Geranium is the favorite of many gardeners who prefer domestic plants, due to its unpretentiousness, not only in terms of its content, but also methods of reproduction.
One of the simplest is the cutting method. The article will look at how to grow a geranium from a cutting at home, the ways of rooting the cutting and when it can be transplanted into a pot.
Is it possible to plant like this?
Due to the ability of the geranium to survive and continue to grow even in adverse conditions for this, it can be propagated without the use of roots. But generally There are three ways to propagate this crop:
- seeds;
- division of the roots;
- grafting.
The first method takes too much time and patience, because in order to germinate the seeds, you need to provide strictly defined conditions, the second is rather risky, because gentle roots in the process of dividing them are very easy to damage, but the third, cuttings, is preferred by most people involved in the cultivation and breeding of geraniums.
The main advantage of this method is the ability to propagate the plant and not touch its roots, which guarantees complete safety of the mother plant.
What is a cutting, how to choose and prepare it correctly?
A shoot, or stalk, is a cut off part of a plant with one or more nodes. This cut-off part is exactly the same and is used for vegetative propagation (grafting). In order to get a new geranium, completely identical to the previous one, first of all you need to choose this cutting.
When do you need to take a stalk from the mother flower to plant and grow a young plant? The maternal plant should be well developed and completely healthy, ideally it should be 2 - 3 years. You need to choose the tip cuttings of the mother geranium. This process should be 7–8 cm long, have one or more nodes (buds, growth points) and 3–5 leaflets. If leaves remain at the base of the cutting, they should be carefully removed.
If the branches of the process are of the same length as she, then it is necessary to cut them off, and then you can use them as independent cuttings. And the ready processes are left in the air so that the cut sites dry out. If several hours later they were dragged out with a thin film, it means that everything went well and the cuttings are ready for the next stage.
Some growers recommend sprinkling the cut areas with crushed activated carbon and leaving cuttings in a dark place for a day.
How to carry out the procedure?
The cut-off processes do not yet have the roots, which are necessary for the development of a full-fledged geranium, therefore, after their preparation, rooting of the cuttings is necessary. This can be done in water or immediately in the finished substrate.
Rooting cuttings in water
How to propagate the plant by placing the cutting in water? The main advantage of this method is the possibility to observe the process from the beginning to the end and not to miss the moment when roots will appear in the process and it can already be planted in the substrate.
Prepare a transparent container of small size (disposable cups are perfect).- Pour into the tank distilled water at room temperature to about half a cup (5 cm).
- Dip processes in the water.
- Change the water 1 time in 2 days.
- About a week later (during this period, the first roots should appear), transplant the rooted cuttings into the prepared substrate in a container of a suitable size.
Prepare a transparent container of small size (disposable cups are perfect).Rooting in water also has its own significant disadvantage: sometimes the cutting decay even before it takes root, and in order to prevent this, the growers strongly recommend adding crushed activated carbon to it each time when replacing water for decontamination.
Using this method, you can get beautiful and healthy geraniums.
Rooting in the ground
Is it possible to plant a stalk without roots immediately in the ground? Due to rooting in the soil, you can not be afraid of rotting processes, as this happens extremely rarely, but you will not be able to see when the roots appear, which sometimes causes the planting material to deteriorate so that it begins to transplant ahead of time. How to plant can be read in the instructions:
Prepare a substrate of garden soil and peat.- Lay the prepared soil in a small container, moisten it plentifully and compact well.
- Choose a place with sufficient diffused lighting. Cuttings do not like the scorching rays.
- Place a scion in the substrate at a depth of 4 - 5 cm and again condense the earth around it.
- Waiting for new leaves to appear on the cuttings means that he has successfully taken root and is ready for transplanting into a full-fledged pot. It will take about a month.
Prepare a substrate of garden soil and peat.Pot transplanting: when and how?
Rooting the cuttings of geranium in the water on average takes no more than a week, so after 7 days immediately, as soon as the roots appear, you need to transplant the plant so that it starts to fully grow.
The cutting that is placed in the soil gives roots only after a month, but unlike the method with water, the roots will not rot, therefore the probability of obtaining a new plant is very high.
- Remove the stalk from the water or the ground.
- Prepare the substrate: 2 part of sod land, 1 - sand, 1 - humus, 1 - sheet.
- Choose a container of the correct size: shallow and rather wide, because geraniums have a superficial root system.
- Lay on the bottom of the pot good drainage.
- Place the primer in the container and moisten it.
- Plant the sprout in the substrate and slightly compact the ground around it.
- Place the plant pot on a well-lit window sill.
The stalk rooted in water is transplanted in a week, and the one in the ground in a month.
Terms presented above are approximate.therefore, the first step is to look at how the process develops.
When can you multiply a flower in this way?
It is possible to propagate geranium by cutting all year round, but flower growers are of the opinion that it is better not to touch the plant during the rest period (mid-autumn - end of winter), because at this time it is very vulnerable, and therefore the mother geranium can die. Therefore, the most optimal period is spring, when the geranium begins the growing season and it is still full of previously accumulated forces.
The reproduction of such a plant as geranium is a fairly simple process that anyone can take on it. A proper and timely care of the rooted plant will help him to please the eye with its attractive and aesthetic appearance.
