How do I take hardwood cuttings?

Hardwood cuttings need no heat, no propagator, no misting and almost no attention. They work on a long list of deciduous shrubs and soft fruit, and the losses are made up for by how many you can take at once.

What you'll need

• Secateurs
• Spade
• Sharp sand or grit
• Rooting hormone (optional)
• Label

Step by step

1. Choose the right time.From leaf fall to midwinter, once the wood has fully ripened and the plant is dormant. November and December are ideal in most of the UK.
2. Choose the right material.This year's growth, fully firm, roughly pencil thickness. Avoid thin whippy tips and avoid older wood. Take from a healthy, vigorous plant.
3. Cut to length with two different cuts.About 200mm long. A flat cut straight across just below a bud at the base, and a sloping cut just above a bud at the top. The different cuts tell you which way up it goes in February when everything looks the same.
4. Remove any soft tip.Cut off the unripened tip growth, which will not root and simply rots.
5. Dip in rooting hormone if you like.It improves strike rates on the harder subjects. Willow, dogwood and currants root perfectly well without it.
6. Prepare a slit trench.Push a spade into a spare corner of well-drained soil and lever it to open a narrow slit. Trickle sharp sand into the bottom for drainage.
7. Insert them two-thirds deep.Space them about 100mm apart with roughly a third of the cutting showing above the surface. Firm the soil back against them with your heel.
8. Label and leave alone.They need a full year. Do not lift them to check in spring — they root slowly and disturbing them loses them.
9. Firm them again after frost.Frost heave lifts cuttings out of the ground. Walk along the row after a hard freeze and firm them back in.
10. Lift the following autumn.A year later, lift and pot on or plant out anything with a decent root system. Expect a good proportion rather than all of them.

Tips

• Flat cut at the bottom, sloping cut at the top — you will not remember which way up otherwise.
• The easiest subjects are willow, dogwood, blackcurrant, gooseberry, forsythia and philadelphus.
• Take twice as many as you need. They cost nothing and not all will take.

Common mistakes

• Taking cuttings from soft unripened growth — Hardwood cuttings depend on the stored reserves in fully ripened wood. Soft material rots before it can root.
• Lifting them in spring to see if they have rooted — Roots form slowly and the young ones break easily. Every check costs cuttings. Leave them a full twelve months.

If it doesn't work

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