Does anyone know whether rainwater or springwater is better for rooting cuttings? I guess tapwater is no good.
They say they are the best to root plants in because it has minerals in it for the plant to use. I think the real answer is that water softener water is not so good for rooting because it is stripped of all the minerals..
I have no idea but I never try rooting in water. I always use a rooting hormone and a heat mat with some covers and I mist them several times a day or as needed.
I usually root in soil. I have very little success trying to root in water. I suppose rainwater is good. Some plants they say to root in water. Someone told me to mix charcoal with the soil to aid rooting. I haven't tried this yet though.
I root cuttings in tap water if the plants to be rooted are not particularly important to me. I have rooted in rainwater and spring water also in the lottie. They do it oké and so I would opt for that for plants that are important to you. Like Carolyn, I sometimes use rooting hormone powder for plants that i am especially interesting in being successful. An interesting variation is the use of willow bark and and scrapings in the water where you are trying to root a cutting. A lot has been written about this. I have tried it and had success with this. This too has variations ---to use it in water after peeling the bark off and crushing it. Another technique involved scraping the layer just under the outer bark and placing that in the water... others actually boil the bark strips / shavings...or in some cases the whole twigs. It can be complicated, or should I say a busy chore. I was interested, so I reasarched it and tried it a few times. Nowadays I do not root things so often, so I just tend to plop a correctly taken cutting in a little pot after trimming off most of the leaves, plant it against the edge, water it generously then cover it with a plastic bag....and wait. I wrote a piece about my technique a few years ago. If you are interested, here is the link: http://www.gardenstew.com/threads/phlox-propagation-with-cuttings.16420/ Success with your rooting, mate.
I tried some plants with mychoriza powder and some with rooting hormone and some just popping in my mouth and using a bit of spittle.. I will report if there are any differences in a repeatable experiment. I also want to try difficult plants with things like currants or willows in the same pot to see if that helps with rooting. The plastic bag is good, I never thought of that. I sometimes put the plants in a polytunnel, but sometimes the extreme heat here kills them once they start to grow.
I see what you mean about the extreme heat in a polytunnel. When I use my greenhouse, I really have to be on my toes and get those plantlets out of that milieu as soon as is feasible, for just that reason. I am always interested in experiments and outcomes, so I shall be looking forward to your results with great interest. I wish that I could come by mychoriza here.
Sjoerd, these guys, gluckspilze.com sell mychoriza with europe wide or worldwide delivery the website is in german and english.
I use tap water to root most cuttings and have not had any problems transplanting them. I tried the rooting hormone route with some rose cuttings a few years ago and while it looked like they would be successful, they were a total failure, now when I cut back the Blaze Rose I just stick the cut end in a pot of soil and let it sit for a couple of years outside. They root like a charm and I have been able to plant two new ones in the back yard.
I do not go to all the trouble with willow twigs. I just snip a few and crush the end with a hammer and put them in water with the cuttings I am rooting. Willow has the same characteristics as rooting hormone. It rarely fails for me.
I often use a minitunnel and we have lots of broom and bracken. I shade my tunnel with these plants in the summer. This keeps the sun off the plants so they do not fry.
I have never heard of using michoriza when planting spuds. I will be interested to hear how your harvests will be after this.
Commonly Utilized Plant Species That Benefit From mycorrhizae Acacia Agapanthus Alder Almond Apple Apricot Aspen Araucaria Artichoke Ash Asparagus Avocado Bamboo Banana Barley Basil Bayberry Bean Beech Begonia Black Locust Blackberry BlueGrama BoxElder Boxwood Brazilian Rubber Bulbs,all Burning Bush Cacao Cactus Camellia Carissa Carrot Cassava Ceanothus Cedar Celery Cherry Chinese Tallow Chrysanthemum Citrus, all Clover Coconut Coffee CoralTree Corn Cotton Cottonwood Cowpea Crab Tree Creosote Bush Cucumber Currant Cypress Dogwood Eggplant Eucalyptus Euonymus Fern Fescues Fig Flowers, almost all Forsythia Fuschia Gardenia Garlic Geranium Grapes,all Grasses, almost all Green Ash Guayule Gum Hemp Herbs, all Hibiscus Holly Hops Hostas Impatiens Jojoba Juniper Kiwi Leek Lettuce Ligustrum Lily Magnolia Mahonia Mango Maples, all Marigold Mellon, all Mesquite Millet Mimosa Morning Glory Mountain Laurel Nasturtium Okra Olive Olive Palm Onion Palms, all Papaya Passion Fruit Paw Paw Peach Peanut Pecan Peppers, all Pistachio Pittosporum Plum Podocarpus Poplar Poinsettia Potato Pumpkin Raspberry Redwood Rhaphiolepis Rice Rose Russian Olive Ryegrass Sagebrush Saltbush Sequoia Snapdragon Sourwood Soybean Squash Strawberry Succulents Sugar Cane Sumac Sunflower Sweet Gum Sweet Potato Sycamore Tea Tobacco Tomato Walnut Wheat Willow Yam Yew About 95% of plants benefit from mychoriza. To make Mychoriza more effective, a good bacterial soil life is helpful.
