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Propagating Softwood Click here to visit the freeplants.com home page. Sign
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Propagating softwood cuttings of evergreens is just about the same as with deciduous plants. If you haven't read about softwood cuttings of deciduous plants, click here. You'll find it quite helpful. With evergreens you should wait until later in the summer before taking the cuttings. You can start taking your evergreen cuttings around the Fourth of July and continue taking cuttings through August. Some of the evergreens that can be done as softwood cuttings are Taxus, Junipers, Arborvitae, Dwarf Alberta Spruce, Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Japanese Holly and Euonymus. Click
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photos Evergreen cuttings should be stuck in flats filled with coarse sand, or in a raised bed of coarse sand. Wounding the cuttings is not necessary because stripping the needles off causes enough minor injury to induce the development of callous. Waiting until later in the fall, for the propagation of evergreens as hardwood cuttings requires less effort, but you lose the benefit of the warm temperatures available to you in July and August. Cuttings root much quicker if the sun can warm the growing medium to a temperature of 70 degrees F. If you wait until the end of August to do your propagating, you can still benefit from the warm temperatures to initiate the rooting process, and within a few weeks the temperatures will drop, reducing the amount of care required. The rules for watering softwood evergreen cuttings are about the same as for deciduous plants. Evergreens don’t require quite as much water, but they still need care on a regular basis. As with deciduous plants, intermittent mist works really great for softwood evergreens as well. Click
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