No-Clue, I just bought the big Wildfire from Emerson, I am going to pick it up Saturday. That means I can send the 14 inch Wild Fire that was rooted 3-11-11 to you. I paid for 3 plants plus freight $100, so I think I paid $30 for it. Is that ok? I will mail it out to you on Monday, it is in a pot right now enjoying the Texas sun. I am so excited. On the paypal bill, Emerson noted it is the largest plant he was taking to the PSA sale, 4ft tall. I will take a picture of it, and get my son to email it to someone so they can post it on the forum. I just need to get my hubby to remove my cars back seat, so I can get it home. Barbra

First make sure you have Virginia creeper. What I have good luck with is layering. This way it is still attached to its mother plant, it’s well established before cutting loose and you get better success. I do a lot of this with shrubs using a low lying branch, and with all kinds of vines. Also layering with all kinds of trees like magnolias but it’s done a little different because you want to have a straight growing tree so once rooted, you cut loose and put in pot. But you can find lots of information on all kinds of layering. Get a large wide shallow pot (like a bulb pot) or a deep potting tray and some u-shaped hair pins or some type of horticultural pins so you can pin the vine in place. You can even get a low gauge aluminum wire, cut them the right length, bend and make your own. Even rocks can hold the length in place. Mix up 50-50 or 75% construction/river sand (not beach) with 25% Miracle Grow or my favorite is ProMix basic potting soil. I like the ones with biofungicide and mycorrhizae but no fertilizer. ProMix I know has been pH adjusted to around 6-6.5 which is typical for many plants. Miracle Grow probably has too. The two items in potting soil besides a little perlite is bark and peat Moss — both are highly acidic so decent companies will pH adjust the mix with dolomite lime (provides calcium and magnesium). 6-6.5 is too high for blueberries (like 4-4.5 and lower pH), and too low for asparagus (like 7+,pH) but will work for most anything in between. Put in a bucket, mix and add water little by little until damp - not soggy just wet that sand gets dark and packs. The moistened sand helps hold cuttings in place and the potting soil hold a little moisture. Drainage is important. If you tend to forget watering, use 50/50 mix. If you can remember to lightly mist the tray once a day use the 75/25 higher sand. Fill your tray or pot 1/2-3/4 full. The location in terms of hot and sunny, or cool, shady and damp will determine how often you need to water or just mist the tray. Remember it’s still attached to its mother. You do not need fertilizer as the plant is being fed by the mother plant. Fertilizer may even burn where the roots form along the stem. Normally these would be growing up on a fence or along a tree providing support. Do feed and water your mother plant however you normally do. In the case of Virginia creeper, you won’t need to worry about fertilizer if it’s already growing well but don’t forget water if it’s dry. Never use a sick or unhealthy plant to try and make cuttings or for layering. If using a deep (3-4”)tray, fill the tray half to 3/4 full, take a long piece of the vine with foliage in place and lay it out the length of the tray on the mix and pin in multiple places. The node areas need to stay close to the sand and once rootlets start to appear, misting is helpful so they don’t dry out. The rootlets form anyway with Virginia creeper unlike other plants are vine that don’t usually root along the stem. So as long as they are touching the soil, they should be okay but it’s best if they aren’t flopping around, etc. and once they are rooting, staying moist keeps them growing faster. Put the rest of the potting mix in and don’t cover your leaves, just use your fingers to work around those and firmly press the sand in place over the vine area. Note, if the length of vine you choose has lots of long offshoots (more than couple inches) pinch them back to around 2-3” so the energy can be forced into the stem making new roots. Once the length of vine has firmly rooted in the tray where it doesn’t shift or move around, you can let the off shots grow a little longer and pin those in place too so they begin to root in the soil. You can also use small rocks to help hold the length of vine in place if the pins aren’t holding. You can place one length of vine in the middle longways of the tray or place two lengths evenly spaced. I like to do one down the middle so I can leave it in the tray longer to get established before cutting and moving to a pot or even a planting bed so there is more room to pin offshoots. It won’t take but a 4-6 weeks for the length of vine to start rooting along the length and then it will start to stay in place well. DO NOT CUT IT LOOSE FROM THE MOTHER PLANT. This is what keeps the vine alive and fed and growing. Instead of rooting to the ground, it’s rooting in your tray. You will have better success if you keep the sand mix misted especially if you don’t get rain on a regular basis. You don’t want to rot it but letting the new forming rootlets dry out will delay healthy plants starting. It will eventually get there but just a little slower. But overwatering will cause the stem to rot and you get nothing which is why I say misting. Depending on whether you are doing this from a vine growing along the ground or up a fence will determine where you set the tray. Just don’t put where there are dogs, critters to dig up or at your tray. Put stakes around the tray if you think critters may run through it. Once the nodes have put out good healthy root system and don’t pull loose from the mix, you can then (if you are ready), cut the stem from the mother plant. At this point you can place it in a shady place but up where it’s easier to water because now it’s dependent on you. You can leave it connected to the mother for 5-6 months or more. I have left for a year or more, covering with pine tags (not mulch) in the winter right down on the ground. It might start to root to the ground but you can cut loose easily enough. But once it is firmly attached and each node is pushing new shoots you are ready to cut the length of vine into individual plants or plant as a whole section. Note, when you initially placed the length of vine, leave the tip alone until it starts to put out rootlets at the individual nodes. Then keep the tip pitched back to force the growth into the nodes between the tip and the mother plant. Just pinch it out. When you are ready to make individual plants, you have a couple of choices here. You can figure how many nodes have rooted well and use one-two sections in each pot to let them continue to grow on until good and bushy and healthy and plant as typical if you bought in a nursery. You can let them grow in the tray until it has filled the tray up and then just take the tray and slip the matte of rooted plants out in one piece and lay into a well prepared bed where you want new vine to take hold. Don’t cut it up, or disturb, just jiggle down into the freshly dug soil, firm up, and water. Lightly, lightly cover with soil - don’t cover your foliage and don’t rot your stems with mulch or deep soil. If you keep it watered (based on its location, temps, soil type), it will take hold and roots will go deeper in the ground and if you have given it something to climb on, it’s off to a good start. Come late fall, early winter, cover with pine tags to help protect from cold. After a year or so, it will be just fine on its own. If doing your initial layering on the ground, you can use a basket type tray one that doesn’t have solid sides or bottom, it’s open weave type. You see these at nurseries holding small 2-3” pots and the water runs through. These are different than trays with holes in the bottom, these have slats or like lattice type sides and bottom. You can set it on the ground where there are a couple of good lengths of vine to layer. Fill 1/2-3/4 way. Place the length of vine, finish covering, etc as above. But just let it grow until it has started to root to the ground. DO NOT CUT LOOSE FROM MOTHER PLANT until ready to move. Once it is rooted through and filled up the tray with offshoots of vine, then pull it up (you may need to use a bread type knife to slice the roots from the earth the tray if it won’t gently pull up. I prefer to gently work it loose so I can keep as much root as possible. Sometimes it’s so full and so well rooted you can’t. It’s best to try and every moth or so move the tray around so it doesn’t get a firm grip straight down in the native soil but just along it. When ready to plant elsewhere, cut loose from mother plant, just take the whole basket tray and set down in the well prepared area, jiggle around in the fresh soil, firm up, sprinkle a little of the soil on top and between the foliage and water. Because there are no solid sides or bottom, there is no reason to disturb, plant tray basket and all. The vine will continue to grow and root until the tray is firmly in place and in fact covering the tray til it disappears. You just leave it in place. This process is similar when you have ever set a pot down on the ground and come back months later and find the roots have gone down through the bottom of the pot and are growing into the soil, or have grown daylilies or seedlings etc in a tray, set it on the ground, forgot about it and the plastic has broken up and the plants just keep growing into the dirt. I have a daylily was in a 4-5” pot, I set it down by the front porch, hadn’t decided where to put it and before I knew it I lost the pot in the jungle of other plants and forgot about it. Several years later, I was pulling some weeds, and hit a large piece of the pot still there. I was like well you were determined to grow - it grew off the walk into the soil next to it. The hardy geranium had spread to the walkway and around the pot. Just lost it in the jungle. It’s a very large plant now. If I move it, it might decide to die out of spite.😝 You can also do pots the same way, using a 6-8” shallow clay pot so it stays in place. Pin a length of vine across the top, do as above lightly covering the stem but leaving the foliage uncovered so it can photosynthesize and continue to grow. Again, leave it attached to the mother plant. I have done one section across the top, and took another vine and gone across the first one (think of a cross) and pinned in place several places so firmly in place - attached to the mother plant off two stems. You can actually do multiple pots all around the mother plant layering them in pots. When ready, just pull up, cut from the mother plant and put where you can tend them until ready for their new home. Good luck.

