Rosemary Cuttings

I'm so pleased with this little success. I've never had any luck rooting rosemary or lavender before. I pop the cuttings into potting soil, augment with perlite for  drainage, water them fastidiously, and then watch them slowly wilt, drop their leaves, and die...

So, I felt a new sense of hope a couple months ago when I read about rooting in water instead. I thought, gosh, what an interesting idea. If I put the cuttings in a glass jar, I could actually watch for root growth. What had I got to loose? Well, guess what? It worked! For the rosemary at least. Look!

Let me show you how I did it. 

Step one: I cut sprigs off this year's growth (white and soft rather than brown and woody) from the healthiest sections of my mother plants.

Step two: using my sharpest pruning knife, a penknife would work just as well, I trimmed off the leaves running up the stem just leaving a little sprig at the very top.

Step three: I trimmed the stem just below the bottom leaf node. The leaf nodes hold the highest levels of growth hormones, so should be the sites where roots sprout.

Step 4: I popped them in a glass jar of water on a window sill away from direct sun. To keep the water fresh and oxygenated, I changed it every five days or so and waited. After a solid two months, roots! Only on two cuttings but roots none the less. As a side note, over the two months, the stems slowly browned on all the cuttings. A curious thing I can't explain.

Step 5: Once the roots grew long enough to hit the jar's bottom, I potted up the two cuttings in 50% homemade compost and 50% coconut coir for a light water retentive texture. They are now settling in nicely on a sunny south facing window sill. Lovely!

In case you are wondering, I'm still persevering with the remaining rosemary and lavender cuttings. Their leaves all still look healthy, so I might as well remain patient with them. Fingers crossed!