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There are several ways to propagate roses: by seeds, layering, cuttings, dividing the bush, acquiring new seedlings. It’s easier and faster to decorate your site if you buy high-quality seedlings, but they are so expensive that we can talk about one or two, and if you want to plant a lot at once, then you should consider other options. The least expensive and fairly simple way is to plant roses with cuttings. Rose cuttings can be taken from growing bushes (your own or neighbors), which will increase the possibility of their good survival on the site. Or you can take it from cut roses presented in a bouquet, this method contains less confidence in a positive outcome, but more motivates – after all, the flower is certainly beautiful.
Preparation of cuttings and soil
There is nothing complicated about how to plant a rose from a cutting, you need to prepare a cutting, root it, plant it in a permanent place of growth and take care of it. The one who goes through all these stages is waiting for a prize – own-rooted roses are durable, unpretentious, do not give wild growth, which would have to be constantly fought, that is, they do not degenerate into wild roses. Reproduction of roses by cuttings allows you to save all the characteristics of the mother plant variety, with the exception of hybrids, which may be cut flowers. Almost all types of roses can be cut, but remontant and park roses are the worst to breed in this way.
You can take and root cuttings during the growing season, or rather, from the moment the flower forms until the petals are completely shed. This is the time of the greatest activity of all growth processes. But many flower growers prefer to acquire cuttings in the fall, when the bushes are pruned before shelter for the winter. It’s not just about the abundance of material, but by autumn the shoots have accumulated the greatest amount of nutrients that they will need for rooting and growth of new shoots.
Cuttings are small segments of fairly mature semi-lignified shoots with 3-4 fully formed buds. Young or completely lignified shoots should not be taken, as well as the tops of suitable branches.
It is better to take cuttings from the middle of adult shoots, 8-10 mm thick. They should be cut in this way – the upper cut is made even 0,5 – 0,8 mm above the kidney, and the lower one is oblique, at an angle of 45 degrees, immediately below the kidney. As a tool, you need to use a knife or pruner with a very sharp blade that will not crush the twig, but will cut it off quickly with the least loss. Before use, it should be disinfected with alcohol and boiling water to prevent contamination of our planting material with pathogenic bacteria.
Many advise treating the upper cut of the cutting with wax or paraffin, and lowering the lower cut into water with aloe juice or a purchased agent to stimulate root growth. The lower leaves and thorns must be removed, and the upper leaves should be reduced by half to reduce the area of moisture evaporation. Rooting cuttings can occur in water, soil or even potatoes. The soil should be loose and not necessarily nutritious, the growth of the roots occurs due to the forces of the plant itself, concentrated in the cuttings and its buds, the young roots must first grow, and only then learn to absorb nutrients from the environment.
If rooting will take place at home, then in a pot or any other dish you need to arrange a drainage layer of pebbles or expanded clay, put soil on it, and on top of it a layer of about 2 cm of pure river sand. Soil for roses can be bought at the store or made up from soddy soil, peat, sand.
Video “Planting cuttings”
From the video you will learn how to prepare the cuttings and how to root them.
Landing
How to properly plant a cutting depends on whether we want to root it in water, a pot, or directly in the ground outside. If you choose water, then you should take well, if possible, or at least settled for several hours. There is an opinion that the water in the dishes cannot be changed, you can only add water as it evaporates, let it become green and ugly, but roots are more likely to form in it than in clean and always fresh. Many flower growers advise, based on their experience, to close the upper part of the shoots that rise from the dishes with a bag or a transparent film to create a semblance of a greenhouse, and place the whole structure in a room with a temperature of +22 – +25 degrees, into the light. In the absence of the proper amount of sun, a fluorescent lamp is also suitable.
After 2 – 3 weeks, a callus is formed on the lower ends of the branches – a light thickening, from which new roots will soon grow. Simultaneously with the formation of roots, new shoots can grow from the upper buds, at first they will be red, then gradually acquire a normal green color. Some break off these new shoots and root them, but this way the process of forming a new bush will be postponed, it will be more likely if you plant a rooted cutting in the ground.
When rooting in a pot, the cutting is placed on the border of sand and soil with a lower oblique cut. The sand will not allow the stalk to rot when the humidity rises, and the newly formed roots will be able to go deeper and take nutrients from the soil. The rooting conditions for all methods are almost the same – the temperature is approximately +22 – +25, periodic spraying, light and shelter from above to create a greenhouse effect.
The same conditions must be created when rooting on the street. A small semblance of a greenhouse is being built on the garden bed, installing wire arcs, covering them with polyethylene. Or you can just cover with glass jars or cut plastic bottles. Sometimes plants need to be ventilated. On the street, they will have to be shaded from the sun so as not to burn and not create too high a temperature under cover.
