as long as there are tiny buds on the stem you can cut back very far, well till to those buds. And thinning out in the process. I treated 3 very overgrown specimen that way, pruning in spring with the occasional frost at night. I reduced them from almost 3 feet diameter to about 8 inches , and they all came back with great new shoots. prunig harder will give you bushy plants for quite a long time. Some swear the best time to do it is right after flowering. If done regularly, you then just take off about a half of the new growth (of the stuff under the flower stalks) . Not sure about the timing in your region. Hope that helps, bye, Lin

They will have to be tented unless you have a mist system. They are reliable rooters but usually take at least a month, even with bottom heat. Al

I followed this advice which I gathered from various places, including garden web. But I am not sure of the time frame. I think I may have moved my lavendar cuttings too soon from the soil/water mix to all soil. However, they are still hanging on, and I am keeping them humid by spraying them daily. The advice says to keep the soil very moist, but I am not sure for how long.... What's the best way to move plants rooted in water to soil? I LOVE the idea of rooting things in water, but a few times I tried this and got roots, but the plants perished when I moved them to a pot. Could someone give me a few pointers on what I might have done wrong. Many thanks. Eileen -------------------- calistoga_al ca 15 usda 9 - Partially fill the pot with your mix, hold your rooted plant by the foliage and keep the roots just on the top of the soil. While holding in this position add more soil to the level desired. Lightly firm the soil. Set the pot in a bath of slightly warm water about halfway up the pot. Leave until the surface of the soil glissons from the water. Remove pot and put in shady area for a few days. Al -------------------- The info Calistoga provided is very good. If you don't succeed doing it this way, try dipping the delicate roots into a thin mud slurry first before inserting in the soil. This apparently protects the thin plant hairs. You might also try just gently sprinkling the soil over the roots and not tamping it down, and then misting the soil thoroughly to prevent the roots from breaking off. Make sure you keep them in shade or cover them with a plant propagator hood for the first few days to keep the humidity high. -------------------- bubba62 Yet another method is to leave the plants in water (you might want to put them in individual containers) and add coarse sand or fine aquarium gravel (anything that won't float or absorb water) until the roots are covered. Then allow the water level to decrease via evaporation until the plants adapt to the solid substrate, at which point it's an easy transfer to soil in a pot. ----------------------- I rarely do any rooting in water but I use bubba62's procedure if I want to plant one in soil that has been rooted in water. Soil roots are stronger than water roots. April, trim the roots to a manageable length, then pot up according to the good directions in the previous posts. Hydro to soil or vise versa can be a difficult task, a simple way to avoid problems is to treat the plant as if it was a cutting/clone. Immediately after transplant place a clear plastic bag with a few holes in it over the plant, after a few days make some more holes in the bag and so on until there is no difference between having the bag on or off. This method of keeping a higher humidity works very well and you should do fine.

Any suggestions? The root systems of the helichrysum cuttings are quickly filling up in the perlite and I'm not sure what to do next. And I really need to get some more lavender cuttings started asap but I don't want them to mold and rot again. One more thing, my grow light seriously needs to be unplugged and put away. It's quite large and takes up a lot of space so it would be great if I could root cuttings outdoors, in the sun instead. I just need to know if I can do that or if the cuttings need that light. Any help would be greatly appreciated:)