Everyones favorite rooting medium?

I am getting ready to take some softwood cuttings and am curious to what medium has worked for others. A friend uses 3 parts mini pine nuggets to 1 part sand with good success. Then yesterday while watching Gardening in Georgia on GPB they showed rooting a rose cutting in 100% perlite.

gardening 101a, I use 50% perlite,50%vermiculite. I make my own rooting solution of .1% IBA, .5% NAA, this makes for a nice root ball, when I transplant the cuttings. hostajim1

50% peat, 50% perlite and 500ppm IBA dip for herbaceous stuff, 1000ppm IBA dip for most woodies.

Perlite floats. Kitty Litter doesn't. Buy cheap kitty litter. Test it by dropping some into water. If it holds its shape, then use it. Peat has a lot of pathogens. Many people have problems from breathing the whatever that comes with peat. Usually peat is 80% rotted sphagnum.
What you want is either live or "long fibered", then chop it. Vermicultie is good. Washed sand is okay.
Larry

I use #4 mix which is like 30% perlite and 70% peatmoss blocks and I prefer the mix with thicker chunky peatmoss which is a different grade. Depending on what I'm doing cuttings of, I add a bit of nursery potting mix, some additional perlite or sand. I also mix in some slow release fertilizer to help the cuttings along once roots start. Although I use the commercial liquid rooting hormone at the nursery, I seem to get better results from the gel rooting hormone with fungicide in it at home. I also find that ensuring the mix is well compressed and cuttings well secured when stuck makes a world of difference.

Hmm... I just cut a couple of semi-woody lantana stems, and planted them in a commercial "seed starting" mix (Scott's, I think?). This is my first attempt at propagating (other than my potato vines, which will root if I just look at them a certain way...), so I wasn't 100% on what medium to do it in. I just planted them this evening - should I mix in some sand/more perlite? The mix is mostly peat (I'd say 90%), the rest perlite.

kcadams, your mix should be fine, I root the lantanas in that all the time, although the new tips root faster than the older stems. Just make sure you water the soil every am.

awesome... thanks!

I do everything in half seed germinating mix half potting soil. I have a lot of luck with it too. I usually add some weak organic fertilizer (like a 3-3-3) if its a plant that is going to stay in that pot for a long while after rooting.

thanks for all the responses! i am going to experiment with some of the different mixes suggested. i'll let everyone know my results. - jon

This message was edited Jul 3, 2006 7:38 PM

I did a little experiment last week. I was rooting some Salix 'Hakuro Nishiki' (Dappled Willow) and struck some in Promix and some in 50/50 peat/perlite, using OTC rooting powder, mist. In one week there was 50% rooting and no loss in the peat/perlite and 50% loss and zero rooting in the promix. Remarkable and surprising difference. The lost cuttings did not have rot.

Interesting, I wonder whether aeration of the rooting medium has anything to do with it.

SB

Makes sense- from reading only, no experience, cloning machines deliver oxygene w/ water and nutrients and boost a higher success rate- thanks for the info, will try that myself.