Why buy an expensive magnolia in a specialist shop when you can grow it yourself? But be careful: the propagation of magnolias is difficult, and you need angelic patience. After all, this is also the reason why the plants are so expensive.
Advantages of propagation via cuttings
Pruning is a useful technique for propagating plants that have difficulty rooting from cuttings - as is the case with magnolia. Although it takes several months until the lowered shoot has formed roots and can thus be separated from the mother plant, these young plants are stronger than shoots grown from cuttings. The young magnolias are cared for by the mother plant until they can literally stand on “their own roots”. They are less susceptible to diseases and are already used to the soil and various weather conditions.
Different types of lowering
A distinction is essentially made between three types of lowering:
- air lowering, in which the growing medium (e.g. a flower pot) is raised up to the shoot,
- Moss removal, in which the shoot is scratched and wrapped with moist moss,
- French subsidence, in which the earth is piled over a shoot
- as well as the conventional lowering, in which the entire shoot is placed in the ground.
How to propagate your magnolia by planting
At this point, the most common form of lowering should be explained.
- Choose a pliable (i.e. not yet woody or only slightly woody) and healthy shoot that can be bent down to the ground.
- Dig a shallow pit in a suitable spot.
- Cut the shoot on the underside about two to three times.
- Apply a rooting preparation to the wounded area to encourage rooting.
- Place the shoot section in the ground (the tip is still sticking out of the ground).
- Fill the hole with soil and weigh down the spot with a rock.
- Alternatively, the drive can also be anchored with a piece of wire.
- Water the area well and keep it continuously moist.
- Now you have to wait at least eight to ten months.
tips and tricks
Magnolias are best propagated by so-called mossing.