Brug cuttings .... what to do with them now?

[helen]

I've got some brug cuttings. About 12 cm long. They have white 'nibbles' all over them, but no roots yet. Given the time of year, what should I do with them? Pot them up and pop them somewhere cool/dark to hibernate? Grow them on to develop roots and try growing them overwinter inside? Put them in water and leave them to develop roots until next Spring?

Haven't tackled cuttings this time of the year, so not too sure!

View.....

[Dave Brown]

All of my brugs except the snowbank were from cuttings given at Wisley last year. I stuck them in water on the kitchen windowsill over winter and they rooted fine. The cuttings I took in summer this year turned to mush

[DavidF]

Did you pot them up Dave or leave them in water in a jar over winter?

[ChrisG]

All my brug cuttings have been at this time of year. I am no expert but i left mine in water until the root were well developed. then potted them up and put them on sunny windowsill. Worked fine for me Put one out in a cold shed that went down to -1 and that was fine as well.

[Dave Brown]

Did you pot them up Dave or leave them in water in a jar over winter?

Potted them up in Feb I think. They took about 2 months to root over winter

Here in March

[helen]

Been reading up on some Brug forums, and I'm going to make a bubbler.

Container to hold water, a dash of H2O2 and GA. Add a air-pump powered bubbler to keep the water moving and aerated. Add brugs and leave in a cool place.

Anyone tried this?

[kentgardener]

Wow - you and your science projects Helen

I look forward to the pictures.

regards

John

[Dave Brown]

Been reading up on some Brug forums, and I'm going to make a bubbler.

Container to hold water, a dash of H2O2 and GA. Add a air-pump powered bubbler to keep the water moving and aerated. Add brugs and leave in a cool place.

Anyone tried this?

Don't know about the H2o2 and GA, but the air pump will add loads of oxygen and cool place was what I had in winter, but southfacing windowsill was a hot place in summer. Warm water = less oxygen. So even without a pump you might increase your chances by regularly refreshing with cool oxygen rich water.

[helen]

I haven't got the airstone sorted yet but have popped some cuttings in a container with the h202 mix last night. Came down this morning, and there are hundreds of oxygen bubbles attached to the brug cuttings from the H2O2 releasing O2 into the water. The bubbler is supposed to keep the water 'sweet' and reduce the chance of cuttings rotting as well as not having to change the water.

[Mark]

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load ... 51092.html

May help

[Andrew In Bracknell]

I think I have got as couple of the pitfalls for rooting in water figured out. More than 4cm (1.5inches) depth of water will make the cutting start to rot from below. When you take the cutting trim off any and all new green growth that could (and will) flop over. New leaves will grow before the roots appear, and so long as you don't have anything likely to flop over, cuttings can be much, much larger and taken in the same way. If the wood is harder then they take a liitle longer to root, but if the cutting is wider they root quicker. B x Candida roots extremely quickly but the leaves pong . I pot up as soon as the first true roots (not swollen nubbies) appear and spray regularly for 1-2 weeks by which time I can see the roots in the pots' drainage holes.

[DAVIDEVANS]

Helen, you can buy one from these people cheap enough http://tinyurl.com/4szkvx

How about an update on your other hydroponics experiment pleae.

Dave

[helen]

Here are some pictures of my cuttings and setup.

A top shot. I'm using elastic bands to create a grid to hold the cuttings up and away from each other, and good old cat litter in the bottom to keep the cuttings in place, and make sure there's water flow under the cutting itself.

The box is a plastic shoe box.

Here's a side view. To stop rotting, there's a couple of inches of water in there, no more. Check out those H2O2-generated bubbles! And you can also see the bubbler going in there, just to the right of that big, fat cutting in the middle.

And finally, a close up. The scale on the left is cms. Better view of H2O2 bubbles and airstone bubbles. Got loads of white root 'nibbles' (is there a proper name for these?) already, grown during their postal journey.

Got 40 cuttings in there, and space for more.

[helen]

Helen, you can buy one from these people cheap enough http://tinyurl.com/4szkvx

How about an update on your other hydroponics experiment pleae.

Dave, I've already got loads of aquarium kit, so making something isn't at all expensive. The bucket version you showed only holds 3 plants. Ok for larger plants, but the one's I've got are tiddlers. I'm using the kit to help propagate plants, whereas the larger bucket is really designed for hydroponics, keeping the plant in there when they get big. I want to transfer my babies into compost and outside when I can.

As to the aeroponics, I've just closed it down! The roots from the plants/cuttings were about 20-40 cm long by the end. The plants seemed to be growing well. The reason I shut it down was that I wanted to transplant the plants into compost for winter, and wanted to catch some warm weather still where they could adjust to the new media. So far, they are ok. I'll definitely use this method again next spring.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take more photos

[Mark]

The only draw back of having so many cuttings all in the same box is Virus. If one plant is carrying it ,it can be spread by the water apparently, Hence the need for fresh water each day.

H , they are called Nubbies ( new roots)

Sitting the box on a heatmat may help the water warm up and help speed up new nubbies

I had mine on a warm radiator last winter to help them root.