

To plant your cuttings, take a small tote and place some good potting soil in the bottom of it. Moisten the soil well and plant the cuttings 2 to 3 inches into the soil. Insert them at an angle to allow the maximum growth of roots. The buds on the cutting should be facing up and you should scrape the bottom slightly. Avoid direct sun with your cuttings, however makes sure to keep the soil moist.

Keep the pot indoors until spring. Within a week, you should see roots developing on the cuttings.

I mentioned above that we are doing several experiments. The first was the cuttings without any green on them. The second is the ones with some leaves left at the top. Finally, the third is, we gathered up some seed pods from the tree. Now these are still green and may not be able to germinate yet, but we are going to try it and see if it works. We will update you on each of the different projects as we progress along.

For more interesting articles visit me at http://www.wordwriter.info