Curious gardening: science, cuttings, experiments
Every November someone suggests tepid water to speed up cuttings. I put cold tap, room-temperature and lukewarm water head-to-head on the windowsill for four weeks, then went looking at the science of dissolved oxygen, root respiration and rot. The kettle stayed off.
A November side-by-side in a cold shed asks whether a grit mulch earns its keep. Three surface treatments, one batch of hardy shrub cuttings, and eight weeks of watching for rot, roots and fungus gnats.
A November windowsill experiment with Christmas cactus cuttings asks whether a two-joint section really roots more reliably than a single segment. The answer depends on how warm, bright and patient your sill is.
Three peat-free cutting composts, one traditional peat mix and a row of identical fuchsia cuttings on a cold November windowsill. Here is what happened to root timing, watering and cost per rooted plant, plus the peat-free recipe I would actually use again.
A ripe banana on the windowsill is the usual suspect when cuttings sulk. I put identical cuttings beside fruit and away from it to see whether ethylene deserves its reputation, or whether we are blaming the wrong thing.
Cutting just below a leaf joint is the most repeated rule in propagation. A small blind trial on a cool conservatory shelf tested nodal and internodal cuttings across three forgiving species. The node helped, but not for the reason many gardeners think.
A small November trial on a UK windowsill puts the clear plastic bag under scrutiny. Bagged cuttings rooted faster in some cases, but mould and wet leaves told a more complicated story. Here is when a humidity dome helps, when it harms, and how to ventilate it properly.
A November cutting trial in a chilly UK shed compares bubble-wrapped pots, a budget heat mat and an unheated control. The aim is simple: find out whether cheap insulation can compete with bottom heat for rosemary, honeysuckle and privet.
Can a single leaf really become a new houseplant on a dim UK windowsill? This league table sorts the reliable from the wishful, with honest odds for African violet, begonia, snake plant, ZZ plant, pothos and peperomia.
A £15 LED strip, three common cuttings and one cool windowsill go head to head in a November rooting trial. The results are less about gadgetry than about warmth, light hours and damp air.
A month-by-month UK cutting calendar built around day length, sap movement, wood ripeness and soil temperature rather than folklore. Use the dates as prompts, then let the plant veto them.
November is the cheapest month in the propagation calendar: no heat, no mist, no fuss, just dormant stems and a gritty pot. Seven reliable shrubs to take hardwood cuttings from now, plus a simple upright-versus-inverted test that shows exactly how much a cutting cares which way up it is.
Willow water, honey, cinnamon, rooting powder and plain tap water, tested side by side on lavender, rosemary and pelargonium cuttings on a south-facing windowsill. Here's what the plant science says, and what actually happened in this autumn's very small, very honest trial.