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Taking root cuttings

Select pencil thick roots for cuttings
Select pencil thick
roots for cuttings

Illustration of finished root cutting
Finished root cutting
  1. Gently lift the plant from the soil, wash off the roots in a bucket of water.
  2. With a sharp knife, cut off a few thick young roots close to the crown.
  3. Re-plant the parent plant in its original position at the same depth.
  4. To make your cuttings, prepare the cut pieces by removing any small fibrous side roots and make a fresh cut at the end where it was removed from the parent plant. This flat cut will indicate the top of the cutting.
  5. Make an angular cut about 5cm below this to make a cutting, then re-cut the original root at right angles before cutting the next 5cm section again at an acute angle.
  6. In this way, several cuttings can be made from each piece of root, with the straight and angular cuts indicating the orientation of the root for planting.
  7. Pot up the cuttings in a well drained cuttings compost by inserting them vertically with the flat cut at the top into the compost until the top of the root is just below the surface.
  8. Cover the compost with a thin layer of grit and place the pots in a coldframe until new shoots appear in the spring, when they can be potted up or planted out.
  9. Place your pots in a cold frame, glasshouse or on a heated bench (if you have one) at 18°C.
  10. Take care not to over water your pots, as this is the main reason for root cuttings failing.
  11. Your cuttings should start to produce shoots in the early spring and be ready to pot up or plant out by April.
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