How to take hardwood cuttings: free plants from your winter prunings

Shwmae, everyone!

Here's one of our favourite winter jobs, and it costs nothing at all. From now until late winter, while deciduous shrubs are bare and dormant, you can turn a few prunings into brand-new plants. Hardwood cuttings are the easiest cuttings there are: no heated propagator, no fuss, just a bit of patience.

Good plants to try

Red-barked dogwood, pussy willow, forsythia, redcurrants and elder all root readily from hardwood cuttings. Willow and dogwood are almost foolproof, so they're a great place to start.

Step by step

1. Pick your stems. Once the leaves have dropped, choose healthy, straight shoots that grew this year, roughly pencil thick.
2. Cut to length. Trim each one to about 20 to 30cm. Make a flat cut just below a bud at the bottom and a sloping cut just above a bud at the top. That way you'll always know which end goes in the soil, and rain runs off the top.
3. Prepare a spot. In a sheltered corner of the garden, push a spade into the soil and wiggle it to make a narrow slit trench. On heavy clay, sprinkle a little grit or sharp sand in the bottom. No space? Use a deep pot filled with peat-free compost mixed with grit.
4. Plant them deep. Push the cuttings in so about two-thirds of each one is below the surface, spacing them 10 to 15cm apart.
5. Firm and label. Firm the soil around them with your heel, water them in and add a label. You'll be surprised how easily you forget what's what by spring!
6. Leave them be. Roots form slowly over winter and spring. Keep them watered in dry spells next summer, and pull out any weeds.

What happens next

By next autumn most cuttings will have rooted and put on fresh leaves. Give one a gentle tug: if it resists, it's ready to lift and move to its new home. Don't worry if a few fail. That's why we always take a couple more than we need.

Want to know what to take, and when?

Our new Cutting Calendar is a 63-page download covering 263 popular UK garden plants month by month, with step-by-step pages for six ways to propagate. Treat the months as a guide, as the weather always has the final say.

Growing our own plants from cuttings is a big part of life at our peat-free nursery in Wenvoe, and it's a lovely way to fill your garden for free.

Until next time, happy gardening!
Garden City Cymru