Get massively crazy ROOT STRUCTURE on newly propagated BOUGAINVILLEA CUTTINGS

Get massively crazy root structure on newly propagated Bougainvillea cuttings

Hey Plant Lover, how you doing???? I am way too excited today as we are trying something that has never been made into a video- yes, we will be trying 4 different ways to make a Bougainvillea cutting. And living through this experiment for almost 3 months, I can say with some authority that the most successful way to make a Bougainvillea cutting can also be replicated on other plant cuttings. Please hit that subscribe button because we are on a mission here, and I would love if you were a part of it. And make sure you stay with me during the entire length of this video as we will be covering- procuring cuttings, making cuttings, caring for the newly propagated plant, watering schedule, when to bring them into direct sunlight, how to transplant a new Bougainvillea plant and the most exciting part, yes, the result- what type of cutting is the best suited for a great root structure. For now all I can say is the result would be as shocking as it can get, let us go and find out what exactly I mean by that. Hey there, you still haven’t subscribed, please do it now, alright, let us go!!

Right of the bat, to clear any misconception related to what kind of plant is suitable for cuttings- here are some things you need to consider- is the plant in bloom? well, it won’t matter at all, plant should be older than 2 years or else cuttings will not give you the desired results, what time of the day, the 2nd quarter of the day is ideal time to procure cuttings. That’s done, let us know how are we making the cuttings 4 different ways and see what works the best for the new Bougainvillea plant and the resulting root structure. 

Way to make the cutting Number 1- The first is normal scarring, what we have been doing in the past. Just scar the epidermis the outer cover on all sides until you see the white greenish layer

Way to make the cutting Number 2- The second would be to bifurcate the cutting. Split the bottom of the cutting in 2 halves up to an inch

Way to make the cutting Number 3- The third is- criss-cross cuts between bottom 2 internodes. Hold the knife and move the cutting as you see here

Way to make the cutting Number 4- And the fourth way is the craziest of them all, we are not doing anything to it. Just a normal cutting, no scarring nothing at all. 

So these are 4 different ways to make cuttings. I want to tell you this now, if you have been making cuttings one way and results have not been that good then ditch whatever you have been doing, pick one of the ways we just discussed and you never know you might reverse the results in the future. So try them if you need to. The cuttings are almost the same size, from the same plant, obviously and would be given exactly similar conditions- shade, water, sun, fertilizer, or any other type of assistance for the sake of experimentation, I will keep explaining that as we go along. If you have made it until now, I urge you to finish the video or else you might miss somethings that are way too more important than what we have discussed before.

I am using a teaspoon of Cinnamon powder in half a liter of water and let the cuttings sit in this solution for 2-4 hours and in the meantime pre-soak the pots. In fact, this is something you should always do, whenever you are propagating, repotting et cetera, quite helpful. The soil mix is nothing fancy- plain simple garden soil and in case you want something more add some gravel (Watch the recently uploaded video- The Fastest (and the Easiest) Way To Initiate Flowering In Newly Propagated Bougainvillea Cuttings, the link is in the description- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKxVn6EtBM8).

Cuttings are ready to be put in the pots. I have marked the disposable cups as 1. Nothing 2. Normal Scrape 3. Bifurcation and 4. Cuts on the internodes and we put the cuttings in respective pots and they will be in the shade for at least 3 weeks and then we make an assessment before shifting them to direct sunlight. Water the pot every 2-3 days given we have made drainage holes and depending on the climate you should adjust the watering schedule accordingly. The idea is to make sure the pot never goes hard dry.

Exactly after 7 days- 3 of them have sprouted except the one that was bifurcated 

Day 10- I am sure you are aware that roots follow the shoots, so first we will see the growth of leaves and after a few days we will see the roots starting to take shape

Day 15- Things looking perfect until now and soon we will have a look-see at what’s going on inside the pot. 

Day 20

Day 25

Day 30- Let us have a look at all the pots closely and find out what’s going on with the root structure. The thing to note here is one of them- the cutting we made by doing nothing to it, the leaves are not growing as aggressively as the other three. This looks interesting already, can’t wait to share it all with you. 

The ‘NOTHING’ pot has nothing visible as of now

The ‘CUTS ON INTERNODES’ pot has a visible root structure, a great sign

The ‘BIFURCATION’ pot too is showing roots, beautiful

The ‘NORMAL SCRAPE’ pot again, looks in awesome shape. So all 3 except the ‘NOTHING’ cup are great with shoots and great with roots too. Too early to declare a winner, so we wait a few more days

Day 35

Day 38

Day 45

Day 50

Day 55

Day 60- Here we are, I decided to repot them so that we have a better view of the root structure of all the cuttings. Now a few things you need to keep in mind while repotting- don’t water the said pot for 2-3 days and water immediately after transplantation. Do whatever, and get the whole root structure out of the pot without any major damage. Get maximum air out of the pot by gently tapping the soil around the base of the young plant and watering right after.

The root structure looks great on all the young Bougainvilleas. The results will be collated later in the video as there is no distinction right now and please don’t make the mistake of assuming things would stay almost the same going forward, they will change and it will shock you I can promise you that.

So our new and bigger pots ready with the markings. And we wait for a couple of weeks to again have a better understanding of how the initial estimation has changed

Day 65 Two of the bougainvilleas are in bloom already- Normal Scrape and Bifurcation

Day 70 Bougainvillea with ‘Nothing’ marking has joined the blooming lot. 

But we are here to get to know which one of these has the most robust root structure. Let us look closer one more time and see if there is anything significant going on inside the pot and we have a winner. 

The bougainvillea grown from a cutting that we didn’t scar or bifurcated is the winner. Look at the massive size on the roots, wow……it just picked up during the last few days and that’s what we were looking for…..how to make a cutting so that we have a fitter plant that would stand a better chance of survival in harsh and demanding conditions.

Let us have a look at it all again. As a planter, I am sure you too love how plants do things, their reaction to certain processes, and how they surprise you all the time. This one was, again a surprising result, I had my experience telling me that normal scrape is great when it comes to propagation, but it just lost to something more basic- a cutting to which we did nothing. Interesting!!

So the winner is ‘NOTHING’, followed by normal scrape, the third position goes to Bifurcation and the last one is Cuts on internodes. Please be aware that I have ranked these first and foremost on the basis of the root size (maximum weightage) and then the overall health of the plant- leaves, flowers, et cetera to combine to find out the winner.

So that was the video and I hope you had a good time. If yes, please make sure you like the video and if you are new here, hit that subscribe button. And if you didn’t like the video, I would love to hear your feedback in the comments- everything from questions to suggestions, please write and let us have a discussion. That’s how we improve and that’s how we learn new things about plants. So make sure you let me know your thoughts about the video. By the way, we will be reaching 10K soon, thank you so much for all the support and guidance. I will see you again, soon until then take care and raise some more plants.