We’ve had two sour cherry trees growing in our backyard for God only knows how long. These trees produced a steady stream of sour cherries year after year, until, about two years ago, the flood turned to a trickle. One of the trees rotted out at the trunk, leaving a nice, large hole and the other “lost its scion,” sending it into a bizarre, uncontrolled growth pattern.
Although we have several maple saplings lying around (in the gutters), I’m not particularly up to the task of grafting. So, I’m trying my hand at the simple, cheap route of rooting a few cuttings. We’re not overly optimistic that this will work. Cherries, by nature, are not particularly good candidates for rooting. These cherries, in particular, are even worse candidates. They are old, nearly-fruitless and possibly contaminated with a whole host of diseases and pestilences. Oh, and I didn’t collect the cuttings until after the tree had been felled.
Despite that, it costs next to nothing to try propagating new trees by cutting. I have a small container of rooting hormone, that I used to root a few “lucky bamboo” shoots, a roll of paper towels and a container for rooting. All I need is a rooting medium. I think some sphganum peat moss would work well, so I’ll pick up a bag at Wal-mart.
First, after Dad cut down the trees, I collected some promising new-growth branches. These were tender, thin and snapped when bent. If they bend, they’re too old. If they crack or split, they’re too young. I collected about 15 snappable sections, and may head out to collect a few more.
Next, I brought them inside. I stripped the leaves from the lower one-third, although, in most cases, there were only 
leaves on the end. If there were off-shoot twigs, I cut the section above these. New-growth doesn’t typically have it’s own small branches, so those sections were most likely from last season. I cut the base of each at a 45 degree angle.
After they were prepped, I rolled each branch in a small, moist paper towel. These are currently sitting in a large container, waiting to be planted. The next step will be to dip each cutting in the rooting hormone, then plant it in the medium. Half the cutting must be covered in the medium to have a possible chance of rooting.
I may go back out and collect a few more cuttings. While my “lucky bamboo” rooted quite well-out of four cuttings, I only had one fail and that was from disease-cherries are notoriously bad rooters. I’m just as notoriously bad at propagation. I’ll consider myself lucky if one in twenty takes root.