What are the precautions for cherry blossom cuttings? Keep these key points in mind
Many friends are drawn to the way cherry blossoms look when they bloom. In fact, if your yard is large enough, you can absolutely grow cherry blossoms at home yourself. Cherry blossoms are usually propagated mainly by grafting, mostly using single-petaled cherry blossoms or cherry trees as rootstock, with cut grafting or cleft grafting carried out before early spring flowering. There are very few reports of propagation by cuttings. The editor will now introduce the method of softwood cutting propagation of cherry blossoms, and interested friends can learn from it.
Cherry blossom
I. Cutting bed setup
Choose a cool, well-drained spot and build a small plastic hoop shed 1.2-1.5 m wide and 5.0-6.0 m long, with a shed height of 70-90 cm. First dig down 25 cm at the bottom, then lay about 10 cm of cinder, and on top of that spread about 10 cm of expanded perlite or green sand as the cutting substrate, and water it thoroughly.
II. Taking cuttings
Insert the cuttings into the cutting bed at a plant spacing of 3 cm and a row spacing of 5 cm (it is best if the leaves of the cuttings do not overlap each other). When inserting, first make holes with a short wooden peg slightly thicker than the cutting, then place the cutting into the hole and press the substrate around the cutting firmly so that the substrate and cutting are in close contact. The insertion depth is 4-5 cm.
III. Management after cutting
Immediately after cutting, sprinkle thoroughly with clean water and cover the shed film tightly, keeping the relative humidity above 95%. After that, spray an appropriate amount of clean water once every morning. The temperature inside the hoop shed should be kept at around 30°C; if it exceeds 35°C, water can be sprinkled to cool it down. The substrate temperature should preferably be around 25°C. In the early stage after cutting, the amount of water sprinkled should be somewhat larger, and then gradually reduced. When the cuttings begin to root (generally about 15 d after cutting), ventilation can be carried out appropriately in the morning and evening, and then the ventilation amount should be gradually increased and the ventilation time extended. When the roots of the cuttings reach 3-5 cm in length and each cutting has 3-5 roots, they can be transplanted.
How to take cherry blossom cuttings
The cutting time for cherry blossoms
The cutting time for cherry blossoms generally runs from mid-June in summer all the way to mid-September in autumn. During this period, cherry blossoms can all be propagated by cuttings.
The cutting steps for cherry blossoms
To take cherry blossom cuttings, the first step is selecting the cutting material: use a robust mother tree as the basis, cut a branch that has already grown for more than one year from the crown of the mother tree, keep the top shoot of the cut branch, cut it into a cutting about 15 cm long, and then cut the base of the cutting into a slanted end to make insertion easier.
Next, soak the cut branch for about 3 hours. Prepare the cutting bed; the cutting bed's environment should be sheltered from wind and facing the sun, and the cutting bed should have good drainage performance. When inserting the cutting, insert it into the soil at a plant spacing of about 5 cm.
Finally, carry out management after cutting: water first, then cover tightly with film. Do this once every morning. During management, the temperature should be kept warm and constant. As for watering, in the early stage water enough, and you can water heavily. After rooting, ventilate once in the morning and once in the evening. When the cutting has grown to a certain size, transplant it.
After transplanting, reduce the amount of watering. After transplanting into a pot or field, water heavily, water thoroughly, and provide shade.
Or first transplant the cutting into a nutrient pot, water it enough, cover with film, pay attention to shading and moisture retention, and ventilate morning and evening. After about 10 days, open the film and expose it to sunlight. Then transplant it into the field or into pot soil.
Alright, this way your cherry blossoms can be propagated by cuttings, and it will also bring you more offspring of your cherry blossoms. Today the editor will tell you just this much. Be sure to do it as required!
How to improve the survival rate of red-leaf cherry blossom cuttings
Red-leaf cherry blossom is a variety of the magnificent cherry blossom, belonging to the Rosaceae family. It is a deciduous small tree with purple-red leaves for three seasons, and large pink double flowers. In early spring the unfolding leaves are deep red, from May to July the leaves are bright red, later the old leaves gradually turn deep purple, and in late autumn when frost comes the leaves turn orange-red; cherry blossoms are famous flowering trees, and red-leaf cherry blossom can be enjoyed both for flowers and for foliage. It is a precious ornamental colored-leaf tree species used in landscape gardens and urban greening to replace purple-leaf sand cherry and red-leaf plum. It is distributed across North China, East China, South China, the Central Plains region, and most areas of Northeast and Northwest China, where it has a broad tradition of planting. Answer from the Technical Department of Hangzhou Xiaoshan Lvyuan Nursery Stock Delivery Co., Ltd.: The most effective method for rapid propagation of red-leaf cherry blossom is to use grafting cultivation techniques. If larger-sized mountain cherry trees, hairy cherry trees, or cherry trees are used for scion grafting or bud grafting, after only two to three years of cultivation they can take shape and achieve a good landscape effect. The grafting time for red-leaf cherry blossom has different requirements depending on the method used. In general, when the scion method is used, the best time in areas south of the Yangtze River basin is from December each year to before February of the following year. The grafting technique is briefly introduced below.1. Preparation of grafting materials (1) Binding strips: choose plastic film of suitable thickness and strong elasticity (able to gradually shrink back to its original shape after being stretched), roll it into more than ten layers, and use cutting scissors to cut it into strips about 0.8 cm wide. After cutting, cut them into small sections about 10 cm long, tie them into small bundles, and set aside for use. (2) Other supplies: ① Wet cloth: used to cover, transport, and temporarily store scions. ② Small bottle or jar: used to temporarily hold scions during grafting so as to prevent the scions from losing water, taking them out as needed.
