Starting Azaleas from Cuttings

Starting azaleas from cuttings is tricky business, according to everything I read before I gave it a try. And another try. And a third try — ah-ha, this time with success.

Why Bother?

Decades ago I bought several pots of stunning bright pink azaleas at a sidewalk sale. They did super well on the north side of our house. At least most of them did. The one directly in front of a utility panel got trampled by a work crew.

After I pruned the broken branches and otherwise fussed over it, the sad-looking bush began to thrive. Until the crew came back and finished it off. That’s when I first tried to start a new plant using cuttings from the remaining bushes.

All the first cuttings rotted in their pots. A few years later I tried again. And the same thing happened, so I decided my green thumb wasn’t so green after all.

By last year the old bushes had well passed their prime and no longer looked so beautiful. They had to come out. But they had done well here for decades, and I really wanted to replace them with more of the same. So I decided to try once again to start azaleas from cuttings.

Luckily I found a site at Pennsylvania State University (sadly, now gone) that gave me the courage to give it one more try. Here’s what I was doing wrong, based on other sites I had consulted in the past, and what I believe finally led to success:

Water the Mother Plant

The best time to take azalea cuttings here in Tennessee is toward the end of June, after the bushes have finished blooming and are putting out new growth. At that time of year the soil tends to be fairly dry. So last year, before I started taking cuttings, I heavily watered the mother plants. That way the cuttings started out good and hydrated.

Don’t Use Potting Soil

The Penn State site recommended against using potting soil, because the “cuttings could rot before they have a chance to grow.” So my big mistake #2 was using potting soil, per instructions from numerous other gardening sites. This time I followed Penn State’s advice and mixed peat moss and perlite 50/50.

For seed starting I save empty pint-size cottage cheese containers and drill a hole into the bottom each for drainage. To start my azalea cuttings, I filled 6 of them with the azalea starter mix and dampened it.

Take Lots of Cuttings

On each of my first two tries I started about a dozen cuttings. This time around I started 30. I would have been happy if half a dozen had made it. As it turns out, I now have 17 lovely little azalea plants.

In previous attempts I took cuttings that were apparently too long, and maybe too woody. This time I took 3-inch cuttings, taking care to find fresh green growth. The Penn State site suggests removing any buds, but doesn’t make clear whether they mean blossom buds or leaf buds. Since I wasn’t sure, and since my azaleas had stopped blooming by this time, I did not remove terminal leaf buds.

As I had done in the past, I did removed the leaves from the bottom half of each stem. Then I stripped the bark all around the bottom inch (not just halfway, as some sites suggest), and dipped the stems in rooting hormone. I didn’t have Dip ‘N Grow, as suggested by Penn State, so I used a brand I had on hand from the hardware store.

Cover the Pots

Using a pencil, I poked 5 holes into the starter mix in each pot, inserted a cutting into each hole, and gently pressed the mix against the stems. In the past I had covered each pot with a small plastic bag to keep the cuttings moist. I felt that might have hastened rotting of my past cuttings.

I discussed the situation with my husband, who came up with a clever mini greenhouse made from items we found around the house. He took a clear plastic turntable dust cover, made a wooden base to fit, and placed it on an old metal sheet pan.

Provide Light and Moisture

I have a table with grow lights hanging over it, where I start garden seeds each spring. Since this was the middle of summer, the table had plenty of room for starting the azalea cuttings.

Now all I had to do was keep the cuttings suitably moist, but not wet enough to rot. Penn State suggests a misting system as being ideal. I started out misting the cuttings every morning with a hand-held spray bottle, but soon switched to an easier-to-use pump sprayer. I did not otherwise water the cuttings.

Each morning I anxiously surveyed the cuttings, waiting for all the leaves to turn brown and fall off, as they had in the past. But instead, this time the leaves stayed green. Then — boy was I excited! — new leaves started to grow on the tiny cuttings.

Repot the Baby Azaleas

By November the cuttings were getting crowded in their cottage cheese pots, so I transferred each into an 18 ounce Solo cup with a hole drilled in the bottom. In February I transferred them again, this time into half-gallon nursery pots. Today, nearly 12 months after the azaleas were started from cuttings, they are ready for transplant into the waiting flower bed. And — woo-hoo! — some of them have even started to bloom.