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Propagating Shrubs
Propagating shrubs is one of the basic gardening skills you want to learn because it opens up an entire scope of new plants to you. Luckily there are a few simple guidelines and I've already written about most of them on these pages already.
Treat shrub seed exactly like a perennial seed. Give it the 90 day cold and then warm treatment. The difference in some of these shrubs is that they'll require a double dormancy many times. In other words, they'll require a 90-day cold period – a 90-day warm period and then another 90-day cold period before they'll germinate in the second warm period. Treat these larger seeds like large perennial seeds. One major difference is that often a shrub seed will have a very hard coat on it – much harder and thicker than a perennial seed. I know that some gardeners scrape it right after the second cold treatment to induce germination. You can try this if you're having trouble. There are techniqued used by professional growers and “serious” hobby growers on seed that is really tough to germinate that I will not pass along here. Quite frankly, using dangerous acids and plant hormones is not for the ranks of beginner gardeners. If you think you're at the level of gardening that can use these techniques, then let me suggest you join the North American Rock Garden Society and/or the International Plant Propagators Society. Members discuss and share these techniques amongst themselves.
If you have tender shrub cuttings – 3 to 5 inches long and the wood is green and bendy – then use the techniques described in taking tender cuttings right here. If you have shrub cuttings that are hardwood, use the hardwood cuttings section right here.
Some shrubs do indeed produce offshoots (think old-fashioned lilac or forsythia) and these can be easily dug up in very early spring or late fall and moved to another spot. The divisions should be divided off the mother plant by driving a shovel straight down beside the mother plant. This leaves as much of the root with the new plant as possible to establish it. Do this when the plants are dormant in your area. Dormancy means they are not growing and generally have no leaves (in colder areas)
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