How and when to propagate barberry by cuttings?
Recently, the cultivation of barberry has become more and more popular among gardeners. This beautiful shrub will not only decorate the site in the form hedge, but also useful for housewives in the kitchen for compotes and jam. Having only one bush on the site, you can soon plant a whole street with barberry.
One of the most effective ways to propagate barberry is cuttings. There is nothing complicated in this process, but those who are doing cuttings for the first time should know some of the nuances of how to propagate barberry by cuttings.
Depending on the season and the age of the cut shoots, the shrub can be propagated in two ways:
- with the help of lignified cuttings - in the fall;
- young twigs - in spring (summer).
Autumn cuttings
Cutting of cuttings should be started in late autumn. To do this, have barberry select lignified two-year-old shoots without signs of disease and cut them off with a sharp knife. The length of the handle must be at least 20 cm.
Cuttings must be cut before the onset of frost.
Next, you need to dig a shallow trench in the garden and root the cut branches in it, not forgetting about the shelter from the frost. With the arrival of spring, the cuttings should be transplanted.
Some gardeners, after cutting, put the cuttings in the basement for the winter, immersed in wet sand, and in the spring they transplant them to a permanent place.
Spring cuttings
In late spring, and better at the beginning of summer, when young, green twigs become elastic, but not yet lignified, they can be used to obtain new plants.
Green cuttings root better than 2 year old shoots.
The cut branches should be properly prepared:
- cut out the middle part of the shoot for the cutting;
- make the upper cut straight, and the lower one obliquely;
- leave at least 2-3 buds on the handle;
- cut the lower leaves, and the upper ones cut in half.
For further rooting, plant the prepared cuttings in containers filled with a mixture of three parts of sand and one part of peat. Plant at an angle, leaving only one bud above the ground.
Some varieties of barberry, such as monotonous or Canadian, it is very difficult to root, therefore, their cuttings need to be pre-soaked in a solution of growth regulators (root, auxin).
Containers with planted cuttings should be kept in a room with high humidity and an air temperature of at least 20 degrees. The most suitable place is a greenhouse.
Rooted shoots should be transplanted to a permanent place in the spring or fall after a year (or better, two) from the moment of cutting. Such grown plants will be stronger and easier to tolerate a transplant.