Question about rooting cuttings in a simple bucket setup...

I was trying to root some fig cuttings this spring and getting nowhere with my usual potting mix method. Then I saw a post from a guy in Florida who just uses a 5 gallon bucket with perlite and a layer of water at the bottom. So I tried it with 12 cuttings of a Brown Turkey fig I got from a neighbor's tree. After 3 weeks I checked and 8 of them had nice white roots poking out. The water at the bottom kept the perlite damp without being soaking wet, and the bucket lid held in humidity. Compared to my old method where I only got 2 out of 12 to root in soil last year, this was a huge jump. Has anyone else tried the bucket method for hard to root plants like hydrangeas or roses?

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sage_morgan754mo ago

Honestly 2 out of 12 to 8 out of 12 is wild, I gotta try that bucket trick myself.

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the_max3mo ago

Florida guy with a bucket and perlite, huh? I tried that exact method with some hydrangea cuttings last summer and it was a total disaster for me. Out of 15 cuttings, only 2 lived and they were the saddest little things with barely any roots. The rest just rotted out at the base, probably because the perlite stayed way too wet for too long in my setup. I went back to my old way of a clear plastic cup with drainage holes and a little bag over it, and suddenly I'm getting 8 out of 10 cuttings rooted no problem. Maybe it depends on the plant or the climate or something but I wouldn't call it a sure thing.

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