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Post by chrysanthemum on Jan 27, 2022 11:32:31 GMT -6
Beautiful!
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Post by macmex on Jan 30, 2022 19:29:19 GMT -6
Thirty days from taking the initial cuttings. I took this photo yesterday. The green fuzzy things on the soil are flower buds I pinched off of the cuttings. They ought not be allowed to try to mature fruit, seeing as they don't have roots, or enough roots, to do this.
I removed the plastic dome for a few hours and perceived that the cuttings were beginning to wilt, so I replaced it.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 1, 2022 17:48:26 GMT -6
George,
Have you seen the upcoming weather forecast? Yesterday was 70 degrees, and it was so nice today that I drove around Tahlequah all afternoon with my windows rolled down, but starting tomorrow (Wednesday, February 2nd) the bottom is going to start falling out of the thermometer and supposedly only be about 3 or 4 degrees by early Saturday morning. Wednesday night is forecast to be a 100% chance of snow and only be around 12 degrees by shortly after midnight. So be sure to get all of your tender cuttings away from the windows before the bad stuff starts moving in.
Which reminds me. I laid a piece of Ginseng Orange sweet potato in a gallon bucket of soil last Autumn, around October, and completely forgot about where I had laid it. Yesterday afternoon, I saw that I have a really beautiful sweet potato vine growing from the potato that I misplaced. Those things are amazing! I never watered it or anything, it just took off on its own accord because of sunlight creeping through the Southern windows in my unheated Summer kitchen. I'd better go get that thing somewhere more sheltered before the storm arrives or it will be toast later.
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Post by macmex on Feb 3, 2022 10:07:30 GMT -6
I moved them before the cold hit. Thanks, though, for the heads up. I've forgotten before and lost stuff in the window.
Ginseng Orange is one of those varieties that sprouts by Christmas, no matter how it's stored. Still, it will be usable up until the summer after harvest. It's a good one!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 27, 2022 15:23:51 GMT -6
Today's nasty, cold, wet, muddy, muck was perfect for pounding a steel rod into the ground to make holes for planting the mulberry cuttings that George brought me yesterday. I got them all planted in a matter of about an hour. The hardest part about it was choosing where to punch the holes.
Maybe, in another decade or so, I'll have some good, healthy, heavily-producing mulberry trees around here.
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Post by macmex on Feb 27, 2022 16:21:58 GMT -6
If I recall, I planted my first tree as a 2 1/2' twig and a year later it was nearly 10' tall. I think we got a few berries the second season and after that we were getting A LOT of mulberries. Within five years most of the berries produced were out of our reach, just ripening and falling to the ground where the poultry ate them. If these take I suspect you'll have a sizable harvest starting in about 3 years.
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Post by macmex on Apr 22, 2022 9:19:12 GMT -6
Well, my cuttings have flopped again. Here's a photo of my last pot of cuttings, on March 10. They looked promising.
Here's the same pot now.
I felt I had to remove the plastic cover because they were touching it and it looked like they would mold. Yet no matter what I do with watering, they always dry up shortly after leafing out.
The aeroponic buckets seem to have failed as well. I bet my back porch is too dry and gets too warm at times.
I cut some 2 1/2' to 3' branches off the mulberry tree when we pruned in February. They were thick as my index finger. I gave some to Ron (heavyhitterokra) and he stuck them in the ground, like he does elderberry cuttings. I did the same with one in my back yard. We'll see. Mine is budding now and looks very promising.
I'm also going to try air layering. Last year that failed for me but I read one should use hard wood for it. I used tender green sprouts which all aborted.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 22, 2022 18:52:11 GMT -6
George,
All the cuttings that I planted straight into the ground look just like the one in your last photo. They are just now beginning to bud out and look very promising too. We'll just have to wait to see if they form roots and take off or if they just live off the wood until all the sugar is gone.
It would be my guess, since they stood dormant for so long before putting on buds, that they may have spent that time forming roots before budding? A long period of cold weather is probably exactly what they needed to give them a chance to do that.
