the following was cut and pasted into this thread.....so does anyone have good success with propagating this way? The easiest way of propagating hibiscus is by hardwood cuttings taken the last month of winter or in early spring. This is the normal pruning time anyway, so avail yourself of the ample supply of wood. Make sure that you have a small makeshift glasshouse or coldframe ready to protect the cuttings from wind, prevent them from drying out, and provide the necessary extra warmth required to encourage root growth. Select strong, straight wood, pencil thickness or a little larger. Weak twisted stems produce equivalent plants; the better the wood the better the plants. Remove all the leaves, by bending them backward against the stem or by cutting off with secateurs. Do not pull or tug them particularly if they are a little dry, for they will strip, pulling out the eyes and tearing the bark. Using a sharp knife make a cut at about 45 degrees through an eye at the base of the cutting, slicing right through in one even stroke. The cutting is then trimmed to a length of 12.5 - 15 cm (5 - 6 in).

In zone 5 without a greenhouse, there are a couple of options for doing hardwood cuttings of deciduous schrubs during the winter. One method is to make the hardwood cuttiongs after a hard freeze when tie them in a bundle with the buds all facing in one direction and bury them completely in the ground with the bud growth facing down. Sometimes some moist peat on top helps. In the spring, they shoul have caluses and can be planted out in a good potting medium. Keep watered all summer and by fall they should be rooted. The second method is to take the cuttings after they are dormant, dip in a liquid rooting hormone for 5 seconds and plant in a bed of course sand. Keep watered if it is dry during the winter and the following summer, they should be rooted by next fall. Sometimes one method works better than the other so I would suggest trying it both ways. The fastest method for decidious schrubs is with softwood cuttings in the early summer, most will root in 4 to 8 weeks under mist or an upsidedown fish tank. Mike

Melissa,your leafy fall cuttings were semi-hardwood cuttings, defined as mature stems from the current season's growth collected before the plant goes dormant. It sounds like you've worked out a good method for rooting them - at least for those roses that want to root at that stage of maturity. In my climate such cuttings started in October or early November need to be covered (as you do) or misted (as I do) and would have a good chance of rooting before winter sets in. I dismantle the misting system once the temperatures drop and leave the cuttings uncovered through our relatively mild and wet winter. In your climate it may be better to leave them covered, or maybe not. That's something you'll have to work out for yourself. Yes, you can take hardwood cuttings now. Or you could probably wait until you do your spring pruning and start some hardwood cuttings then. That works well in my climate. I stick leafless dormant cuttings a node or two deeper and don't cover them, but again, the level of protection required under your local conditions is something you'll have to work out for yourself.

Oh dear, so my Russian sage cuttings that are starting to leaf out in their mini-greenhouse jugs on my radiant floor may just be a tease? I followed the instructions on some site to take the cuttings around now (when they would have experienced cold on the mother plant, but not as cuttings), let them callus for 24 hours, and then stuck in moist, warm media. All is going according to plan, so I thought. Any hope at all?