An Experiment in Taking Cuttings

Last year I took cuttings off of our Chaste Tree (Vitex).  It is a beautiful tree that blooms with pretty purple flowers that the honeybees love.  In fact they've been giving out trees as door prizes at our beekeeper's club.  I took seven cuttings and over time, four of the seven grew roots and leaves and are now over three feet tall!  I'll be transplanting in the ground near our beehives.  

Armed with a little confidence, I decided to try again with some other trees.  I watched a tutorial from The School of Traditional Skills that was really informative.  It was a free hour and a half-long class.  Below is a screen shot from the training pertaining to what we're attempting to do again:

First, Experiment #1:  I wanted to try a mulberry tree.  The host mulberry is one that is a young tree about 12 feet tall that I actually got to grow from a cup-full of mulberries that I scattered in the woods behind our house.  One of them grew and although it is not on our property, it leans over onto our property and last year fruited enough to eat a few off the tree.  Delicious!

I want to try to get some more growing.  Following what I learned on the class, I took cuttings and cut just below the node, dipped in water, dipped in rooting hormone and put in some moist potting soil.  I'll keep the soil wet and we'll see what happens.

Experiment #2: Elderberry.  We want to try to grow some elderberry trees from cuttings.  I went through the same process on the back of my tailgate.  Tick tock...  We'll see what happens.

Experiment #3: Blueberries.  We've lost almost half of our blueberry bushes due to, I think, drought.  I want to get some replacements going.  We'll watch these as well and see if we're successful.

I think I'm a little late in doing this experiment, so if we fail, we'll try again next year, but earlier, but all that can happen is that it might fail.  But the upside is we'll get some new trees off of cuttings similar to the Chaste Trees or Vitex.

A Discovery Just Past the Fence

Just over our fence to the south is a piece of property that is undeveloped, unruly, and unkempt.  You know what?  We like it that way.  It is a wild little patch of woods.  The owners are absentee and never mow.  The only problem with this is the critters.  The woods are full of rats, possums, snakes and other varmints.  Those spill over to our land and we have to deal with them.

One very positive part of that wild little patch of woods is the overgrowth of bushes.  As it turns out goats love to eat this "browse."  I mean, they tear it up.  As it threatens to encroach our perimeter fence, I chop it down with a machete and throw it over to the goats to munch on.  Lately, we've taken a tie-down for a dog and clipped one of the goats to it and put them over the fence and allowed them to eat on the browse.

Agnes eating in the woods

We stood there and watched her eat non-stop.  She drifted into the woods and the undergrowth almost engulfed her.

I glanced just to the west of where she was eating and something caught my eye.  It was a plant with different leaves than we're accustomed to seeing in the woods.  I immediately recognized what it was by its leaves - A Mulberry Tree!  Where did it come from?

About four years ago, IN THIS POST I talked about a friend who gave me some mulberries to plant.  In that post, I talk about scattering out the mulberries in the woods behind the house.  Well, lo and behold, we have success!  I can remember as a kid I would eat mulberries right off the tree at my grandmother's house.  The berries were sweet and they would stain your hands purple!  We loved them.  The birds loved them.

The problem that this small mulberry tree will encounter is competition.  It is growing beneath the canopy of privet, Chinese Tallow, and China berry tree - all invasive imports from China.  Sound familiar?

The Canopy

I have to chop down some of that canopy to allow some sunshine to reach the tree.  This will allow it to grow.  It will reach upward and outward and its limbs will bear fruit that we'll enjoy.  For that to happen, I have to get my machete and start chopping.  The goats in the pasture will enjoy eating it.

In no time, I had cleared away a lot of the overgrowth and the mulberry tree was free from some of the competition.

The mulberry tree was actually getting some sunshine on its leaves.  I will keep it cleaned up around the tree and will also spread some chicken litter around the base to give it some 'food' to boost its growth.

I'm so excited that we have had success in our own "Johnny Appleseed" project.  We will report when we have our first mulberry harvest.