Propagating Picea Pungens From Stem Cuttings

The green spruce (Picea pungens) or, more commonly, the blue or Colorado spruce (Picea pungens "Glauca") is a stately, long-lived evergreen with a classic Christmas-tree shape and attractive bluish foliage in a range of shades. The color of the 1 1/4-inch-long, stiff needles can range from intense blue-green to silvery blue from cultivar to cultivar and even among seed-grown varieties of the same cultivar, according to Ohio State University Extension. For a more attractive, uniform look to a planned Picea pungens grouping or windbreak, propagate trees from the same specimen using stem cuttings.

Heavy gloves
Knife
Potting tray
Rooting hormone
Vermiculite
Perlite
Plastic dome
Pasteurized soil

Instructions

- 1
  Put on sturdy work gloves to avoid any discomfort from handling the prickly spruce stems.
- 2
  Cut a 1 1/2- to 3-inch piece from the tip of a side shoot with a bud at its end from a branch on the lower two-thirds of a healthy, young Picea pungens. Cuttings from younger trees, anywhere from 1 to 10 years old, are the most likely to root, while growing tips on the lower portion of a tree tend to have the most juvenile tissue. In addition, a 1989 New Mexico State University study, "Vegetative Propagation of 10-Year-Old Blue Spruce by Stem Cuttings," which used cuttings from 1 1/2 to 6 inches long, found that the shorter the spruce cutting, the better it rooted.
- 3
  Remove needles from the bottom 1/2 to 1 inch of the cutting, depending on the cutting's length.
- 4
  Make one or more slices, 1/2 to 1 inch long, vertically along the bottom of the cutting. Delicately slice off a strip of the thin bark layer on each side of the cutting to expose the green tissue between the bark and the wood of the cutting. This is called "wounding" and helps rooting by stimulating cell division, increasing the stem's ability to absorb water, and by removing the bark to allow outer root growth.
- 5
  Fill a clean potting tray with a 1-to-1 mix of new vermiculite and perlite, about 2 1/2 inches deep. Moisten the mix thoroughly with water.
- 6
  Pour out some powdered indolebutyric acid rooting hormone into the bottom of a small paper cup.
- 7
  Dip the bottom of the cuttings into the hormone, making sure it coats and sticks to the cut end and all the crevices created by the woundings.
- 8
  Poke holes in the rooting medium in the tray with your finger to avoid knocking off the hormone. Insert the cuttings and firm the medium around the cutting.
- 9
  Place the plastic dome over the tray and place the tray out of direct sunlight in a room with temperatures that range from 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
- 10
  Water the tray as needed to keep the rooting medium moist and to maintain humidity around the cuttings. When you pull at a cutting and feel resistance, roots have developed.

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