In recent years I have been experimenting with both hardwood and greenwood cuttings of roses. I have successfully used two modifications of the old-fashioned fruit jar method, and believe that the plants’ development is greatly aided by avoiding disturbance of the roots.
This is made possible by rooting the hardwood cuttings where the plants are to remain. The others are started in flower pots and transplanted with the mass of soil and roots intact.
Hardwood Cuttings
I take hardwood cuttings of hybrid tea and large-flowered climbing roses in early November, at which time they still have their leaves. The cuttings consist of short lateral branches that have developed during the current year, cut with a thin heel of wood from the cane supporting them.
Any shortening necessary to give the cuttings a finished length of about six inches is done from above, the cut is made just above a bud. As with Summer cuttings, all leaves are discarded except the one at the top of the cutting. I removed the terminal leaflet from that one.
Cultivation
If the bed where the cuttings are to be planted contains good garden soil that has been in cultivation, it is only necessary to prepare a small area for each plant. After the soil has been loosened and smoothed, I make a planting hole about one and one-half inches in diameter and four inches deep at each place.
Planting two cuttings of the same variety in each hole are virtual insurance against blanks in the rose bed. If both grow, as often happens, one should be removed at an early stage.
An inch of coarse, moist sand goes into the bottom of each hole. The cuttings are held in place with their lower ends resting on the sand layer while the remainder of the hole is filled with sand, which must be firmly packed. Glass jars are then inverted over the cuttings.
Glass Jars
The jars should be large enough to allow some top growth to be made if shoots start before the weather is sufficiently settled for safe removal of the jars the following Spring. In my part of the country, this is likely to be the case.
I mound soil about halfway up the jars as protection against freezing. In colder areas, the mounds may be high enough to leave only the inverted bottoms of the jars exposed. As soon as the danger of freezing is passed in the Spring, the jars and mounded soil are removed from all cuttings that have developed new shoots.
Protecting Jars Longer
There may be a few laggards needing the protection of the jars for a while longer. Growth is encouraged by shallow cultivation and a light application of complete commercial fertilizer from time to time.
I don’t pinch off the first-year flower buds, as is sometimes recommended unless the plants’ vigor is below par. There is something deeply satisfying in watching the unfolding of the first blossoms that appear so quickly on the clean young plants.
I believe this method of starting roses will be found satisfactory throughout the South, but how cuttings handled in this manner would fare through a severe northern Winter I cannot say. Northern gardeners may have better success with greenwood cuttings.
Greenwood Cuttings
A good time to take greenwood cuttings of hybrid tea and other bedding roses is right after the season’s first crop of bloom. The tip of a shoot that has bloomed is cut back to a point just above the highest fully developed leaf.
Three joints are included, and the lower cut is made just below one. Treatment of greenwood cuttings with one of the root-forming hormone powders before planting will accelerate rooting and guarantee a higher degree of success.
I set the cuttings singly in five-inch flower pots filled with a mixture of two parts garden loam and one part each of leaf mold and sand. The cuttings are inserted about halfway and the soil around them is made very firm.
All Day Shade
Glass jars are placed over them and the pots are sunk to the rim in the ground where there is shade all day. Satisfactory places can usually be found under shrubbery. A cold frame with the sash removed may be used if shaded with burlap. The soil in the pots is kept moderately moist.
When new shoots appear, indicating that roots have formed, the jars are removed and the plants are gradually exposed to the sun. Soon the pots may be plunged into a spot receiving full sun, and the plants may be given manure water or a little commercial fertilizer to hasten growth.
These plants may be transferred to their permanent location whenever vigorous shoot growth has been made and a good network of feeder roots shows on the outside of the soil mass when it is turned out of the pot. The customary Winter protection should be provided in regions where it is required.
Greenwood cuttings started later may spend their first Winter in a cold frame, still in the pots.
44659 by Richard Leon Spain