I took a few more red twig dogwood (Cornus stolonifera) cuttings yesterday. One of them did not even need rooting. You can see the mass of roots on the bottom of this little guy. The base of this stem was touching the ground which stimulated root growth. When this happens it is simple task to clip the branch with the roots to separate it from the mother plant and make a new self sustaining plant. This technique is called layering. In this case it was done naturally but you can do it easily yourself. Just cut a small slit into a low hanging branch of the stem and place the section of stem beneath the soil. The stem stays connected to the other plant while roots are being formed which gives the stem plenty of nutrients for growing. 
Layering is a very safe way to propagate plants since it is usually successful. The only disadvantage is that you can't make quite as many as you could if you made cuttings.
Since this dogwood had plenty of roots I just placed it in a pot for the next couple weeks. I could have put it right into the garden but its new home wasn't ready yet!
Red twig dogwoods (Cornus stolonifera) are very easily raised from stem cuttings. Here is a picture of the 11 stem cuttings I took yesterday. Each cutting has at least two nodes (nodes are the growth points which can create leaves and roots).
Since some are longer than others I'll observe which one's root quicker and use that as a guideline for future cuttings.
I placed them in sand after putting some rooting hormone on them and in a couple weeks there should be some good root growth happening. Later in the week I'll show you the previous red twig dogwood cuttings I've made. They are doing very well! I may be able to plant them in the ground this spring.Labels: plant propagation, shrubs
