Cuttings and winter...

Second Wind

I have a couple of J. Maple cuttings that were taken about 2 months ago and have survived long enough to push out a couple of leaves each. With winter coming on, I'm wondering if I should leave them outside or bring them in.

I am in eastern North Carolina, where we have generally mild winters, but with several good freezes and usually a light snowstorm or two.

If I bring them in, they'll be protected from freezing, but they won't go through the dormancy I know this species needs. If I leave them out, they'll be in their natural environment, but I'm concerned that they aren't developed enough to have a good chance of withstanding the cold. I do have a storage room where they could spend the winter, but it's not much warmer and I'm hesitant to just stash them in the dark where I could forget to care for them properly and over / under water them.

So where do you think they'll have their best chance of surviving? Is it essential for young cuttings to have a dormancy period, or could I just bring them in before the frost?

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Second Wind

I guess I could bring one inside, and leave one outside, and report back next summer on which one did better...

RedPine

Hi,


How did you get the Japanese maples to srike as a cutting in the first place?
I have never heard that this was possible to do.Layers,grafts and seeds I had always been told was the only means to propagating them.

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Second Wind

I didn't do anything special to them. I had never had any luck with japanese maple cuttings, either, so I didn't really think they'd take. But my fiance's parents have a full-size one in their yard that's a variety I hadn't seen, and I wanted to give it a try. I just clipped off a few shoots of varying sizes and stuck them in water to get them home, then dipped them in rooting hormone and stuck them in a loose soil. They lost all their leaves, of course, and I wrote them off for dead, but then two of them pushed out a couple of small new leaves. All the shoots I took were pretty small; I would assume they were this year's growth. That's about all I can tell you about it.

I think I'm probably going to bring them in for the winter. Missing one dormancy period shouldn't be too much of a problem for such young cuttings. I hope they don't give up due to the reduced light levels, but that has to be less of a shock than winter temps.

Still open to any suggestions or opinions, though.

ethanopia

You might be ok to just leave them outside. If they have in fact rooted, which it sounds like they have, then you might just find a nice sheltered place and put them in the ground (in their containers) and mulch them. Just make sure they have good layer of drainage underneath them so the water doesn't sog them out and rot.

I have a few flats of juniper, taxus, and picea pungens cuttings that still look good and have shown a little new growth 5 months after taking cuttings. I think I'm going to just mulch in the ground under a shade cloth between my fence and the parent picea pungens. The sheltered micro climate should offer enough protection that they will winter, and I'm in Ohio...

just my .02 cents...

RedPine

I spent near a year nursing some J.maple cuttings housed in a bio-dome,only to find out they were pushing growth but no roots.By chance can you take a pic?

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Fletch

Actually, if it were me I'd bring them in to the cold storage room you have and stick a recurring reminder into my calendar to take care of them on a regular basis. That way they should get an adequate dormancy but be shielded from the wind and heavy frost that might cause them damage.

That's basically what I do with my tender trees that aren't tropicals and they seem to respond quite well each year. You might want to set up a small fan or something to keep air circulation going around them and be careful you don't overwater so you don't get mould or fungus developing. Other than that you probably shouldn't have much trouble with them.

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Second Wind

Thanks for the tips, everyone, and I'll let you know what I end up doing once the leaves drop and how it goes.

That's an interesting note about the cuttings that pushed leaves but didn't grow any roots. Hope that's not what's going on here, but could very well be.

mgodbee

I planted about 25 red jap. maple cuttings, and 25 lace leaf jap. maple cuttings earlier this year... I got about 10 cuttings to root out of the 1st batch and about 7 out of the second batch... It can be done, but the success rate isn't very good. I have noticed that they have to be completely shaded. Once the leaf gets scorched, its done for. Of course, I have tried probably 50 Fukien tea cuttings and only have gotten about 2-3 to root... They are supposed to be easy too, go figure... I used a mix of 1/2 vermiculite and 1/2 peat moss if that helps with the maples...