Root dormant hardwood
Fig Cuttings
Learn how to prepare dormant fig wood, use an airy rooting mix and gentle bottom heat, identify developing roots, and pot up young fig trees. Includes our propagation trial and video.
Plant Propagation & Grafting Guides
Want to grow your own plants from cuttings or graft a new fruit tree variety? Start with one of our practical, step-by-step guides. Each guide draws on propagation work at Dingdong's Garden and includes helpful instructions, video demonstrations, and advice for getting new plants established.
Getting started with a cutting order? Keep each variety labeled, identify the bottom of the cutting, and follow the instructions for that plant. For our labeled cuttings, the writing on the label should be upright when planted. See our Cutting Specifications for details.
How to Root Plant Cuttings
Choose the type you're growing for storage, planting, rooting, and transplanting instructions.
Rooting and grafting choices
Mulberry Cuttings
Find out how to root dormant mulberry cuttings, manage warmth and moisture, and handle new plants. Some cultivars are harder to root and may be better grafted.
Root dormant grape canes
Grapevine Cuttings
Follow our grape-cutting method from cold storage and planting orientation to rooting, transplanting, and first-year care. Learn why roots matter more than early leaf growth.
Simple outdoor rooting
Currant Cuttings
Root black, red, and white currants in containers or a nursery bed. Covers planting depth, moisture, timing, and transplanting, with notes on jostaberries.
Plant and grow outdoors
Willow Cuttings
Plant willow cuttings right-side up, choose the right growing site, keep new roots watered, and establish healthy plants for garden color, weaving, or living structures.
How to Graft Fruit Trees
Scionwood for grafting is different from a cutting intended to grow its own roots. It must be joined to a compatible rootstock or established tree.
Four grafting methods
Fruit Tree Grafting
Learn modified cleft, bark, whip-and-tongue, and side grafting. See our graft results video and find out how to join dormant scionwood to compatible rootstock.
Rooting or Grafting: Which Should You Use?
Rooting encourages a cutting to produce its own roots. It is commonly used for willow, currants, figs, grapes, and some mulberry cultivars. Grafting joins a desired fruit variety to a compatible rootstock or existing tree; it is typically used with apple, pear, cherry, and plum scionwood and can also be useful for harder-to-root mulberries.
Rooting success and long-term suitability vary by cultivar, season, and local growing conditions. For example, grapevine cuttings can grow on their own roots, but grafted vines may be preferable where soil pests such as phylloxera are a concern.
More Help for Your Order
For harvesting, labeling, cutting orientation, storage, and shipping details, visit our Cutting Specifications page. For grafting projects, browse our Fruit Tree Scionwood.
These guides are based on methods and tests at our farm. They provide practical starting points, but results depend on the variety and your growing conditions.