Each season offers gardeners the opportunity to take cuttings from plants. We prepare and plant these cuttings to expand and diversify our gardens.
Today I planted hardwood cuttings from two kinds of fig trees, three kinds of grape vines, three types of roses, and some Fremont poplars. Some will not root, but many will.
Taking hardwood cuttings in the Winter months is easy in Zone 9 in Northern California. Cut the canes properly (refer to the instructions cited below), dust with rooting hormone, cover with sand, and then ignore and wait until spring. I often just stick them directly into a pot with prepared soil and place the pot in a protected and sunny location. Unlike taking summertime cuttings, no greenhouse is needed, no humidity control is needed, and no special watering regimen is needed. Easy!
How a leafless and rootless dormant twig can produce a complete plant continues to amaze me after 50 years of gardening. It must be the first cloning technique used by mankind. The art is practical and grounded in complex science, but the results, always magical.
Propagating Shrubs from Cuttings
Propagating Hardwood Cuttings of Deciduous Plants
Hardwood Cuttings
Texas Rose Rustlers
"I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones I feel it,--
The small water seeping upward,
The tight grains parting at last.
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet."
- Theodore Roethke, Cuttings
7:31:57 AM 
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