Just broke off with tradition of rooting most of my cuttings in an SIP for the winter and will be rooting some this season this way.
My goal is to eliminate gnats if inside this winter and use the least amount of space for the few cuttings that I intend to root.
In Texas I've rooted cuttings simply by leaving them outside in the moisture control potting mix in an SIP. By spring they start growing. It's that simple.
The results are phenomenal as I don't have to even repot anything when they take off, but if rooting a quantity and space is limited, then this might be a better space saving approach.

Last winter I buried a longer than usual branch of a rare variety I have, in this pot. Did not have to do anything except start watering in the spring when I saw growth. You could see the result in the first photo.

The other two photos are of my new project today. When dealing with short cuttings, the goal is to make sure they don't dry up or rot before they root.

Referring to Post #92 by Lolita1234, has anyone tried removing their plants from the pots, basically root pruning, and putting rootball into plastic with a few holes poked in for air circulation?  It does sound like a way to save a lot of space.

Any chance of doing a YouTube video? Looks interesting.

Can u send me a bag? So I can see what size and how you are cutting?

Hi Lolita,

Thank you for sharing your method. Are there any methods to tell if the soil is too wet. For example, if I clump it and it sticks together is that too wet?

If it is completely dry how would you wet it then? Would you spray the top layer of soil 1-3 times with a spray bottle?

Again, thank you for sharing!

I have tried the bag method before. Mine have rotted on me every time. So gave up. Maybe if I could find a you tube might understand it better.

Jon provided this in his ways to root

http://figs4fun.com/Rooting_Bag.html


Doug

I'm bumping up this thread because I'm sure it might be useful to all the newbies out there planning on rooting cuttings. Mai is the original person who started this method. I've used it and it works great. I've got 120 or so cuttings started last weekend.

I like playing around with cuttings. The water cloner method works too but this one is a heck of a lot cheaper for small batches of cuttings. This method rocks!

Newbies, Mai posted this method 2 years a go. Give it a shot. It does work very well. Just read the entire thread thoroughly and learn. Her instructions are step by step.

Cheers,

I agree with Snaglpus.  I have found this method to be fairly forgiving.

My favorite media is coco coir and sand roughly 50/50.

Hey Mai,

 I missed you! Glad to see you posting again...

Grant

The baggie method is excellent.... Works beautifully. Only refinement that I have considered making is after filling a bin full of the baggies and as insurance against blinking adult fungus gnats flying into the bin and entering the baggies via the corner cutouts, I am thinking that simply adding 2 -3 inches of perlite into the bin so that there are no exposed baggie bottoms would be helpful. I say that only because upon taking the nicely rooted and leafed out cuttings out of the baggies to up pot them, I noticed that with some, gnat flies had gotten into the bags and were evident around the root balls. It's possible that there were eggs in the soil medium used in the baggie mix but the perlite would at least eliminate or make it more difficult for adult gnat flies to get into the baggie bottoms from the exterior.

Tony, when you mix up a batch of potting mix for this method have you tried including a good dose of gnatrol?  I have found that if I include gnatrol in the water I use to moisten the soil mix I generally don't have problems.  If you try to add it later then you often end up making your soil too moist which causes other problems.

Steve... your suggestion makes excellent sense and I will incorporate it into the process going forward... thank you!