Potatoes are used for rooting cuttings, because they create ideal conditions – moisture and nutrition. You just need to take absolutely healthy specimens without the slightest sign of decay, cut out all the eyes, make shallow (up to 2 cm) holes, insert the lower edges of the cuttings into them. Two-thirds of the potatoes are covered with earth, and under them it is desirable to organize a sandy substrate 5 cm thick. From above, you also need to make a greenhouse shelter from plastic wrap or cut plastic bottles. If cuttings in potatoes are rooted on the street, then a narrow trench is specially dug for them along the width of the potato plus another 5 cm, a layer of sand is poured down no thinner than 5 cm, all this is covered with soil, light and permeable. And on top they cover with polyethylene, shade from too bright sun.
There is another way to get the roots, it is called “burrito”, because the cuttings are wrapped with several layers of wet newspaper, like a tortilla filling in this Mexican dish.
The newspaper must be absolutely wet so that it can be wrung out like a rag, the cuttings are folded in a pile, wrapped in an envelope so that nothing sticks out anywhere outside the newspaper. Then the whole bundle is placed in a bag. It needs to be unrolled periodically, moisten the newspaper, and check the condition of the cuttings. If rot appears on any of them, it must be removed. The appearance of roots may be evidenced by new shoots breaking through the newspaper. As soon as the roots grow, the cuttings can be planted in the ground.
Landing in the ground and care
A young rose planted in spring in a flower bed will grow like any healthy plant. It is better to transfer it from room conditions in late spring, when the soil and air have warmed up enough, and there will definitely be no frost. At first, it will need to be covered from the sun, accustoming to it gradually. After all, the place should be open, sunny, protected from the cold north wind, at a great distance from buildings and trees. It will need to be watered more often and more discreetly than an adult bush, since the roots are still poorly developed and close to the surface; in self-rooted plants, they prefer to grow more sideways than deep in adulthood. Melt or rain water should not accumulate at this place; it is easier for a rose to endure drought than swampiness.
Until mid-summer, a young plant can be watered several times with a solution of slurry using cow dung or bird droppings, although horse manure shows the best results. You can apply specially selected fertilizers for roses. Toward the end of summer and autumn, it is desirable to focus on potash-phosphorus fertilizers, and exclude nitrogen fertilizers. You do not need to let the young bush bloom, the buds need to be pinched off as soon as they appear. Such care will help the plant grow stronger in the first year of life and easily endure the dormant period in winter.
To plant rooted cuttings in late May or early July, you need to cut cuttings from a bouquet donated on March 8, or root those that were cut in the fall. Bold and experienced flower growers plant rooted cuttings before winter. They are planted, like any seedlings, a month before the frost, so that they have time to get used to a new place, to grow a few thin roots already in a new soil for themselves. Then they are well covered for the winter, it is better to build an air-dry shelter over them using a frame, lutrasil, and cover them inside with hay or dry leaves. If the young plant survives its first winter, it will grow well the next year, then turn into a healthy, unpretentious rose bush, adapted to the climatic conditions of its area.
If the cuttings are cut in autumn, you can try to plant them directly in the ground at a permanent place of growth, try to root them before frost, and then cover them well for the winter. Many gardeners do this. But this may not always work out, and the roots, if they have time to germinate, are at risk of freezing. They can be planted in a bucket or box, put in the cellar for the winter, where they will be perfectly preserved, and then transplanted to the garden in the spring for rooting. You can raise them in a warm room in early spring and start the rooting process, providing heat, light and moisture.
This method gives good results. A plastic bucket is filled with suitable soil, not forgetting to organize a drainage layer at the bottom not thinner than 5 cm from pebbles or expanded clay. From above, everything is sprinkled with clean, disinfected (calcined) sand. They make recesses for the cuttings with a clean wooden stick, lower the cuttings into them (before that, it is advisable to dip them in a root growth stimulator), press the sand around each with your fingers. The bucket is wrapped with a film to form a kind of pipe – at the bottom it is firmly attached to the bucket (with an elastic band, rope or with glue, a stapler), and at the top it is closed, fastened with an ordinary clothespin. This bucket is placed in an unheated, bright room, like a loggia, for the time of cooling it is covered with still warm materials (you can simply wrap it with a blanket) so that the temperature inside does not fall below +1 degree. Under such conditions, the cuttings will be well preserved until spring and will slowly give roots.
Rooted cuttings can be planted in spring, early summer or autumn, the main thing is to create suitable conditions for them and surround them with the necessary care, help them survive their first winter on the street. This will certainly give good results, they will grow, to the delight of the owners, healthy, strong, beautifully flowering rose bushes.
Video “Pros and cons of propagation by cuttings”
From the video you will learn the pros and cons of propagating bushes in this way.
