Friday, March 07, 2008
Cutting may root
John Arbogast
Landscape consultant John Arbogast answers your questions every Thursday. Send questions about your lawn, garden, plants, or insects to:
Dear John
5102 Greenfield St. SW
Roanoke, Va. 24018
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Q: Thank you for your thorough response last month for moving my historic fig. I have not moved the entire tree, but have been successful (I think and hope) in one respect. I took a large cutting from the plant in February and scraped lower nodes till green and potted the cutting. The tips, so far, were still green as the plant resides in a 55 degree Florida room awaiting spring. Will this cutting root? There is a landscape company that will help me move the entire tree (the new homeowner agreed to allow me to do so) once the land has thawed and conditions are right. Previously I have not rooted a fig cutting although I think this is working out fine thus far. If it is green, it is happy, right? I hope so. I will definitely pass your advice to the business here that will do the big move. This will sound funny and maybe I already mentioned, but my 5-foot tree here in Roanoke came from a root I brought from Richmond four years ago and took off.
A: Your cutting might root, but at this time of year and attempting plant propagation in a chilly environment, results are not guaranteed. Unrefrigerated dormant cuttings easily tor or die. The presence of green under the bark does not necessarily mean that the cutting will have future happiness. We in horticulture must work with nature’s rules, one of which says that roots will develop in warmth. Another rule says that most successful cuttings must be fairly small so that plant tissues don’t starve before a new root system can grow that will sustain them.
I recall reading and learning several years ago about some plant that was propagated commercially in which small dormant cuttings were taken during the winter but then stored in a refrigerated chilled place until spring when the lower parts of the cuttings were “stuck” into rooting soil in a warm place.
However, you might have roots on your large cutting that you “wounded” for more root area shortly after the time that you read this note. I might have tried several dormant cuttings instead of just 1 big one. Good luck!
Q: I have a question concerning a problem with several English boxwood shrubs at our home here in Virginia. The cause is more than last year’s drought. Starting several years ago, we began losing boxwoods, and now the problem is getting worse. The boxwoods are large and old. Typically, they begin to turn brown limb by limb until the entire shrub is dead. Is this some sort of infestation, disease, or what?
A: The symptoms could be due either to past stressful weather conditions, the incurable disease known as English Boxwood Decline, or a combination of these and/or other environmental conditions. Pests are not likely responsible for your boxwoods’ dying, although tiny sucking pests known as spider mites can injure boxwoods during the spring or fall.
Since proper diagnosis of English boxwoods showing possible stress or disease symptoms is difficult, your best procedure would be to have a stem and a root culture done by the Plant Disease Clinic at Virginia Tech through your local Cooperative Extension Office. Only 1 clinic information form should be completely filled out, but the sample should be of the following 2 parts in separate plastic bags: a couple of 6 to 8-inch-long branches showing leaves that have begun to lose their good color but aren’t dead yet, and then a pencil-size root piece with about a pint of soil still around it dug out from under the branches that are losing color.
If the Plant Clinic doesn’t find disease, the assumption can be made that your boxwoods’ symptoms are the result of some past and/or current growing stresses. Unfortunately, even if English Boxwood Decline pathogens are found in the roots, I don’t know of any chemical treatment to heal infested plants. If some adverse conditions are the blame, suggestions such as proper watering and pruning out damaged parts can be made to slow future boxwood losses, but this care won’t necessarily stop future symptoms resulting from damage already done to your plants. Boxwoods have shown little response to fertilization, so that would not be helpful this spring. Also, boxwoods don’t like to be mulched, so don’t spend your time or money on mulching them this spring either.