Mine has grown just over a foot this year. I fertilized when I planted them early in the spring. I kept them watered all summer. I mulched heavily. I'm in 7b. There's one down the street from me that's maybe 12' tall. It's many years old. I assume it was here when the 20+ inches of snow fell on NC several years back. It looks great today. The only other experience I've had with them is in zone 8. I'm right on the border depending on which map you look at. Last year, we had plenty of below freezing nights, but only 3 hard frosts. Our last frost was in mid-April while Charlotte (45 minutes west) had a few more including one in early May. I'm hoping that by planting them near my brick house, with full sun until about 2pm, I can keep them from too much damage.

I wonder if it is an easy thing to root European beech cultivars from cuttings. Where I live (The Netherlands) all the cultivars are grafted and I've never seen young plants that were propagated from cuttings. Propagation through cuttings is much more cheaper than grafting so why do professional growers keep on propagating European beech cultivars like 'Tri Color' 'Asplenifolia' and 'Rohanni' through grafting? One of the few answers I can think off is that the success rate of propagating European beech cultivars through cuttings is low and that grafting makes more economical sense. Can someone from the USA tell me if professional American growers propagate European beech cultivars through cuttings? Also, are there gardeners who have been able to root European beech cuttings without a professional setup (bottom heat, misting system, rooting hormone)?