In my experience, gardening books that I have seen so far, when
describing propagation of heathers, talk about layering shoots into
the ground from a plant in situ, or alternatively taking cuttings and
putting directly into a peat based compost. Has anyone had any success
in trying to get heather cuttings (Erica, Calluna etc) obtained
freshly from the plants, initially to produce roots in jam jars of
water indoors (rather like the usually easy method for getting fuchsia
cuttings to produce roots) and then been able to transfer them for
growing on further, into pots of compost for (in the case of most
heathers) acid loving plants.

Geoff

On 1 Sep, 20:14, wrote:
In my experience, gardening books that I have seen so far, when
describing propagation of heathers, talk about layering shoots into
the ground from a plant in situ, or alternatively taking cuttings and
putting directly into a peat based compost. Has anyone had any success
in trying to get heather cuttings (Erica, Calluna etc) obtained
freshly from the plants, initially to produce roots in jam jars of
water indoors (rather like the usually easy method for getting fuchsia
cuttings to produce roots) and then been able to *transfer them *for
growing on further, into pots of *compost for (in the case of most
heathers) acid loving plants.

Geoff

Decades ago I did them in 1000's commercially but that was under mist
(Under those commercial conditions we got near 100% rooting 200 to a
tray). Under amateur conditions the trick will be to keep them cool at
the top with a bit of warmth underneath. You'll need to find a way of
providing near 100%rh without too much free water hanging about. After
rooting you then need to 'wean' them gently off the high humidity
before potting.
What do you have against layering? Just nearly bury your chosen plant
in ericaceous compost and brush around with your hands so the tips of
all the shoots are showing through and then. One growing season will
give you lots of strong young plants around your 'mother plant' that
can be cut off and transplanted without intensive care. Easy.

Rod

On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 10:32:37 -0700 (PDT), Rod
wrote:

On 1 Sep, 20:14, wrote:
In my experience, gardening books that I have seen so far, when
describing propagation of heathers, talk about layering shoots into
the ground from a plant in situ, or alternatively taking cuttings and
putting directly into a peat based compost. Has anyone had any success
in trying to get heather cuttings (Erica, Calluna etc) obtained
freshly from the plants, initially to produce roots in jam jars of
water indoors (rather like the usually easy method for getting fuchsia
cuttings to produce roots) and then been able to =A0transfer them =A0for
growing on further, into pots of =A0compost for (in the case of most
heathers) acid loving plants.

Geoff

Decades ago I did them in 1000's commercially but that was under mist
(Under those commercial conditions we got near 100% rooting 200 to a
tray). Under amateur conditions the trick will be to keep them cool at
the top with a bit of warmth underneath. You'll need to find a way of
providing near 100%rh without too much free water hanging about. After
rooting you then need to 'wean' them gently off the high humidity
before potting.
What do you have against layering? Just nearly bury your chosen plant
in ericaceous compost and brush around with your hands so the tips of
all the shoots are showing through and then. One growing season will
give you lots of strong young plants around your 'mother plant' that
can be cut off and transplanted without intensive care. Easy.

Rod

Thanks very much for the information. The reason I am experimenting
with this is because I have a very large number of different varieties
of heathers in dedicated beds in my garden, with the plan of their
location and original names kept in a notebook. Most have been
thriving over the years and although many are pruned to some extent
each year, some have also become very large and are growing into each
other. Also about 3 months ago, I had to lift some (but not all) of
the heathers from one bed that borders a patio area and put them
temporarily into very large pots to try to keep them alive, because
the patio was being re-layed with new flagstones by builders, and this
resulted in a very tiny encroachment of the new patio area into the
heather bed. Now that the work has been completed, I have put most of
the heathers back in or near their original locations but I began to
wonder if some could eventually be replaced in coming months by trying
to root "tip cuttings" of some newer shoots in water (as indicated in
my original post). So far, I have six different varieties (including
some calluna, erica, daboecia), in each case with around 4 - 6
cuttings (about 2 - 4 inches long) in glass jars of water kept on the
ledge of a southwest facing long and large window of a utility room in
the house, so the jars do get good sunshine and warmth when the sun is
out at this time of the year. Any humidity in there is not subject to
any scientific control! The cuttings were taken in late July and I
have been surprised to find there are a one or two cuttings from most
of the jars that have begun over the last 2 - 3 weeks to show roots
emerging from the various parts of the stems where the water happens
to have been covering them. In some cases the water was quite deep and
was covering not only the woody lower parts of stems (from which I
had gently scraped some of the outer bark (?) with my fingernails),
but also covered some of the younger softer green "side shoots" higher
up the cutting, although there is always a fair amount of the tip of
the cutting that is kept above the water. In one particular case,
there is a profusion of roots emerging from an area half way up the
stem where there is a water covered junction with a green side shoot.
Throughout this procedure, the water has been changed completely every
few days. The next stage of the experiment, if there is indeed
continuing development of roots on the cuttings, is to see if any will
"take" when moved into small pots of peat-based compost.

I have nothing against layering, but I thought if my experiment
happened to be successful, it may show me more clearly if rooting was
visually evident and allow me to monitor the process, rather than
letting this go on in situ from the mother plant by layering and
hoping that this would occur under the ground. At the end of the day,
I am really only looking to get one small new plant to replace its
equivalent current "monster plant" among the different heather
varieties that I have.

Geoff

In article ,
Rod wrote:

What do you have against layering? Just nearly bury your chosen plant
in ericaceous compost and brush around with your hands so the tips of
all the shoots are showing through and then. One growing season will
give you lots of strong young plants around your 'mother plant' that
can be cut off and transplanted without intensive care. Easy.

Also, if they don't take, you haven't damaged the mother plant very
much. I have never understood why books and articles written for
the amateur follow the commercial priorities for propagation
methods, and play down layering. In my view, it is the method of
choice for the amateur, and the others are needed only when it
doesn't work!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.