How To Propagate Softwood Cuttings

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Taking Softwood Cuttings

Autumn is a great time to propagate softwood cuttings. A softwood cutting is a section of new, soft growth from the end of the plant. These root easily, creating more plants from what you have. Gardening happiness can take on many forms and one of those is to see new roots on softwood cuttings. It’s fun and saves you money in the long run.

In this article, we show you how to propagate softwood cuttings using penstemon as an example. You can use the same method to propagate cuttings of other summer-flowering plants. These plants include fuchsias, pelargoniums, lavenders, kingfisher daisies, leonotis, hypoestes, phygelius, cane begonias, justicas, salvias, plectranthus and daisy bushes.

READ MORE: If you want to learn how to propagate hardwood cuttings, read this article.

About Penstemons

Penstemons are sociable summer perennials that mingle well with other flowering plants and grass-likes in a mixed border. These upright plants are very generous with their flowering stems lined with bold trumpet-shaped blooms that just keep on coming from early summer to late autumn, when they should be cut back by half. This will give you good cutting material from which to grow more plants. The next cut (right down to the ground) will be in early spring, to encourage the mother plants to regrow after winter.

What You Need For Softwood Cuttings

• Rooting medium – a commercial ‘seedling mix’ is perfect. Alternatively, you can mix potting soil with washed, coarse river sand, or add in vermiculite or perlite to get a light medium that will hold moisture without becoming water-logged.
• Hormone powder – available from nurseries. Pick one specifically for softwood cuttings.
• A small container – this will be for the hormone powder.
• A Plant Container – with drainage holes at the bottom.
• An old pencil or stick.
• Sharp, clean secateurs.

How To Do It

1. Select 12cm-long lengths of soft stems from the tips of strong and healthy shoots. Trim the lower end of each cutting just below a node and remove any buds and the lower pairs of leaves, leaving just a few at the top.

2. Dip the cut tip of the penstemon into water and then into rooting hormone for softwood cuttings. Always decant the hormone powder into a small jar and discard the leftover powder. This helps to prevent the spread of diseases.

3. Insert the cuttings into a cleaned plastic pot filled with 1 part perlite and 1 part palm peat or seedling mix.

4. Make sure that there is ample space between the cuttings so that the leaves do not touch each other. Water well.

5. Cover the pot with a clear plastic bag, kept off the cuttings with sticks.

6. Place in a warm shady place. When the cuttings have rooted (you will know this if a gentle tug is met with resistance), carefully remove them and plant them in individual small pots to strengthen.

Tips for softwood cuttings success

• Don’t use plant material that looks sick or is infested with insects.
• Work as clean as you can. All containers and your secateurs must be sparkling clean.
• Don’t use garden soil as a rooting medium.
• Don’t simply push the cuttings into the soil, as this will damage them. Make a hole in the soil first.
• The soil medium should be kept evenly moist, but never sodden or the cuttings will rot. Your homemade plastic bag ‘hot house’ goes a long way to prevent this, by preventing evaporation.
• Keep the cuttings sheltered from direct sun.
• Refrain from pulling the cuttings to check whether roots have formed. Rooting will take a few weeks (3 – 6 weeks at least!). If they look healthy and you start feeling a slight resistance when very gently trying to pull them out, you can remove their protective covering to allow them to harden off and grow more roots.
• When you notice new growth forming, drench them with a growth-stimulating seaweed concentrate every two weeks.

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