Winter cuttings on BBC Radio Leicester

/ karen

If you were listening in to BBC Radio Leicester on Tuesday, you’ll have heard me talking about taking winter, or hardwood cuttings. We were taking dogwood cuttings this time.

Here’s the link at 1.26 on the i player timeline.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gv6761?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I use dogwood in almost all of my jam jar posies for my mum. It makes a lovely vertical accent, and helps to support the weaker flower stems. Here stems are supporting paperwhite narcissi and daffodils and tulips from the cut flower patch. These are Dutch Grown bulbs.

My favourite dogwood is the bright red Westonbirt which really glows all winter with sunlight behind it.

Here it is with Dahlia David Howard, persicaria, sedum and grasses. I love the red stems shining out and glowing in the jam jar water.

This time, the jam jar flowers are chrysanthemums and salvias set off with grey-leaved senecio viravira and golden oak leaves which dry and can be used all winter.

More dahlias including a red unnamed seedling, Alstromeria Indian Summer and cosmos Psyche White grown from Mr Fothergill’s seeds.

Salvia Phyllis’s Fancy, chrysanthemum Swan and the last of the dahlias and rudbeckia. And a tiny sprig of orange abutilon at the front.

Dogwoods have fabulous berries which look like pearls.

Birds love the berries and they last well into December.

These are the beautiful flowers that turn into berries. Pollinators love them.

Some dogwoods have variegated leaves as well as red stems.

Hedgerows surrounding my garden are planted with the wild dogwood which turns purple in autumn.

This is Midwinter Flame, sometimes sold as Midwinter Fire. It has orange stems and golden foliage in the autumn, as well as a beautiful layered arrangement of branches which look spectacular with frost and snow on them.

I have several of these planted around the garden and they require less pruning than Westonbirt which is pruned down to 12” every March just before leaves start to unfurl.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this diversion from the cold and incessant rain -is it ever going to stop raining!

How to take cuttings.

1. Choose healthy, pest free, undamaged stems about the width of a pencil.

2. Cuttings should be about 12” long. Long lengths can be chopped into several cuttings.

3. Cut straight across below a pair of buds where there’s a concentration of hormones just waiting to make roots. Cut at an angle at the top of the cutting which will help rain run off and also helps identify top and bottom.

4. Insert them into a deep pot of 50/50 compost and horticultural grit. push the stems right into the compost so that only an inch of stem is showing.

5. Place the pot in a cold frame or under the eaves of a house where they will get some protection from rain. Next November, lift the cuttings to see how they are progressing and pot up into individual containers.

If you have a spare piece of garden, you can also make a slit trench for cuttings. Choose a well-drained spot, push the spade into the ground and move it forward to create a little gap. Drizzle sharp sand or grit along the base of the trench. Insert the cuttings leaving only an 1” above ground. Push the earth back to cover the cuttings. Dogwoods, or cornus to use their proper name, come in red, yellow, black and orange stem colours. You can really never have enough of them.

This technique is suitable for nearly all garden shrubs, and also some trees such as willow, poplar and plane trees. We took cuttings of viburnum, rose, lonicera, blackcurrant and box last autumn and most of them rooted, saving money and giving us something enjoyable to do out in the garden in winter. Thanks for reading the blog and for listening in to the radio show. You are amongst the 3,000 people viewing the blog each month, something that has made me smile today! I’m quite amazed to be honest!

Please do leave a comment in the box below and press subscribe to receive updates from the blog.

Do have a look over at Cathy’s blog for ‘In a Vase on Monday’ meme which is where the jam jar posies for my mum appear on a regular basis.

https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2023/12/11/in-a-vase-in-monday-a-mixed-bag-of-anticipation/

Some useful links : Dutch Grown Bulbs

https://bramblegarden.com/2021/12/04/info-from-todays-bbc-radio-leicester-gardening-show-saturday-4-december-2021/

Taylors Bulbs:

https://bramblegarden.com/2019/04/13/fields-of-gold-and-white-taylors-daffodil-day-2019/

I recommend the following for courses. Vouchers make a lovely Christmas present.

https://www.commonfarmflowers.com/

I buy from and recommend Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants :

https://www.hardysplants.co.uk/

Also Mary Thomas at:

http://www.piecemealplants.co.uk/

Thank you again. Happy Gardening!

20 thoughts on “Winter cuttings on BBC Radio Leicester”

  3. I agree about the usefulness of cornus stems, particularly over the next few months. Don’t think I have ever seen berries on mine, but there again I have rarely seen any blooms so it’s not surprising!

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  4. Your garden, along with others I often see from my WP reader supply you with such ample cut flowers for several bouquets – My garden is still maturing, so if I went out and cut that many flowers for bouquets, I wouldn’t have a flower left in the garden. This has been a near constant quandary for me. Even our Cornus bushes are such that a similar fate would befall me – Having seen the hedges you have, much was explained in those photos. Huge bushes! Possibly in some distant gardening year I will have ‘enough’ flowers that I can have them both outside and inside!

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    • Ah, thank you Kate. I must admit, I only cut three stems from my dogwoods for each posy, but I do have many in the garden having started with just one and taken cuttings over the winter. A lot of thought goes into making sure I’ve got flowers to pick every week of the year. I utilise my greenhouse, poly tunnel and window ledges inside the potting shed. Plus I manipulate flowers and bulbs to flower over a long period by holding them back or forcing them. For example, I pot up bulbs once a week so they come into flower at different times. Perhaps it would be helpful to share my calendar of how I do this. Anyway, thank you for reading my blog and for taking the time to reply. I’m happy for you to ask any questions any time. I started small with just a few plants tears ago and built up my supply of cut flowers so I would have enough to give to my mother in law Joan who sadly passed away last spring after suffering from dementia. The flowers brightened her life and kept us connected. Now I give them to my mum who is unable to visit my garden now. Have a lovely weekend and thanks again for reading the blog. Karen

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