No garden is complete without roses. I have 80 – hybrid tea roses, some climbers, and some Polyanthus roses, and I try to add a few new ones each year to my collection.
Cutting A Slip
When cutting a slip, I pick a woody one or cut a piece of mallet shape off the old limb with the slip in the center so it will have old bark to start with.
Also, pick up with three eyes, so when it is set in the ground, the 3 eyes are all below the surface. This gives the slip three chances to root.
I dig a hole, put in a half cup of sand, place the slip in the sand, pour in a pint of water, then fill in with dirt, pressing this down firmly around the slip.
Then a glass jar is put over the slip, and dirt is firmed around the jar to about halfway up. The jar is left on until spring.
Fall leaves are banked around and weighted down with corn stalks to prevent them from blowing off. As a result, only the top of the jar is left uncovered.
One year, I rooted 19 plants out of 29 slips. I have tried the rooting powder and find that it does help.
I drive stakes down around the jabs to prevent them from blowing over, heaving, or tilting from freezing and thawing.
Rooting Polyanthus Roses In Water
I have found that Polyanthus roses may be easily rooted in water, but I have had no success with the tea roses by that method.
I use well-rotted cow manure with some bone meal spaded or dug in around roses.
In the fall, I pull the dirt up around the plants, leaving a trench between the rows, which is then filled with rotted cow manure.
Soot from the chimney or stove pipe scattered lightly over the bed will brighten the roses’ colors and foliage.
The cuttings should be left to grow where roses are rooted the first year so a good root system will have formed.
I set my rose cuttings after the fall rains begin, usually about the first of October, and often put two or three slips under each jar.
They seem to grow as well as only one. I hope this will be of some help. I greatly like Back to Eden and am always anxious to get each copy.
Azaleas For Pot Culture
I read over the copies received two years ago. I am interested in Chrysanthemums also and have a nice collection.
I would like to learn something about azaleas for pot culture. I have a pink that has a large bloom and is very pretty. Would you like to get other colors suitable for house plants?
Could anyone tell me the name of the large pink climbing rose that grows in Tennessee? It is very pretty.
44659 by NA