Welcome to the club.... I also have only been able to propagate with seed

A friend sent this to me.

* Posted by: Nandina 8b (My Page) on Fri, Aug 26, 05 at 11:31

The simple answer to your question is that a woody cutting will not root until the cut end forms a callus. This can be difficult with some plant material. May I suggest that for those hard to root shrubs/trees that you try my 'toothpick' method. It is easy. In August select those cuttings you wish to root. Now with a small, thin bladed knife or Exacto knife make one parallel cut all the way through the stem below a bud and insert a toothpick through the cut. Secure a marker on the branch so you can find it later.

Walk away and forget about it until November. At that time the cutting will have callused on the plant. Remove the cutting below the toothpick and pull the toothpick out if possible or cut off the toothpick at either end close to the stem. Now the cutting should root in either a cold frame or greenhouse. I have even tucked them right next to a house foundation for the winter and found the cuttings rooted in the spring with no protection.

By the way, the best method to try and root apples is to use the water sprouts as cutting material.

-- copied from Garden Web, the Botany Forum

Are you familiar with this? I have tried to root Coppertones for forever, and I am very disappointed that you don't know the secret either.

I think I am going to give this a try. Stick one of my bushes 10 times and insert toothpicks. Do you think it is too late in the year? She did say August.

Janie

"When I find out I'm going to share with everybody". Why don't you start sharing by telling us what a Coppertone Loquat is? Never heard of it, and haven't got a clue.
Sam

The Coppertone Loquat is a cross between the loquat tree that produces the little fruit that can be used for jelly making, and the Indian hawthorn. It has copper colored leaves from the loquat(Eriobotrya Japonica 'Coppertone'), and blooms just like the Indian hawthorn(Raphiolepis).

I have heard that the photinia is in the ancestry of this plant, but I don't believe this to be true.

It is a beautiful shrub, and hardy. Very difficult to propagate. The loquat will come up from seed very easily, as will the hawthorn, but the hybrid will not, as far as I know.

Let me put it this way, I have maintained many many of them, and never have I found a seedling under one.

got some to root

Here is a link that might be useful: cutting

I had read how hard Loquat is to root so I tried a method similar to the toothpick method on mine. Mine is just a regular Eriobotrya japonica. My tree needed pruning so I thought I would try to root some of the lower branches since I was going to remove them anyway. I took a sharp blade and cut a slit through the bark on each branch. A cut deep enough to allow me to pull up a flap of bark and tissue. So I now had one flap cut into each branch. I bathed the wound in rooting hormone and packed the site with sterile potting media (wet) and wrapped the site in aluminum foil. It took months - like 3 months - but out of 5 branches ONE formed a nice clump of roots. I eventually placed modified plastic pots with potting media around the branches while they were still on the tree. I recently cut the branches down because it is supposed to freeze and the roots would probably be damaged in such small pots.

The difference between what I was trying to do and what most people are trying to do is that I was trying to make "baby trees" out of long branches - like 3 feet long, not tiny cuttings.

Also note that in the past any cutting, small or large, taken in the normal way would not survive more than a week. But the branches taken off the tree after months of dealing with the knotch being cut into them are holding up quite well in individual pots. As long as they look alive I will keep them watered. I don't give up easily.

I am so thrilled to see that rooted cutting.

I don't give up easily either. You go trianglejohn!

Thanks for the info.

Janie