A quick question for the outdoor specialists. Anyone ever clone outside? I mean, take cuttings, plant cuttings (either in pots or in soil) completely outside? I don't mean to clone inside and once roots take hold, bring the plants outside, I mean completely outside? I need to go in this direction soon and wanted some tips ideas. How can I keep the plants moist? I am thinking about a shaded area and possibly with temporary pots + water below the soil? I was also thinking about a portable water pump to circulate water over the plants while roots form? What about a dome made out of cellophane (clear plastic)? Possible green house effect? Or kept in a shaded area would be best? Any tips appreciated and welcomed. And hello to all.
seen pics of it done with a dome made of who knows what.. your gonna have a way way beter success rate if you just throw em in a glass of water and put them inside until they harden off..
Dude, I just recently cloned this plant in pure outdoor form. Tomorrow I will post the pics.. All I did was cut some stems from my plant, dip the tip in an egg (just pop a hole in the egg) and inserted the into individual pots... It's been 3 days and they are all coming along nicely. Already rooting... However, its been raining all 3 days and I think the lighting has helped tremendously.. I will post pics mañana!
Yes I take all my clones outside. It's pretty simple. I don't use domes, not needed. U need a shady spot without direct sun like a porch or under a patio deck. This spot also needs to be a good place to leave your cuttings for a couple of weeks. Use seed starter mix in a solo cup or other like container. Make a hole in bottom for drainage. Water soil in cup throughly with vitamin b1 mix h2o (vitamin b is a natural root hormone if you don't have a bottle, get one, it makes your roots grow like crazy!) poke a hole in soil for stem. Find a young shoot, give it a bend make sure it's flexible and bendie not brittle. Also take your cut from a shoot with 3 sets of leaves. Take all the leaves off but the top set, and then cut the tips of those off like 30% off of the leaf. You want to do this because you want the cut to grow roots and not try to process light energy. The more leaves you have the harder the cut will work to try to keep those extra leaves alive. Below the third node cut the selected brach from plant. Then make your 45 degree cut right below that 3rd node, dip in clone gel or powder, they both work fine, and insert into the hole in the soil. Push soil around stem so that it will stay upright. Put into the shade spot on your porch or where ever out of the sun. Now don't touch them!! Don't pick them up, don't move them the less you mess with them the faster they will root. Don't water but on once a week. Air is for growing roots water is for photosynthesis. They will be droppy for a few hours dont trip, it should correct itself in a day, you just cut it off its mother remember. It takes about 2 weeks to root. Sometimes longer sometimes faster, certain strains clone better than others. Once u see signs of new leaf growth, thats a sign that your clone has roots. Then start exposing it to more direct sunlight gradually over a week or so. I have over a 90% success rate with this method outside. Don't over complicated it and have patience, good luck and happy cloning! A side note: if u fail, oh well, try again, and chalk it up to a learning experience. You'll get it.
Oh and one other thing... Never take only one, I always take 2 as a beginner you should be taking at least 3-4. Think about it, if as a noob cloner you only get 25% success rate you'll still get 1 of the 4 attempted.
If you check out my grow, I've rooted a couple batches of clones outdoors this season. I use a humidity dome and rapid rooters, just like I would indoors, but I keep the dome in a shady place outdoors. The entire set up cost less than $30 and I can clone 20 plants at a time. Plus the dome is reusable so after the initial investment it's very very economical to make clones. Way cheaper than buying seeds.
uhh, this will sound reallly dumb, but I cant put the f'n pics of my plants!!! Why URL??? Why can't I just copy n paste!?!!?!?!?!?! Anyway, I just want to say that, yes, there are many ways of cloning... This is the first time Ive ever done it.. And I just went on intuition. The mother plant is about 3ft high and not budding yet. SO I cut off the top tip, and some of the lower ones. The mother seemed to have needed this, after 4 days she looks more FULL, more leaves, more buds coming... Again, no scientifical business... Just intuition. I then proceeded to put the clones in their own pots, HOWEVER I did not water... It has been raining like mad here, so I believe this helped greatly. Next, I did the reverse of the above poster.. I trimmed the top leaves of my clones and left only 3-4 big leaves at the bottom of the clones... Idk why, but this helped them root quicker. Also, on the tips, yes I cut a 45 degree angle, BUT, I also took an exacto knife and plit the tip into 4, just imagination I guess... I was very high during this process and spoke very kindly to my plants about what I was doing to them... They believed me and accepted my process.. Now they're all growing like ricefields in China! Also, I did not use any 'type' of dirt or nutrients.. I just got a sack of manure and mixed it with some healthy dirt from some very healthy fruit trees my grandfather has.. Oh, and I grinded up about 200grams of egg shells and mixed it with the dirt.. Again, my process may seem ridiculous. But it is working so far. Remember that my budget was literally NOTHING.. No, REALLY, it was NOTHING. I guess this is how plants used to grow BEFORE science. If someone can tell me please an easy way to upload my pics, I will do ASAP!!