When to transplant hydrangea cuttings?

[kathyd]

Hi . I filched some hydrangea prunings from the tip last autumn and potted 4 cuttings into each of 4 pots. They've all started getting leaves now, so I'm assuming they've taken! Yay! But I'm not sure when to move them into individual / bigger pots? Do I do it now-ish, in spring, or wait until autumn, or even next year? I can't believe their roots will be very big yet? And I know with blackcurrants I'd leave them until the autumn to shift, so is it the same with these?

Ta.

[WendyC]

Are there any roots visible through the holes in the bottom. If there are it could be worth carefully tipping out the whole pot to see what roots there are. You want them to be quite well established.

[Kristen]

They will be one of the first plants into leaf, and will grow on strongly, particularly their roots, so I would be potting them up into 9cm pots now (the Hydrangea cuttings that I take in late Summer I pot up before the winter, even if very little root, so that come the spring there is no check and they can sprout and get on with growing!). You should be able to get them up to about 2L or 3L during this year and then either plant out next Autumn or, my preference, the following spring (as late frosts can upset them, and giving them protection for one more winter might be prudent)

[kathyd]

Are there any roots visible through the holes in the bottom. If there are it could be worth carefully tipping out the whole pot to see what roots there are. You want them to be quite well established.

There's one small root in one pot Wendy, nothing from any of the others as far as I can see...

[kathyd]

Ok Kirsten thanks - I'll tip them out and have a look then. I'd feel better potting them individually now rather than leaving it, but didn't want to traumatise them if they'd hardly got anything going on.

[Kristen]

Cuttings root at variable rates IME, quite often when I tip them out I find that some are streets ahead of the others, and some still look healthy but have no roots at all. The "runts" go back into the cuttings pot for another go (for me the "cuttings pot" has very free draining compost better suited to striking roots, and the pot is probably in a plastic bag for moisture retention, or on my Mist bench, but definitely not the best environment/media for growing on!).

The ones that are ready get potted on. If none of them are ready I don't tip the next pot out for inspection, but wait a bit longer

(Depends how many you have of course, I do do rather a lot ... )