Propagating in the Early Morning

Early morning is the best time for so many things including plant propagation. Taking cuttings when it is cool prevents them from drying out and losing too much moisture before they get prepared. If a cutting dries out it very well could be the end of the road for your potentially propagated plant! This morning, as I always try to do before 7:30 AM, I went out to the garden to find something to do. It's never hard to find some task or job that needs done, but I decided to take some cuttings. I didn't really need to take any cuttings but it is one of my favorite things to do in the garden. I accomplished a lot over the weekend in the garden and I felt that taking a few cuttings would be a good reward.

Here are the cuttings I took today:

Plant	Type of Cutting	Total Cuttings
Red Twig Dogwood	Greenwood, stem tip	2
Catmint 'Walker's Low' Nepeta faassenii	Stem tip	7
Mediterranean White Heather	Stem tip	6
Viburnum 'Shasta'	Stem tip	2
Silver Mound	Greenwood, stem tip	2
Unknown Variety of Sedum	Stem tip	2
Dragon's Blood Sedum	Stem tip	2
Blue Spruce Sedum	Stem tip	1
Salvia nemorosa	Stem and stem tip	3
Astilbe	Stem tip	2
'Purple Homestead' Verbena	Stem tip	4
Russian Sage	Greenwood, stem tip	1

The astilbe is experimental and probably won't work, but you never know if you don't try it right? The red twig dogwoods are from greenwood cuttings which are more sensitive to moisture, or the lack of it. They are supposed to root faster than the hardwood cuttings but hardwood cuttings of red twig dogwood root very easily.