Cuttings and Bottom Heat

I have been interested in the idea of applying bottom heat to cuttings. my new hot water cylindar is too well insulated to be of much use, so have come up with a couple of new ideas. On my deck I have a smoked glass table which gets nice and warm in the day so I am putting my cuttings on it while giving them direct shade and it is warming their containers nicely. Just as I was thinking about it wahlah in my local (opp shop) their appeared a five dollar food warmer, it gets quite hot so I have placed a thin slab of concrete on it so I put it on in the evening transfer the cuttings to it and turn it off before going to bed, leaving the concrete to radiate out warmth. At the moment I am trying feijoa and gooseberry cuttings so will post progress.

You need to be a member of ooooby3 to add comments!

Join ooooby3

Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • I am currently growing mulberry cuttings using the bottom heat method. Our rented house had a sun room with under floor heating so I have put the containers straight onto the tiles. So far they have all grown some top growth but I am still waiting for roots to appear. I will let you know how they go.
    • I have just gently pulled one of my cuttings out to see if anything is happening and yahoo there were roots. Next step is to pot them up in potting mix. I will leave them inside for a bit longer I think.
      I ended up pinching out the flower heads it threw up and the middle growth to stop them from only developing top growth.
  • Sorry forgot to post progress (thanks Sharon for the reminder. No luck with the feijoas but did get a gooseberry to take. I wasnt using an appropriate cutting soil mix.
    Things I will try next time; A fifty fifty mix of bark based potting mix and perlite, havn't purchased perlite yet, keep forgetting to look when I'm in a city.
    Does any one know how long bottom heat should be applied for?
    • I was reading plants for free and the suggestion for feijoas was to chop the whole tree down, cover the stump to encourage regrowth. Each of the new shoots then had mulch packed around for the summer to encourage root growth. Come autumn you have lots of rooted plants that you cut from the original shrub. This is also how they do apples as well. I am trying this with one of our feijoas this year.
    • Well I took the plung and chopped our only established feijoa bush down to the ground to the horror of the attendees of the fruit tree prunning workshop we had at the garden. So it's a waiting game to see if the theory is right. I have put wood mulch on top of the stump and have put a lot of our magic herb by-product around it's drip line and next month I will put roc fertilizer over the whole garden. If this doesn't encourage lots of new growth then I don't know what will. Will keep you posted as things develop.
This reply was deleted.