A Tip For Cuttings.

The other day I had need to pot up some Geranium cuttings and it reminded me to share with you a little tip that seems to work well for me. Geraniums are not a difficult plant to increase by cuttings but they can rot off quite easily if you aren't careful so I've devised this method to prevent this to some extent. As you can see from the picture below there is sand in the pot and things can actually be rooted in to sand alone although I have never tried that myself. Instead I do a mix of compost in the bottom and sand on the top.

I part fill the pot with compost and then add a thin layer of sand, this just gives me something stop the cutting falling over while i arrange them in the pot. When adding the cuttings try not to push them through the sand into the compost. As you can see in the picture below I pushed this one in a bit further than I should but there is still sand around the stem so it wasn't too bad. When you have the cuttings arranged around the outside of the pot then back fill around the cuttings with more sand to just below the level of the pot and then water in, this settles everything down around the cutting and also adds water to the compost below. I add the compost in the bottom as this stays moist but isn't actually causing the stem to sit in a lot of moisture. I also hope that it encourages the cutting to send out roots to reach for the moisture just below it.

The picture below is a good example of how it works. The idea being that the moisture is where it's needed in the base of the pot and the stem remains as dry as possible to prevent rot. Also if there is a need to water again before rooted water from the bottom by standing the pot in a saucer of water. By the way, when I talk of sand it's actually horticultural grit that I'm talking about.