This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Cuttings
Fiona MacDonald
Posts: 38
in Talkback
hi
im just wondering why cuttings are always put around the edge of pots? I've tended to just plonk mine around the middle surrounded by soil rather than on the edge. Seems odd to me.
Any thoughts?
cheers, Fiona
0
Posts
ive wondered that too before, i wonder if it is because that is where the main warmth is ?
Maybe it's one of the many myths of gardening
In the sticks near Peterborough
I wonder if it belongs to the days of terracotta pots. Drainage would be better round the edges with those. Not with plastic though
In the sticks near Peterborough
I have also heard that it is to do with drainage in terracotta pots, but what evidence there is for it working I don't know. I find that cutting around the pot edge can form lop sided root balls, with all the roots obviously heading to the centre. I also find with some soft cuttings that those around the edge come into contact with the polythene bag I cover them with and get too wet encouraging the leaves to rot.
I may have to have a search and see what research has been done.
I have taken cuttings from scented pelargoniums, they are growing taller some have have flowered even, BUT, I knocked a pot over one fell out, it hasnt got any roots.Any ideas?
I think it's because often old gardeners woud stick cuttings in a **inhabited** pot, one with an actual plant already living in it. So they would not forget to water them, and also, the leafy umbrella of the plant would provide some shade and humidity around the cuttings, in the days before mist and propagators.
My granny always had these weird pots in summer, a geranium in the middle, rings of rosemary/laurel/sage cuttings around.
I think then it remained as a habit to say, around the edge of a pot!
A cutting will still carry on growing with what's already in the stem of the plant, if it hasn't made any root growth after this is depleted it will die and you get a failed cutting. You should never let a cutting flower how can it have the strength to put on root and flower as well !!!!!!
I always thought it was to do with terracotta pots and the transpiration of water through the sides would set up a beneficial air/water flow over the end of the cutting and therefore stimulate growth. And it would be warmer at the edge as well. Totally wrong perhaps.........
Chrissy the gardener, I always remove buds from cuttings, but I misses the flower appearing on this one, I have planted up some of these cuttings in my hanging baskets, - so far they havent keeled over and died.