2. Preparation of scion materials (1) Scion collection: choose current-year shoots that are pure in variety, robust in growth, bright in color, and free from pests and diseases. The best collection time is early morning. When cutting the scion, the cut should be smooth, and do not damage the bark of the scion. The collected scions should immediately be wrapped in a wet cloth. When bundling and transporting, be careful to avoid bruising and scraping the scions.
(2) Scion storage: ① Place the bundled scions with the tips pointing upward into a woven bag, tie a rope to the bag, and hang it in a well. First dip the base of the scions in the water, then lift them away from the water surface. Generally they can be stored for about one week. ② Dig a pit in a shaded place, with length and width just enough to hold the scions, bury them with moist soil, and cover the top with weeds for shade. They can also be stored for about one week. ③ When there are few scions, you can also use a washbasin with half a basin of clean water, immerse the bases of the scions in the water, and store them in a cool place, changing the water once every 1 to 2 days. They can be stored for several days.
3. Bud grafting (1) Select a plump, fresh bud in the middle of the scion. Make a horizontal cut 0.5 cm above the bud (when cutting, use the knife to roll the scion less than half a circle), deep enough to reach the xylem, then cut obliquely upward from about 0.8 cm below the bud, gradually deepening while including the xylem, and stop the knife when reaching the upper horizontal cut of the bud (during the operation, do not grip the stick too tightly so as to avoid injuring other buds). Gently pinch both sides of the bud with the thumb and index finger, slowly break off the bud bark, and do not pinch and injure the bud body. The removed bud body is shield-shaped, about 1.2 to 1.5 cm long and about 0.5 to 0.7 cm wide. On the inner side of the bud piece, two points can be clearly seen: the lower one is the petiole attachment point, and the upper one is the bud growth point. Any whose bud growth point has turned black, brown, or yellow, or has fallen off or been scraped, cannot be used. (2) Rootstock: when using a large-sized plant as the rootstock, it must first be pruned as a whole according to the shaping requirements before grafting. The pruning cuts should be bound with film to prevent water evaporation. After branch training treatment, choose the grafting site according to actual needs, and then carry out the specific grafting operation. The specific steps are as follows:
Step one: choose a smooth, node-free spot 10 to 15 cm below the pruning cut and make a horizontal cut (with the blade slightly rolled less than half a circle), just enough to cut through the bark layer without injuring the xylem. Then from the horizontal cut, cut vertically downward 1.5 cm (slightly longer than the bud) to the same depth as the horizontal cut, forming a T shape. Then use the knife to twist left and right along the vertical cut to pry open the bark.
Step two: while prying open the bark with the knife, pinch the bud with the left hand, gently press the rootstock down into a slant, and insert the bud while prying with the knife. When inserting the bud, do not rub it against the rootstock, so as to protect the growth point, and make the upper plane of the bud fit tightly with the upper plane of the T-shaped opening of the rootstock.
Step three: once grafting is complete, bind it with plastic strips. Requirements: first, tie it tightly so that the bud and rootstock are closely combined with no gaps. Second, make it tight and sealed; the T-shaped opening must be wrapped tightly and not exposed. This can prevent water evaporation, help the bud survive, and also prevent pests from laying eggs in the wound, whose hatched larvae bore and cause damage, leading to the death of the bud. Third, be quick; this is the key to graft survival. The exposure time of the bud should be minimized as much as possible, and operating skill should be made proficient to increase grafting speed. When binding, pinch one end of the binding strip with the left hand, wind it two or three turns downward from the upper end of the T-shaped opening so as to cover the lower cut, then wind upward in a spiral so that the upper and lower layers overlap, and then cross the two ends of the binding strip upward, pull them tight, and tie a knot. The advantage of this binding method is that it can prevent rainwater from entering and causing bud rot, and the knot of the binding strip can also be cut off together with the rootstock pruning, without the need for special unbinding, saving time and labor.