Propagating hydrangea: an experiment

For a while now, I've wanted to change the planting bed along the front of our house. At present, there are two small camellias and two old rose bushes. These plants have seen better days. I want to dig them out, fix the soil, and plant something new along the wall.

Five of eight new hydrangeas. I sure hope they survive.

I thought that hydrangeas would be nice. We have one on the north side of the house that does pretty well and I figure that putting a row of them along the front (which faces east) would be good. Instead of going to a nursery to buy plants, I wondered if I could make my own by propagating from the plant we have. Sounds like a job for the internet!

My research revealed that it is, indeed, possible to propagate hydrangeas from cuttings. I followed the instructions to cut short stems from new growth, to trim the leaves back a bit, and to plant the cuttings in a sterile medium (I used sterile potting soil). I didn't have any growth hormone to dip the stems in, so I skipped that step. Then the seed-pots with the cuttings went into a mini-greenhouse (actually a plastic box with a lid that some produce came in) and I set it in a well-lit location (but not in direct sunlight). I did this about three months ago and I watered the pots maybe twice since then.

You can see all eight plants here; three are on the floor to the right.

Last week I checked the cuttings by gently tugging on one. The internet said that, if roots had grown, the cutting would resist being pulled out of the soil. Success! So I gathered up some larger pots and transplanted each cutting into new soil. There were lots of roots visible on each cutting. So now they have room to grow more roots. I can even see new leaves budding out in the center of each cutting. If I'm lucky, I'll have eight new healthy hydrangeas to plant outdoors next spring.