Tuesday, 8 February 2011

Taking cuttings

Dahlia season 2011 is really underway now.  I took the first cuttings today 4 weeks after setting the tubers down on the benches (in trays).


The first photo is the cutting as removed from the tuber.  When removing cut below a leaf axil leaving enough stem to trim and leaving a leaf axil on the tuber to produce more shoots.  Use a VERY sharp knife, if you do not have a gardeners propagating knife a modelling blade would be useful.  The knife I use is Victorinox and is Swiss.  The blade can be honed to razor sharp on a very fine smoothing/sharpening stone.  These may be purchased from any good garden centre and cost around £12 - £15 seem to remember.  


Trim neatly below the leaf axil and remove the two leaves.  Dip in water and then in rooting compound, I use Seradix / Strike as this is very reliable.  I did try an organic compound a few years ago and lost 85% of the cuttings I had used it for.


The first tray of cuttings planted in John Innes Seed compost.  If using JI Seed do try to obtain correctly mixed compost.  There are many on the market that may have the correct mix but are not using steralised loam and a good 'grainy' sand.

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