Material needed to cut your hydrangeas
- shears ;
- graft or billhook
- box
- plastic cups;
- gravel or clay balls;
- peat;
- sand;
- heathland ;
- sprayer;
- hormones from cuttings.
The 5 detailed steps
- Take your cutting by cutting off the end of a twig non-flowering which has grown this year.
About fifteen centimeters in length are sufficient. Preferably choose a lateral stem, leaving the main one so that the shrub continues to develop.
- With a grafter or a sharp knife, remove the first leaves located near the base of the cutting. Leave 4 to 6 leaves at the end. This operation reduces evaporation from the foliage to promote rooting.
- In the bottom of a box, place, as drainage, a layer of gravel or expanded clay balls. Cover with a mixture, by thirds, of sand, peat and heather earth. Dip the base of the cutting in hormones and poke it with a pencil.
- Wet the compost well with a sprayer and place the box at a temperature of 15 ° C. Monitor watering regularly. When the cuttings are rooted, make a first transplant in plastic cups, in a mixture of potting soil (2/3) and heather earth (1/3).
- To get a stocky plant, with many side shoots, cut the end of the cutting with a grafter when it has three pairs of leaves. Prune the side branches again when they are sufficiently developed.
Advice : Throughout the rearing of the cutting, which lasts a year, carry out several transplants, each time increasing the size of the bucket and the proportion of heather soil.
Good to know : The inflorescence of the common hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla) has fertile flowers in the center and sterile flowers around the periphery. The more these are in number, the longer the flowering and the rounder its shape.
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