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Nepenthes cuttings tips for the lower woody section of the vine

  • Thread starter Vidyut
  • Start date
I have a very rough method for taking cuttings. I take 2/3 node sections with a pair of scissors, use my nails to peel off some of the outer covering of the bottom part of each cutting for rooting, stick them in a sphagnum perlite mix under the misters as they are. Full leaf, pitcher, whatever - I cut off anything that has gone black and dead, that is it. I can see the buds form on the cuttings in about 2-3 weeks (not proper growth, more like stem is split and small bit of green showing) for easy ones like mirabilis. Sometimes a month. No bags, no rooting hormone, no sterilizing anything, nothing. Just cut them, expose the inner part of the stem at the rooting end and stick in sphagnum and put under mister. I don't think they get any particularly good light either as I put them really close to the wall where circulation is least to avoid drying them.

But the cuttings from the bottom part of the vine almost never root - even if I pamper them. I've tried bag, rooting hormone, no hormone, water, sterilized... If it doesn't have a leaf, it hasn't rooted for me, so far. But I have read that people root the whole vine, even woody sections. How?

Anyone has tips for making the woodier bits of cuttings work?

And, if the woody parts have a poor chance of making it, is it a better idea to take cuttings only from the green bits and leave the woody part of the vine on the plant itself to grow more buds or do whatever it wants? Or maybe take cuttings of woody parts after they have formed buds on the plant itself after the green parts get cut off? Will these grow roots then?
 
Try carefully peeling the woody portions to expose the inner (cambium) with a single edge razor blade -- not your nails -- or a hobby knife, as though peeling a carrot. In my experiences, the older vine almost always requires some form of rooting hormone and bagging-up with a wad of sphagnum wrapped around the cut end . . .
 
I have done this. Sterile blade and all too. Been 3 months, the cuttings are as they are. No life. Nothing. I was going to throw them, but I guess I'll keep them around for a while. I'd used rooting hormone with them. Maybe I'll try again next time I make cuttings without it. No idea when I make woody cuttings next. No new candidates in sight for now.
 
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