Hello there, this is my first time here and also my first question. I am a beginner at gardening. Have started a small container garden. So far just plants and flowers. My question is regarding roses... I planted 10 roses from clippings, planted them exactly as I was told from a self professed rose expert. ;-) none survived. I did my best not to over or under water. Always checking the soil before watering them. What could I have done wrong for all 10 of them to die on me. :-(
Thank you for any help on this.

Dorris

Did you cover your cuttings with a jar?

Welcome! Which roses were you trying to root, some are easier than others.

Hi,Doris. I hope you enjoy ATP.

Zone 10b sounds pretty hot. Maybe they dried out too quickly? Shade or some wind barrier or misting the cuttings might have helped.

I understand that the drainage and moisture level in the rooting medium may be critical for rooting some plants. When the rooting medium is too wet or too fine, the stems and roots don't get enough air. If the cuttings were not all ready to root, they might rot before the roots develop. Rooting hormones should encourage the cuttings to develop roots faster than they might otherwise.

Other plants can pretty much just be "stuck in the ground" and they are likely to root. I wouldn't even guess what kind of rooting medium is best for roses (coarse sand? fine peat? Perlite? Vermiculite?)

Personally, I find rooting cuttings (especially hardwood cuttings) to be the hardest gardening task I ever tried. I never got a single root on hardwood, and even softwood cuttings rot on me before they root. So "zero for ten" isn't bad, especially if you didn't practice first on easier plants.

I've read that many plants root easiest from young, actively growing shoots, but I don't know if that applies to roses.

One book had many clever schemes like pruning a plant severely one fall, so that it sent out a lot of tender suckers early the next spring, which made good material for cuttings by mid-spring. (Again, that might not work for roses.)

>> exactly as I was told from a self professed rose expert. ;-)



This place has many REAL experts. With your help describing your situation, they can make suggestions.

I just wish there was some way they could have reached right through the computer monitor and checked the moisture level in my seedling trays three years ago so they could have told me "that's MUCH too wet!!"

Welcome, Dorris. Starting roses from cuttings is kind of advanced for a beginner gardener to do. I think your friend, the self professed rose expert might have set you up for failure here. Maybe ask them next time you talk to them if they would root some cuttings for you.

Unless you live in a very humid climate like maybe S. Florida, you'd have needed to mist those cuttings often and make sure they didn't dry out to keep the leaves alive until they formed some roots. Or give them a 'mini greenhouse' by covering with a jar or plastic bottle as Woofie suggested (which might cook the cuttings if the sun got to them).

Roses are not hard to come by, nor are they particularly expensive. I think you should treat yourself to a healthy growing rose plant in a pot and start from there. Even if all those cuttings had lived, it would be at least a year or two and lots of TLC before you'd see any flowers.

@envisionda, Dorris



Success with rooting rose cuttings has so many variables that can impact success, even in Rose Heaven, and no matter how expert someone may be at rooting rose cuttings, many cuttings fail simply because it always depends on the rose first. Some roses root like fire, while others are temperamental about rooting, but can be fine roses.

Some of those variables ... note I used the word "some" ... are:
1. when the cutting was taken
2. what part of the plant the cutting was taken from
3. the length of the cutting
4. time of year you are trying to root the cutting
5. type of rooting medium you are using
6. ambient temperature where you are growing the cuttings
7. ambient humidity
8. time of year you are trying to root the cutting
9. moisture in the rooting medium
10. type of light the cutting receives
11. whether or not you use rooting hormones and the strength of the rooting hormone
and on and on and on ...

Some of these variables can change even if your expert lives within a block of your home where you are trying to propagate the cuttings.

I know several experts who have had to change their propagation method when they moved to a slightly different climate in the same zone.

When I lived in southern California, I had an 80 to 90% take on all of my cuttings. Now that I have moved to a completely different climate, my take is less than 25%. I am still experimenting to find the best method of propagation for this climate.

I agree with Elaine in that it is much easier to start off with a healthy plant than to start of by rooting your own roses. Even then, you need to know how to grow bands ... started cuttings ... forward correctly for success. If a rose is happy, it's a weed and is easily grown.

I may know more than the average gardener about roses, but I would never claim to be an expert. The more I learn, the more I realize I have more to learn. There is always some one else that can teach me something they have learned from their experience.

Growing roses is fun. Feel free to ask lots and lots of questions. The folks on ATP love answering questions.

Smiles,
Lyn