Rooting Hydrangia for Trades

I looked through the forum, if it's there, I missed it.
Have promised some endless summer hys, now what do I do, lol.
Help would be appreciated!
carole in atlanta

I've read that hydrangeas can be rooted easily in water mixed with a little hydrogen peroxide to aerate the water and keeo them from rotting.

Naien....well, lets try it...I'm on my way out the door now to take a cutting to see if it works.
Thanks for your help.
carole

Pink hydrangeas are very easily propagated. The most important thing to remember is to take "hard wood cuttings" not new growth soft cuttings. Keep them under mist for a couple of weeks this time of year. Use a rooting hormone to help fight root rot and to stimulate callousing so roots will form. Hope this helps.

I took a green wood cutting from my DIL's plant, dipped it in rooting hormone, put it in soil in a ziplock baggie, watered it sparingly, sealed the baggie, set in bright, indirect light and waited.

I took the cutting around Jan or Feb, this week it started blooming.


HTH!

I've got to try that method with the hydrogen peroxide - never heard of that ! :)

I've had good luck with hydrangea cuttings - I dip them in rooting hormone and stick them into a mix of one part each clean (new) potting soil, perlite, and vermiculite. I don't have a mister, but I set the pots on a low table in the shade over a bed of ivy; I sprinkle them several times a day unless it rains. The wet ivy keeps the humidity level high around the whole setup. Of course, where I live the humidity stays pretty high this time of year anyway.

I've only rooted mopheads and lacecups this way but want to start some oakleaf hydrangeas. Should I do anything different?

I buy my oak leaf shoots from a nursery in Tennesee. They grow them in the field In Tennesee. Since they can do it the field, you would think it would be very easy to propagate them. I have tried and tried to propagate our own with only about a 15% liveability. If there was ever a good year to try again it would be this year. I know you need high temps, especially at night. Pulling them from out from under the mist on a timely manner is EXTREMELY critical. I think this is where we have failed because we just couldn't watch them close enough to do it on time. I have 5 prop houses that hold about 50,000 cuttiings. Just don't have the time it takes to look after them properly. Hopefully you can do better than us.

Thanks, EastTex - Somehow, I had a feeling they would be harder to do. Maybe I should just try layering.

Layering is going to be my next attempt at oak leafs. I tried just a few dormant hard wood cuttings a couple of years ago, but apparently i didn't keep fresh air circulating around them good enough and my chilling time probably wasn't long enough. I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has mastered them.We produce some of the biggest and most beautiful plants in 5 gallon sizes, that it's embarrassing to tell people we can't propagate them!

WOW...thanks all for this wonderful discussion and info! I have wondered about oakleafs also!
Ok, I am going to try the rooting hormone, etc. method.....As Zylphey mentioned, providing humidity this time of the year is not a problem here in Georgia!

I had forgotten that I read recently about growing Oakleafs from seed - that would be fun to try. Cut off the flower heads in Oct/Nov and put them into a paper bag to catch the seeds as they dry and fall out.

Seems like good information here on growing from cuttings as well as seed:
http://www.utextension.utk.edu/hbin/oakleaf%20hyd.%20prod.pdf