I saw this on Facebook and can not help but wonder if it works or is it a joke.

Did you know that you can grow roses from cuttings?

Simply cut healthy stems, place them in large potatoes, and them bury them 3-4 inches deep in a healthy soil mixture of peet moss and top soil. The potatoes keep the stems moist and help develop the root systems. It's a perfectly simple way to multiply your rose garden without spending lots of $$$.


I can not believe it works..............anyone ever try it?

As long as you don't buy your potato at a regular super market and use a home grown or certified organic potato, it might work in your climate. Commercial potatoes are treated to inhibit sprouting

The timing, the climate conditions, the rose itself all impact the success of rooting roses. And, of course, there are more variables.

Smiles,
Lyn

Lyn, then you are saying it can be done depending on what type potato you use? To stick it in the potato just seems wild to me. I never grew roses so I am not being funny. I am dead serious, I thought it was a joke.

I haven't done it myself. I've read about it years ago and then recently this question is popping up on many rose forums.

There are so many ways to propagate roses that I can't rule it out, but I probably would use a method that I was far more comfortable with because of the potential damage to the root nodules when placing them in the potato Someone else might want to experiment.

Smiles,
Lyn

Thanks so much for your information. I have never tried to start roses but I have two little tea roses that I am so afraid one of these storms will just take them. I would love to have a baby to take their place. I have never had much luck with roses in the past. Have a good day and thanks again.

Are your roses in pots or in the ground?

In the ground beside the big barn. They have been there for years and love it.

Instead of going to any fuss, just bend branches to the ground, use a brick or rock to hold them in contact with the soil. (Ground/soil layering.) In a couple months, or next spring, check on it, should have roots and be ready any time after that - that you're also ready - to separate it from the mama and give it a new home. You can also bend branches to the surface of a pot, so there's only one 'dig' involved later - the new hole in the ground somewhere. Using a pot also avoids making holes around shrubs when the babies are removed. Either way, no watering or attention necessary until you and the 'new plant' are both ready.

Works on roses, Hydranges, Lantana, Gardenia, fig, butterfly bush, anything that takes root easily. Why not make it even easier?

Good thinking. Any particular time of year is better to do that?

Thanks, but it's not my idea, layering has been around since long before my time. I prefer to do it in spring/summer, any time they start leafing out again for the year, after when you can see for sure which branches are alive, which have died back. Also, in summer, you'll have some much more flexible new branches that are easier to bend without breaking. Usually do 6-8 per year that way, per mature shrub.

Tomorrow I will go see what they look like and warn my SIL I may be messing with the roses.

You might want to check out this thread on the ATP Roses Forum....

The thread "Propagating rose cuttings" in Roses forum

Kim is a true master rosarian ... not from the ARS program, but because he has grown and propagated thousands of roses using many methods and has bred some very successful roses.

Smiles,
Lyn

When is the best time to plant.

I tried the potato trick last week but the only thing is trying to stick the rose stem into the potato. Not easy! I ended
up going back to the upended Mason jar over the stem planted in soil. Don't know if the potato trick works or not, but
I wasted a perfectly good potato trying.

Often with lilies in northern climates, the season isn't long enough to ripen certain lily seeds. When there is a killing frost eminent, they usually cut the stems and place them in water inside the house to finish the ripening process, but there are some lily enthusiasts that use potatoes to stick these in to complete the process.

I want to try ground layering too after reading about it. I will go mess with my mothers roses.

The layering also works on caryopteris and azaleas. Probably any woody shrub will root using this method.

Do you suppose all potatoes are treated or do some still just sprout even though treated? Not that I want any additional plants, I just want to try this. I have a bag of Klondike Golddust potatoes. They have a lot of sprouts and perhaps some will waste anyway, so I don't mind using them. Hopefully it wouldn't/won't hurt to wash them off first and then dry just in case. I have a garden staple, and so I pre-reamed a hole in the potato since I read of Angie's woes. The garden staple just happened to be slightly smaller than the stem of the rose. So I still had to somewhat press the rose cutting into the hole. I therefore could see the difficulty unless a hole was first made, and then I don't know how much contact the cutting must have.

Making my hole in the potato:


Stuck cutting and potato placed in a jar and on my counter:


Of course odds may be against because of time of year, and I don't know that window light is sufficient. But it will be fun to see anyway. I may go try a hydrangea and butterfly bush piece just to see what happens.

(I may need to trim up my cutting more.)

I decided to load down my first potato because of indoor space to be keeping such things. And it could be kind of cute. So I added a couple butterfly bush cuttings and a Spigelia cutting since there was another thread about them.


I wanted to try a hydrangea cutting also, but the stems are vey large on those. So I had to use another potato and really ream out a large hole.


After I made my multiple host potato, I thought that is really not too good because *if* they all did root, I would have to cut the potato up in multiple pieces to actually establish the plant. Oh well, it will still be fun to see what happens.

Oops, I didn't read the original post well enough. Well, these won't be buried in the potting soil/top soil. They are just stuck in the potato and will be misted periodically. Perhaps I'll just be seeing how long they survive.