Growing from Hardwood cuttings

Growing garden plants from Hardwood cuttings is a great way to save some money on plants to increase the colour and interest in your garden.

Hardwood cuttings can be used to propagate a lot of garden shrubs such as Cornus and forsythia
Starting in the autumn through to the spring as you prune many of your plants back you can take cuttings of the stems that are around a year old, remove the top around 75mm and cut the remaining stem into pencil lengths approx 100m to 150mm long
Cut the stem so that the top cut is above a bud and the bottom cut below a bud joint on the stem. Then creating a slit in the soil in your garden border using a spade, then fill the trench or slit with some sand about 25mm. Insert the hardwood cuttings so that 50mm of the cutting shows above the soil. Finally, heal the cuttings in by pressing the soil around the cuttings with your feet and water in.
After 12 months around 70 per cent of the cuttings will have grown and will be ready for transplanting

Plants suitable to grow from hardwood cuttings include
Cornus / dogwood stems
Salix
Abelia,
Deutzia,
Buddleja (butterfly bush),
Cornus (dogwood),
Forsythia,
Philadelphus (mock orange)
Ribes (flowering currant),
Rosa (rose), 
Symphoricarpos
Viburnums.
Sambucus Racemosa Plumosa Aurea
Sambucus nigra Black Lace

Cornus hardwood cuttings before rooting