Re: Rooting Quisqualis indica
- To:
- Subject: Re: Rooting Quisqualis indica
- From: W* G*
- Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 22:51:26 -0400
On 4/06/00 4:47 PM david feix (davidfeix@yahoo.com) wrote:
>On another topic, I have had several local Saudi nursery managers ask me
>if I knew how to get cuttings of Quisqualis indica vine to take, and had
>to tell them I didn't know if there was a best time of year or type of
>cutting to root.
Q. indica (Rangoon creeper) is a very vigorous, rapidly growing liana
that is naturalized on several Caribbean islands to the dismay of many.
It also grows in full afternoon sun up a column at the back my house,
increasingly spreading over the second-storey railing and balusters. It
may well gobble up the house if not pruned back regularly or savaged by
an occasional storm as happened this past year when Hurricanes Jose and
Lenny passed though. But it is a very handsome multi-colored flowering
vine as described.
I've found it fairly easy to root from hardwood cuttings placed in a pot
containing lightly moist perlite (or sand) kept in good light, but not
sun, with the pot and cuttings enclosed in a clear plastic bag to keep
the humidity high within, opening the bag once a day for a few minutes if
any condensation appears on the inside of the bag. Commercial nurseries
use misting for the same result, but a plastic bag is simpler for
small-scale propagation. This treatment works well with other
difficult-to-root tropicals as Allamanda violacea.
Recently I was in Kenya looking for a yellow-flowering cousin, Quisqualis
littorae, that grows on the coast south of Mombasa, but with no success.
William Glover
Nevis, West Indies
