On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 13:05:22 +0000, Janet Baraclough wrote:

The message
from "Charlie Pridham" contains these words:

Auxins also effect the shape of the plant you get, eg the cuttings from the
top of a conifer will be more upright in habit than those from the base!
choosing where on a plant you take a cutting can make a big difference to
the resulting plants.

That's very interesting and useful.Can you advise on other examples ?
Does this affect fuchsia cuttings, for example, if you want to make a
standard; and how about clematis?

Janet.

I only know it from plants that have separate juvenile and mature phases
either on different parts of the plant - like holly -fewer prickles on
higher parts, various Chamaecyparis already mentioned - you'll see they
only flower and seed on the mature upper part of the plant, Ivy different
leaves and only flowers/fruits on the mature phase. Sometimes cuttings
from different phases stay that way for ever, sometimes you can't get
cuttings to root easily or at all from the mature phase. No fuchsias
don't have phases like that, you get standards by training vigorous young
plants. Preparing stock plants and selecting cutting material for some
'difficult' plants is sometimes almost as much art as science, though
mostly when I was propagating most of the cutting material came from young
growing stock that had to be trimmed anyway. With some things itr's worth
trying cuttings from different parts of an established plant - like from
the shady side or using smaller side shoots rather than the big strong one
on the end that might seem like the obvious choice.

Rod