Success!

Unbelievable but the cuttings in the water glass rooted first! I discovered the tender roots today by accident! There are 4 cuttings left in the glass that have yet to grow roots.

I also went and checked the cuttings I transfered into a green house and they didn't recover from being unprotected for a prolonged time.

The single cutting that went into the greenhouse right away is still doing just fine but no roots yet.

It's not looking good...

I divided the cuttings into three batches to see which method would cause the least damage to the cuttings and/or would produce the best results:

1. Stick them in water
2. Dip in rooting hormone and stick in soil

3. Dip in rooting hormone and stick in soil in a green house

 

#1 and #2 produced mixed results: some cutting went completely brown and died, the rest developed yellow leaves.

 

#3 worked best so far; the cutting didn't yellow and there is new growth - no roots yet.

 

After a few days I took batch #2 and moved them into green houses, but the yellowing continued. I'm not giving up on it yet because the dracaenas yellow as well before they start rooting. Once it stops yellowing, the plant starts growing roots.

 

My conclusion so far: Gardenia cuttings experience the least damage, if at all, when kept in the little green houses.

 

Gardenias

My Mother In Law has a huge Gardenia bush on the east side of her house and I took some cuttings of it today.

I'm in uncharted territory here, I've never handled gardenias.

My Mother In Law suggested I root all the cuttings in water. "Just stick 'em in a glass of water and forget about them." That's what I did with half the cuttings. The other half went in a pot with growing medium. I couldn't find a large enough plastic cover for the pot though.

I'm thinking I might have to re-pot them tomorrow to be able to use my soda bottle greenhouse to get around misting them constantly. I'm curious to see which method works best.