Dahlia Shoot Tip Cuttings After 5 Days

I don't like all this condensation around the cuttings, so have enlarged ventillation hole to twice the size.

Although part of this problem is caused by too much temperature fluctuation, it should be understood that the idea of keeping up the humidity is to cut down water loss from the leaf until it has time to develop roots.

After 5 days, each cutting should have formed a callus (scab) which will seal the stem base, thus allowing greater ventillation.

Although the conventional way is to virtually exclude shoot or stem cuttings from the atmosphere for the full duration (some growers go to the extent of soaking them constantly in fungicide to prevent disease), I prefer to keep them open - and dry - if possible.

Nor am I too accommodating of the technique of putting the cuttings around the side of the pot (so that they will get more air) either, since this makes covering the pot difficult without the leaves touching the freezer bag and becoming diseased (because they will be constantly wet).

I have played safe by covering the cuttings. There is a good chance they would have survived without covering. Many times I have stopped (removed the apical meristem at the tip of the shoot to induce branching) dahlias and just pushed the shoot tip (effectively a rough cutting) into the nearly-dry soil, only to find them struggling to survive, and usually succeeding - without any propagators or special equipment - outside in dry warm summer air. I always stick things into the soil if there is any chance at all of survival, and have been rewarded with many free new plants this way - even ouside in the dry summer air.


I don't want you to look at the lettuce cotyledons here. If you look in the bottom left hand corner, you will see a couple of fuchsia tips I pinched out about 10 days ago. I popped them in with the ungerminated lettuce seeds to see what would happen. As you can see, although they are not in the peak of health, they are nevertheless surviving - or at least I think they are. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them perking up soon and growing into healthy new plants. And this is in a westerly window, in dry air, facing the evening sun without protection. Isn't nature wonderful!

I have had cuttings wilt and play dead for several days before jumping into life. The only thing I would say is that they have not faced the hot mid-day sun.

Although our dahlia cuttings should survive quite well without the freezer bags, we must remove them gradually, as the cuttings will now have acclimatised themselves to humid air. What I usually do is open them up gradually, cutting the top off completely after about 14 days, by which time they have started to take on a healthy glow, with red leaf edges. This is a sign they are going to take. They seem to do well like this without any fungicides or special treatments.

I recommend that you keep trying new things, stretching the boundaries, and just observe what happens. You will probably receive some pleasant (and controversial) surprises. You will also develop 'green fingers', complete with a feel for and a love for plants.