Sunday, August 21, 2011

Rose Propagation Burritos ... Update #2

This post is for those of you who have been waiting for an update on how things have been proceeding with propagating rose cuttings by starting them in newspaper packets.  The results aren't all that great so far.

 In THIS post, I showed how 11 of 14 cuttings of the climber 'Pink Pillar' had calloused and were almost to the point of producing roots after spending two weeks wrapped in newspaper in my cool basement.  After transferring the cuttings into pots and putting them on the mist bench in my greenhouse, though things looked like success was inevitable, every single cutting died.

 Not to be discouraged, I decided to try this method of propagation on a tea rose, Comtesse Riza du Parc.  Teas form roots fairly easily, so it seemed like a good candidate to give it another go.

This is 'Comtesse Riza du Parc' ... isn't she lovely?


The cuttings shown below were taken on August 6.  I scored the side of each cutting, dipped it in Hormodin #2 rooting hormone, wrapped the bundle of cuttings in damp newspaper, wrapped the newspaper packet in Saran Wrap, and put it in a cool spot in my basement.  Today, I unwrapped the cuttings and found this:


Five of the cuttings have calloused nicely, and two of these have little root sprouts. One of the cuttings is brown on the end and I threw it away.  I have potted the five calloused cuttings into small pots and put them on my mist bench and I hope like crazy that they will grow roots. 

I will let you know how they do.

(Final update ... every single one of these cuttings died shortly after being planted.  My percentage of success with newspaper wrapped cuttings is exactly ZERO.  This may work for other folks in different areas of the country, but it does NOT work for me and I will no longer use it or recommend it.)

8 comments:

  1. Oh, bummer. Hope this batch fares better!

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  2. Hopefully it was something else that got the first batch. These roots look so promising! Let us know how it goes. :)

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  3. Oh I hope they grow roots too! xo Diana

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  4. Had the same experience with my first burrito...nothing grew after potting.

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  5. Well at least you tried, It is interesting to see Mother Nature at work~

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  6. I have a trick which seems to work for getting roots from my hydroponic system to change over from water roots (the thick kind that are in your photo) to the hairlike roots that actually keep the plant alive in soil. It is to plant the rose up in a very, very light potting soil -- I cut my usually very light soil by about half with perlite. You might want to try that. I was having similar problems getting the roots that formed in the water in the hydroponic system to stay alive in real soil, and I still do sometimes, but this seems to work most of the time.

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  7. We've actually had our burrito going for almost two months now. We've been trying to root a beautiful little rose that was originally my great great grandmothers( and has moved several times through the generations, from Florida, to Virginia, and now back to Florida again. No one has ever had luck rooting it, and after checking the other day, we have a few water roots, so,we wrapped them back up and are keeping our fingers crossed. ( Mainly because I sure would like to have my own bush( since the bush has one more generation to go through before it gets to me!)

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  8. Here is something I have done in the past with roses and many other plants like african violets.I take a soda bottle actualy two works better and cut one up hi and one down low i then put a nice mix of potting soil and sand in the one i then put the clipinng in rooting stuff and stick it in the moist mixture and put the other botle over it make a little greean house type thing.I have had pretty good luck with this and i am not the best gardener. I also wanted to mention I really like your blog I am in Spotsylvania va and have just started blogging.

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