I know, that if I start cuttings of elderberry in warm weather, they form leaves right away and live off the wood rather than forming roots. Then, when summer comes they die. But if I plant cuttings in the soil in late January, or early February, they form roots before they leaf out and do very well when summer arrives.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 22, 2022 21:03:20 GMT -6
I hope that cutting in the ground continues to do well for you. I’m sorry that the others don’t seem to have taken off. I sympathize. I thought that my two little olive cuttings that stayed green all winter had perhaps rooted, but both have since let their leaves brown and die.
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Post by macmex on Apr 23, 2022 6:02:05 GMT -6
Well, such is the learning curve. I'm just trying to keep folk informed. I dislike leaving something hanging, especially when it might mislead someone into thinking that I've been having great success, when in fact I haven't.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 8, 2022 13:44:27 GMT -6
George,
So far, all of the mulberry cuttings that you gave me are still doing well. I just drove a 1/2" inch piece of rebar into the soil about 18" inches deep, then pulled it out and placed one cutting into each hole as you instructed. Then, I tamped the soil around the cutting, using the 3 pound hammer that I drove the rebar with.
I don't remember how long ago that was, but I think it has been long enough that surely they would have died by now if they were going to? Hope, hope ...
However, none of the thornless blackberry cuttings that I potted up are still alive. They all leafed out and lived off the sugars in their wood, then perished shortly after potting them. The only ones that made it were the ones that I bent over and covered their tips with soil, rather than severing them from the main vine at pruning time. This also worked for me when I bent the vines over and placed the tip ends in various pots. Once they took root, I snipped them from the parent plant and they lived just fine. Live and learn I guess. (The trick for me is in remembering this lesson into the next season).
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Post by macmex on Jun 15, 2022 8:28:16 GMT -6
Well, so far I've had 100% failure on making a mulberry cutting. Even the large, thick piece I stuck in the ground dried up and died last week. I had been watering when necessary too. I'd like to try an airlayering but time is so hard to find these days, I'm not sure I'll get to it this year.
On the other hand, here's an amazing example of resilience. This is a Pakistani Mulberry (at least that's what I think it is). Hank gave it to me during the winter of 2020. He had purchased it in 2019 and let it dry out. It died down and appeared to be dead, but at some point it got wet again and sprouted a ... mulberry branch! Hank asked the nursery if it had been grafted and they responded that if it sprouted at all, it was still the Pakistani mulberry which they had sent him. In other words, they don't graft them.
Hank gave it to me and I had it sitting in my carport, waiting to plant, come spring. But in February of 2021 (I think) we had subzero temps and I forgot that it was sitting out there. That spring it didn't sprout. The twig was dead. I set it in my garden by the spigot, hoping it would sprout again, but it didn't. By mid summer (2021) I simply forgot about it. This spring I found the pot buried in weeds and pulled it out, noticing that there was a green twig sprouting from it. At first I thought, "It's a box elder. Those things come up everywhere!" But as I examined it, I've come to the conclusion that it's that Pakistani Mulberry! If so, that's one TOUGH tree! We had super cold weather this last winter and it was laying out there, without being watered.
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Post by macmex on Jul 5, 2022 18:59:01 GMT -6
News flash! I thought my Illinois Ever bearing mulberry cutting was dead, so this evening I carried the Pakistani mulberry over there and decided to plant it in its place. Wouldn't you know, when I dug up the Illinois River bearing cutting it had begun to sprout! I put it back as quickly as I could and watered it in well, however I suspect I may have killed it. I'll just have to wait and see.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 5, 2022 20:31:32 GMT -6
That gives me new hope for the poor little cuttings that I thought were doing so well here. This 100+ weather coupled with the winds and cloudless days has curled the leaves on all of the cuttings, making me think they had perished. I watered them, so the roots might stand a chance, but the sun has baked the leaves off despite my best efforts. Who knows, maybe, they just went dormant instead?
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Post by macmex on Jul 6, 2022 9:17:27 GMT -6
I wish I had taken a photo but I was too distressed at having dug up a living mulberry cutting. The branch had withered and dried all the way down to about 6" under the soil level but there were sprouts coming from a leaf node, below that. The branch was green at the bottom. After what I saw with this and with the Pakistani Mulberry think I wouldn't give up on such a cutting until fall. I'd just water to keep it moist and wait and see.
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