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I am a novice at gardening. Mine are planted outside and doing great. How do I get cuttings and root them in pots ? Do I have to cut off a piece and put it a glass of water then plant it in a pot? Where do i cut it from (the top the bottom)? does this get flowers later? do i wait for the flowers?
I've heard that this rarely gets flowers. Mine never has.
It's easy to take cuttings! Take them from the top, looking at the piece you are cutting to make sure it has atleast two nodes ("joints" where leaves come out of). Take off almost all the leaves, cutting the leaves that are left in half (it seems to help the cutting take and I can also tell new leaves from old ones once new ones start to grow).
If you can get some rooting hormone from your local nursery (WalMart and Home Depot carry it as well), dip the cut end of the cutting in it and tap it to knock off the excess (don't blow it off as there's a chance you can breathe some in and that's BAD). Rooting hormone isn't imperative, but it helps up the chances you'll get a successful rooting (I've never used it on my Perilla and have gotten about 95% success).
Stick a pencil into a pot of potting soil you have prepared. Using the pencil instead of the cutting to make the hole in the soil keeps the cutting from breaking and/or the rooting hormone from being wiped off by the soil. Stick the cutting in the hole and firm the soil around it.
Water in well, 'til the soil is sopping wet. Put it somewhere it gets no more sun than just in the morning, but somewhere that's warm. Keep it well watered and DON'T let it dry out completely.
It should get roots in a few weeks, but DON'T pull it out of the soil! Almost EVERY time I do that, it dies. To check for roots, if you have to, just gently and I mean GENTLY, tug up on it a bit. DON'T do this hard or you'll kill it! If you feel resistance, it's got roots. Leaves shouldn't be far behind! :)
Once it's got LOTS of roots, you can pot it up into a bigger pot. But don't do it too soon! The new roots are very tiny and fragile, many of them so small you can't see them easily. This is true of all plants ~ they have many more roots than just the ones you can see. That's what transplant shock is ~ when you move a plant, a LOT of those tiny roots get broken and the plant will just sit there 'til it grows them back along with the bigger roots that may have been broken. You can see that if the cutting doesn't have many roots to begin with, that may be the kiss of death right there. It's hard to wait, but worth it. Some cuttings take two months or more, but Perilla has been quicker than that for me, especially when it's warm.
When I was first learning this, I'd start my cuttings in leftover plastic 6-packs I'd saved from when I bought annuals. This way, I could see the roots through the holes in the bottom and know when they were ready to be potted up. Now, I'm used to the timing of things and can guess pretty well, so I use whatever I have handy to root things in.
Good luck! Perilla's easy to root! It's the waiting that's hard. ;)
