Nerifolia Ficus cuttings

sauce

To date I have rooted a gazillion F. benjamina cuttings simply by throwing them into a container of water. I am trying to root salicifolia/nerifolia cuttings and I have had no success. I have tried putting them in water with and without rooting hormone, and I've tried hormone powder and potting soil without success. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what I am doing wrong?

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bmor

Hi Sauce. I have about 80-85% success using a seed starting soil and a product sold up here call ROOTS (by Wilson). It's gel like in nature. I take the 2- 3 inch cutting and strip all but say 2 leaves and put in the 1 inch cell packs under the dome for a couple weeks (opening daily) for circulation and gradually increase the time the dome is off. new growth come pretty quickly to the nerrifolia i strike. hope that helps a bit and good luck
B

jjeter

I just started 4 cuttings by putting then in a deep cup (a 1 qt plastic paint cup) half filled with spagum moss. I kept is pretty wet and 4 of the 5 cutting rooted with no problem. I was pretty hot here and I am sure the humidity in the cup was very high. That may have helped. This year I put my ficus next to a patio pond and it really took off. I know the humidity from the pond helped my other tropicals. LOL.

pootsie

Sauce, I was just thinking the same thing.

I recently got a willow-leaf fig and am astonished that they do not behave the way I want them to (naughty little figlings!)

I am used to working with F. too little, which root in a cup of water overnight.

I will try what you guys suggest, and thanx!

pootsie

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Adam_MA

FWIW. I get about a 60-70% success rate with nerrifolia just putting the cuttings into my "cutting cup" It's a glass of water on my kitchen windowsill that has a few cutting in it at any one time. I don't change the water just add more. I have had about 80-90% success with nerrifolia with leaving most of the leaves on the cutting, only removing the bottom ones to make it suitable for planting. I just dip in rooting hormone and plant into a 75/25 mixture of my sifted fines and sphagnum. I have much lower success rate with nerrifolia when I remove more of the leaves.

Adam

bnsaijim

Sauce,

Success with placing cuttings in water have very limitted success in most cases- mostly species driven- usually it's too wet- cells rot. Then when you try to pot them in soil the roots have difficult time transitioning between the two environs- sometimes regardless of how you stage it.

Look at the size of the cuttings you are taking and the timing. With tropicals timing tends to be less of an issue as long as you are providing tropical growing condiitons.

Take cuttings at least as big as a wooden match stick, 2-4" long, woody or progressing to woody. Fresh green shoots seldom root. Trim all but two leaves or so, which if they are big, I snip them in half.

I have good success with perlite/vermiculite mix. I've also used haydite/pinebark as well.

Misting certainly helps as does covering with a plastic bag, old aquarium, etc.

Rooting hormone seems to be irrelevant in most cases.

If you have not already, check out Brent Walston's site... EvergreenGardenworks.com

Jim Stone
Santa Fe, TX

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Jim Stone
Seki Bonsai Studio
sekibonsai.com
Santa Fe, TX

sauce

Thanks for all of the advice. I'm in Fl., hot and humid ficus territory. This should not be a problem! I never trimmed the foliage on my cuttings and thought that may be the problem but evidentally that is not true. Even now I'm not sure of the problem but I will try some of the suggestions mentioned here. Thanks to everyone who replied, maybe I can get a few strikes next time.

agraham

Sauce,

for what it's worth...i have always found the nerifolias to be the most difficult ficus to propogate....seems like that always rot before they root

andy

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bnsaijim

Come to think of it I have had the same experience.

I have hundreds of every other type and perhaps a handful of nerifolia- airlayers seem to work pretty well though.

Root cuttings work VERY well. I had one that was pot-bound and got some nicely curvy material out of it. Ran about 60-80% success on those. Minimum thickness on those seems to be about 4mm or so...

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Jim Stone
Seki Bonsai Studio
sekibonsai.com
Santa Fe, TX