Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Burrito Rose Cuttings Grew Roots

Yesterday, I discovered a ziploc bag containing about a dozen packets of rose cuttings in the crisper of our refrigerator.  It had been there for at least a month because I totally forgot about it.  I expected the worst as I unwrapped each packet ... surprisingly, only about half of the cuttings were dead.  Other cuttings were still green and promising looking.  One packet contained cuttings of 'Marchesa Boccella', and it looked like this when I opened it.



Roots!!

(The white stuff is the powdered rooting hormone that I treated the cuttings with before I wrapped them up.)

These cuttings, and all of the others that were still alive, are now planted in milk jugs, and covered with the top portion of a 2-liter soda bottle, just like I teach in the tutorial on my web site.  I expect to have a dozen new self-supporting baby 'Marchesa Boccella' rose plants in a few weeks ... along with plants of Maggie, Shailer's Provence, Dr. W. Van Fleet, and others.

UPDATE:  Though I have good success rooting roses using other methods, and I rarely lose a rooted cutting when I transplant it to a larger pot, I am sorry to report that every single one of these cuttings died shortly after being removed from the newspaper and planted.  Wrapping cuttings in newspaper to allow them to callus before planting them in pots hasn't yielded a single rooted cutting for me.  A much better method for me is to plant the cuttings in the milk jugs as soon as they are cut and treated with rooting hormone like in the tutorial.  If you want to try to root your own roses, I recommend that you do the same.

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