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Variegated Basil from Cutting

geeme

geeme

Here's my current basil plants, behind the japanese maple. Pic taken a week or so ago.
basil.jpg


Got these at Lowe's kind of late (I think late June-ish or early July) as little guys, but they just took off. The top landing of the steps behind them is 2-1/2' high, and if I recall correctly, they were maybe 8" tall when I got them.

At any rate, the garbage weather is fast approaching, and I'm puzzling over what to do. My original plan was to dig them up and put them in pots for the winter. But I'm kind of scratching my head over the size of them. Part of me just doesn't want the hassle of digging them up. Note the variegated variety doesn't flower or seed, so just harvesting seeds isn't an option. I thought I'd try a cutting, as it seems simple enough, with the plan to do more if this works. Cut a piece, trimmed the lower part of it, and put it into a clear glass of water - easy enough. I'm changing the water 2x a day.

I just started this a few days ago, and I know it will take like 4 weeks, but I'm not sure if the piece is happy or not. This morning, I thought some of the leaves looked droopy, so when I changed the water, I took a good look at the stem, and wasn't sure if I was supposed to see what I found. The very end where I took the cutting was dark brown. Part of me thought that this is likely the plant trying to heal its wound, so likely normal. But the somewhat drooping leaves made me hesitate - maybe this isn't a good thing. So I went to the next node and snipped again, and put it back into fresh water. This evening, though, I think more of the leaves look a big droopy. Here's a pic:
basilcut.jpg


You can see at this point the leaves themselves don't look bad - they're not curled up or wilting, per se. They're just more down than perky. I've got them on the counter next to a window, but we've had several gloomy days, so I'm partially thinking it might just need more light. And part of me thinks I'm just worrying like a mother hen - I should just keep changing the water 2x a day and see what happens. After all, that was the original goal of this exercise. I think part of my paranoia is coming from the fact that we are supposed to hit the low 40's (F) at night this weekend, and so I know "the end is near." In other words, it might really just be impatience rearing its ugly head.

So my question for those of you who have experience with doing cuttings - is the end turning brown this quickly normal? Is some drooping normal? Is there anything else I should be aware of as the changes take place over the next several weeks? I did send an email to the nursery that grows these, but haven't heard back from them. I will try calling if I don't hear back from them by the end of the week, but wanted to run this by you first.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide!

G
 
i've had a hard time rooting herbs from cuttings. lol. i managed to root some tarragon. what i did was to buy some hormex and put a bit of it in the water and every time i replaced the water i added more. took about 3 weeks but it rooted quite nicely. but you have to take off a lot of the leaves and leave around 3-4 leaves and let the cutting concentrate the growth on rooting instead of keeping it's energy into keeping the leaves alive.

i just folllowed the directions i got from ehow.com and that's how i rooted my tarragon. all i do with basil and stick it in the ground and it roots. but i only get a 50-50 chance of it rooting it that way. haven't rooted basil by using the water and hormex method.
 
I stick my cuttings on moist potting medium then place it under a bigger plant where it will not receive direct sunlight for at least a week. Got a high success rate doing that on basils only.

I think you should remove some lower leaves on your cutting. :)

btw geeme, i really love that basil of yours. :)
 
Thanks for your input. I'll definitely remove more of the lower leaves, and try to be more patient. S_L, I'd send you some if I thought it would survive the trip.
 
geeme said:
Thanks for your input. I'll definitely remove more of the lower leaves, and try to be more patient. S_L, I'd send you some if I thought it would survive the trip.
Click to expand...

Thanks also for the offer but I'm afraid the cuttings will not survive the trip. shipping usually takes 2-4 weeks. :D
 
You may think this is crazy but it really does help. Take you cuttings on the night of a full moon, at sunset or later. the next phase of the moon encourages root growth, opposed to the phases leading up to a full moon that encourage foliar growth,
 
solar1 said:
You may think this is crazy but it really does help. Take you cuttings on the night of a full moon, at sunset or later. the next phase of the moon encourages root growth, opposed to the phases leading up to a full moon that encourage foliar growth,
Click to expand...

It's at least worth a try - I'll let you know how it works out!
 
So I thought it might be helpful to note the details of the progress. Start with a piece at least 4 inches long, and make sure to select a stem that has not flowered. (The variegated basil doesn't flower, so this wasn't an issue for me.) Remove all but a few leaves along the stem, 2-4 should remain at most. The cut end will turn brown in a few days. Yes, change your water every other day. Some sources say to start them in a well-lit window sill, while others say to keep away from light. I put mine on a well-lit window sill, and it is working nicely.

When the roots first appear, they will likely be perfectly clear, but they will become opaque within a few days. I started this thread on Sept. 28, but had started the first basil cutting a "few" days before that, so I'm estimating Sept. 24. It is now Oct. 16, and there are 6 roots started on it, all at the very base. The roots now range from about 1/8" to about 3/4". The stuff I've found says to wait until the roots are about 2" long before putting into dirt.

I've got 3 more cuttings started now, for a total of 4. I had started a few more, but ended up tossing some. The plan is to have at least 6, so I will likely start a handful more, in the event I find more need to be tossed. Once I have a good batch started, if the plants haven't totally gone south for the winter, I'll cut them down almost to the ground, and cover with a thick layer of mulch. Basil is not supposed to be perennial in this climate, but some have told me that it does occasionally come back - if it does, great, but if it doesn't, no harm no foul.
 
My dehydrator came in the other day, and it is now busy drying all that basil. Well, a good bit of it, at any rate. This area has had some sort of fungus that is attacking the plants all over - trees and bushes primarily. It starts on the leaves, then moves down into the branches. Kind of looks like some big bird dookied badly. Unfortunately, it's gotten to my basil, so I am going to rip it out this weekend. Good thing I've got some cuttings started!

Is anyone familiar with this kind of fungus, and any idea what to do about it? Just spraying fungicide doesn't seem to be enough.
 
The first cutting is finally ready to be potted. It has several roots in the 2" - 3" range out the bottom, plus has started to put out roots at the next node up. No root buds showing yet on the 5 other cuttings I started, but all things come to those that wait.....
 
Well, disappointment came today. The first cutting seems to be successful - it was put into dirt and seems to be happy. The second cutting is developing a nice network of roots, and it will likely be another week or two before it's ready to be put into dirt.

The other four? Trashing them, after what I found just now. Our area has been hit pretty badly with some nasty stuff. It's pretty much ruined all kinds of plants in this area. I've heard it's a fungus, but the anti-fungals don't seem to be making much of a dent in it. At any rate, my basils succumbed to it a few weeks back, and I ended up cutting them down and throwing them away. I had hoped that the last set of cuttings I got from them would have pre-dated that sufficiently for it not to be a problem for them, but apparently that's not the case. I've been changing the water every other day, and was surprised this evening to find the water in the jar that had the four of them in it to have changed color - kind of brownish. Pulled the cuttings out, and found the tell-tale black all up and down the stems. Ugh! One of the cuttings was completely curled up at the top.

Every time I change the water, I look at the stems, both for signs of roots, and for signs that something has gone remiss. These were not like this just two days ago - or at least, it wasn't noticeable two days ago at all. This stuff does work that fast - boom! Dead plants.... Ah well, looking on the brite side that at least two appear to have been cut early enough not to have been affected by it. Two is better than none!
 
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