Most heather plants - which include both the summer-flowering common heather and the winter-flowering snow heather - prefer acidic soils and sunny locations. They can be propagated by cuttings, but propagation from cuttings is the fastest and most effective method.
How can I successfully propagate heather?
The best way to propagate heather is through cuttings or planters. Cut cuttings in summer, stick them in soil and keep them moist. Lowering plants are side shoots that grow along the ground and root, then separated from the mother plant and transplanted.
Sowing heather
The heather in particular can also be propagated by sowing, although you will need a lot of patience. Heather plants grow very slowly, which is why the seedlings take a few years until they grow into attractive plants. Sow the fine seeds in March / April on acidic, sandy soil. Do not cover the seeds because heather is a light germinator. Keep the substrate slightly moist.
Cut cuttings in summer
Heather cuttings are not cut, but torn. A piece of bark remains on the crackling, which supports the cutting in rooting due to its inherent high concentration of growth hormones. The best time to propagate cuttings is July.
- Select a few side shoots about five to eight centimeters long,
- which, if possible, have neither flowers nor flower buds
- and should also come directly from the main shoot.
- Carefully tear it off downwards,
- so that a tongue of bark remains attached to the main shoot.
- The cuttings are immediately placed in planting trays (€35.00 on Amazon) with a
- Mixture of sand, peat and ericaceous soil inserted
- and covered with either a translucent lid or foil.
- The substrate is moistened beforehand and kept well moist in the next few weeks.
- If it is very hot, it is better to place the planter in the shade.
After about three weeks, the cuttings will be rooted and you can remove the cover.
Propagate heather through planters
Propagation using lowering plants is even easier, but takes more time. These are also basically clones of the mother plant, whereby they are not cut like cuttings, but remain connected to the mother plant - almost like an "umbilical cord" - until rooting.
- Select flowerless and budless side shoots.
- These should be easy to bend down to the ground.
- Dig a small depression in the ground below.
- Slightly score the sinker on the area to be rooted.
- Plant it in the soil with the scratched area facing down.
- Weigh down the area with a stone or bend a wire over it.
- Keep the substrate slightly moist.
As soon as rooting has taken place - you can tell this by the plant developing new shoots - you can separate it from the mother plant and plant it separately.
Tip
In particular, avoid watering the young heather plants with lime-containing tap water, but rather use stale tap water or rainwater.
