Nico: In your climate, which is much like mine in terms of temperatures, you can transplant dormant raspberries (and most other things) throughout the entire winter and spring. The only thing that would prevent you from transplanting would be frozen soil, and I expect you rarely see that. There may, in fact, be some advantages to transplanting earlier rather than later. When you dig up the plants, you should see developing underground shoots that will become next year's canes. Take good care of them. You can remove the old canes from the previous season completely. If there are any obviously dead areas in the root systems, that do not show shoots, you can prune those off as well. By transplanting now, you allow the plants to accommodate and begin growing in early spring. It is a little misleading to call raspberry plants two or three years old, since these plants regenerate new canes every year. The original root systems may be that old, but they regenerate too in a healthy planting. Healthy red raspberries also send out underground stolons that result in spreading of the plants -- often as far away as 2-3 feet from the originals in rich, soft soil. Care after planting consists of covering with a good layer of organic mulch, which should be renewed every year for best health and production. Ground leaves, compost, sawdust, stable manure etc. are all good, and should be placed on the surface over and around the plants. The new canes will find their way up through it. Other than that, they will take care of themselves. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

knuttle...Some interesting reading if you do a search for...who introduced Prunus mume. Will give you answers re when it was introduced into this country. Root using softwood cuttings and rooting hormone. I have not tried rooting it in water but certainly an easy experiment to undertake. Must admit that I am a lazy propagator and mostly use the method I have posted a few times. Do a search on the Propagation Forum for "Toothpick Technique".

Blackroot is a danger to new cutting and can be caused by not using clean everything for taking and rooting cuttings. It is also a good idea to let the cut end callus over for about 5 days. This cuts down on the amount of moisture the cutting can get. yes they were getting moisture through the stems much like cut flowers. Cold and too much moisture will cause the stems to rot. Read my post on my amazing discovery about zonal geranium cuttings in this forum. I put my cuttings on a heat mat and never lost 1 cutting. I Started them the last week of February and right now they are bushy plants and 1 even has a flower stalk I have been growing Geraniums from cuttings for 30 years or more and I disagree with Faye Brawner. Sure some geraniums will root easily without rooting hormone but not all. In my years of doing this I have found there is a difference in rooting between varieties and even colors. It casts more to buy 1 Geranium than it does to buy rooting hormone that will do lots of cuttings so why take a chance. One thing of note--Always take your cutting from just below a leaf node. All roots come from the place a leaf has grown. If there is no node below the ground you won't get roots. Look carefully at any flower with side branches and you'll see that they too come from a leaf node

Delightful pix again Cowboy. We are under much snow today and of course so are the hostas. I have Mouse Tracks too, just love it!