Question
What part of the geranium plant are cuttings taken from?  I don't know where to take the cut and the plants I grew from seed didn't branch out; they seem to have just one main stalk.

Thank-you

Loretta Houle

Answer
Two Geranium problems here: (1) How to take cuttings and (2) How to get branches.

First, let's go over some basic Botany.  It will help with both these answers.

Many common flowering plants (like Geraniums) grow branches and roots because they have plant hormones (called 'auxins') that tell them what to do.

These plants hormones are called 'auxins' and 'cytokinins'.'  These are important words to know.  Auxins were discovered first.  Then somebody stumbled on cytokinins.  There are others, but these are the big 2.  Nothing important happens in plants without an order from these guys.

Over the centuries, people have figured out how to dictate messages to them.

One of the first plants they mastered was those Geraniums you are having trouble with.  Geraniums, by the way, were the first plant I ever took a cutting of.  And I was doing it all wrong.  So I know how a very green thumbed human can get this all wrong.  I went to someone else to find out how to do it right.  Books just did not cut it.

So here we are.

Unless cytokinins tell your Geranium to grow roots, there will be no roots.

Unless auxins tell your Geranium to grow branches, there will be no branches.

But of course, the Geraniums in the store have a lot of branches, and plenty of roots.

Now, there's something you should know right off the bat here.  This is just about the worst time of year to be trying this, on any plant.  People everywhere get to the end of the season, and they are so attached to their Impatiens and their Petunias and their Coleus and their Geranium plants, they just can't part with them.  And they try to take cuttings.  And it's rough.

Because as I have been telling a lot of people recently, Autumn's shorter day lengths and cooler air temps and reduced sunlight intensity all add up to the TOUGHEST time to get auxins and cytokinins to send their 'PLEASE GROW' messages.  These hormones are shouting all over the plant, 'IT'S SIX O'CLOCK.  THANKYOU FOR SHOPPING AT MACY'S.'  There is absolutely no doubt in your Geranium's mind that it is time to quit.  The bar is closing. Call it a day.  LAST CALL.

But you want to stop all these auxins and cytokinins -- which you can't -- and keep Macy's open until 10 p.m. or later.  You want the bartender to pour another round until you're to leave.  And the laws of Nature, just like the laws of liquor licensing, are contrary to what you want your Geranium to do.

It's not impossible.  It's just not easy.  At all.  For anyone.

So you need all the help you can get.

The more help you get, the better your success rate.

First, get these hormones going.  Here's how.

(1)  HOW TO TAKE CUTTINGS.  To get cytokinins to spell out "grow roots here", slice DIAGONALLY (for maximum water exposure) with a RAZOR BLADE (to minimize tissue damage) (a 45 degree angle will be fine) at the place in the stem where there are already LOTS of them.

Where's that, you ask?

Look at the main stem -- which I guess is all you have.  See those bumps?  I don't mean the leaves.  I mean the bumps along the stem.  Those are NODES.  That's where these important hormones live.  Not kidding here.  If you cut just at the top of one of those nodes, you will get a healthy concentration of cytokinins that will look around and start screaming: 'ROOTS!  NEED ROOTS HERE!  GROW ROOTS!'

In your case, you have a nice long main stem with a lot of these helpful hormones right down the middle.  Get out a ruler and measure down 3 1/2 inches from the top of the plant.  Find the closest node ABOVE that, and slice.

Rooting hormone powder that you buy in the store is synthetic cytokinins.  It will boost your odds of success.

A heating mat is available to buy in the store.  It will keep the soil warm enough to heat up the activity of those cytokinins.  That too will boost your odds.

Light is a necessary part of this exercise.  A heating mat keeps the soil warm; the air is cool, and that's nice because it controls the metabolism of the stem you just lopped off, and will lower its use of food reserves while it is growing roots.

Bear in mind, this takes time.  You will be waiting at least a MONTH for roots.

Follow the directions on the rooting hormone powder and be patient.  Don't breathe the powder.  It's not good for you.

(2) HOW TO GROW STEMS.  When you cut off that 3 1/2 piece of middle stem, you also send a message to the main plant.  One of the loudest is:  GROW SIDE SHOOTS!  GROW BRANCHES!  GROW OUT!

Because when you slice at a node, the auxins wake up and get to work.  The plant makes MORE auxins, and those auxins get to work.  Their goal: To stop growing straight up, and grow sideways.

And where you see nodes up and down the plant, you will slowly see tiny leave buds.  Growth.  Branches.

Plant hormones are a very big area where we know very little.  Dutch scientist Fritz Went discovered auxins in 1928.  Cytokinins weren't discovered for another  years, until 1954, when Dr. Folke Skoog's work in the 1950s proved that special chemicals in plants make them grow.  This is unknown territory.

But we know from many thousands of years of practice that 'pinching' (cutting the tip of a branch off to make it grow more stems, and then more flowers) works.  This is, essentially, what you are doing: 'Pinching' the tip of the stem, and getting branches.  And ultimately more flowers.

Not easy in September or October.  But give it a shot. You have everything to learn. Thanks for writing, and keep me posted,

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER