It looks to be doing very well! I have used that same "greenhouse" technique with success. I usually just root things in our rather light, sandy soil. I am never sure why some cuttings take and others don't.

Porkpal said: "I am never sure why some cuttings take and others don't."

I am new to all this so I can only guess. I wonder if it has something to do with the time of the year (Spring vs. Fall) the cutting is taken. OR from the type of climate it was originally hybridized??? Perhaps some of these roses are difficult to root because they are genetically weak and should never be own root roses. Maybe after they made their crosses years ago, they automatically grafted them all rather than risk poor performance.

Margie, I would say yes, yes, yes, yes. Right on all counts!
Day light length or strength, and humidity on the cutting make a difference also. Some say phase of the moon when the cutting is taken, not sure on the validity of that, though.
Lots of factors! I've had roses root because I accidentally set a garden gnome on a cane.
Others are so frustratingly difficult that I think if I paid someone to teach me how to bud roses it would be easier.

I always assumed that the failures were due to my ineptness and the successes were luck.

Well Porkpal, quit kicking yourself, because some roses are just stubborn by nature. They've got a mean streak, and they thoroughly enjoy making fools out of really good gardeners.

Just garden experience to offer here. I now hose off all bark based medium. Previous to doing so I lost all roses planted in the bark. When digging up none had roots that had grown into the surrounding soil. Roots were same size as when planted and not looking to healthy. Perennials that arrive in bark medium rot very easily as too much moisture is held in by the crown and young roots. This stuff is the kiss of death here. Had the pleasure of purchasing a bag of soil called Natures Care organic soil from Miracle Grow. It's bark medium.

Mine did the opposite of rotting. They dried up and died for lack of moisture, even though other roses in the same beds responded well to watering. When I dug up the gopher cages to dispose of the dead roses, I emptied the "soil" from the cages onto a pile of weeds I didn't have time to pick up before the latest series of rainstorms began. It resembles dry sawdust. After days of storms producing inches and inches of rain, the weeds in the pile are a gloppy mess, but the "soil" from the rose cages is still dry!

As I said before, I think it depends on the type of bark that's used in the mixture. The dead and dying roses were in three deliveries from Roses Unlimited, but other roses from RU, purchased at different times, are doing fine. I have to conclude that some bark-based media are harmful to planted roses and some are not, but I'll be removing all bark in the future just in case it came from a bad batch.

One of my flowerbeds has killer dirt. Nothing will grow in there, not even weeds or ivy. It's a raised bed with expensive topsoil I had hauled in. Every year, I add more compost and more mulch to the bed, trying to repair it. Finally, this year, i saw the first worm in it. My conclusion is that the field it came from had been sprayed with long acting herbicides over and over. Some of the research is saying even Roundup has a residual effect, even though the label claims it doesn't.
This fall, I planted iris, hosta and shrubs in the bed because I was needing space quickly. Hopefully they'll be ok and in a year or so I can use it as more than a holding bed. You would think any chemicals would be weakened after 7 years.....
I once saw a neighbor spraying a tree with brush killer, trying to kill off some poison ivy. The tree died too. The tree companies who removed trees and shred them have no idea if any trees have been exposed to chemicals like this, so I can see how one bag of bark mulch could have enough poison in it to kill a rose. Shredded up and made into potting soil, it would be even worse, I think.

An interesting and valid point, Cindy. As a farmer, I deal with herbicides quite a lot, and many of the broad-leaf killers do have a residual effect that may last over a year. Still - seven years! - amazing.

Cindi ...

I have a bed like that, but I call it the Bed-of-Death ... I think my problem is due to drainage rather than the soil. Some day, I'll have time to work on it.

>>>I once saw a neighbor spraying a tree with brush killer, trying to kill off some poison ivy. The tree died too. The tree companies who removed trees and shred them have no idea if any trees have been exposed to chemicals like this, so I can see how one bag of bark mulch could have enough poison in it to kill a rose. Shredded up and made into potting soil, it would be even worse, I think.

That's exactly why I won't use the "free mulch" provided by the dump where a lot of people drop off their green waste.

I get my wood chip mulch from the utility company's chip pile. It's still free, but they are clearing limbs that may cause damage to the electrical lines located in easements in town and in the forest in the back country in the moutains. I've never had a problem with anything I've gleaned there. Yet.

Smiles,
Lyn

Cindi - You know, never thought of it that way... I get a lot of recycled mulch (need LOTS of mulch & much cheaper getting recycled than paying $41-$50/CY plus delivery!), and never thought about the dangers of getting mulch that has RoundUp embedded in it...

something else to think about. Bleh!

There are many, many herbicides a lot worse than RoundUp...feel lucky if it's all you get.

PP ...

You are very right. The biggest problem is that we don't know what we are getting.

We also get shredded mulch by the dump truck load a few times a year. The tree trimmers that clear under utility lines bring it to the far edge of our property and dump it. It saves them an expensive trip to the city dump, so they are really happy I'll take it. I let most piles of it sit for a year before I use it, and by then, the bottom of the pile is starting to break down into black gold. I turn it with the tractor before I spread it on the daylily beds. I'm hoping the trees under the lines are safer than regular homeowner trees, because they are on the right of way, meaning nobody is spraying anything there. Most around here are elm, cottonwood or cedar, so those are good for mulch.
Porkpal, after my experience with the purchased topsoil, I won't ever buy it again. I will buy compost that is from horse stalls if it is properly aged. Even that sometimes has me worried, though, because there are 3 horse vets/hospitals within a mile of me, and I think the compost guy gets a lot of his compost from them. Who knows what kind of chemicals have been used there....
Best bet is my own compost tumblers. I am very very fortunate that the previous owners of my property never bothered to fertilize or spread weed killer, or even to plant grass, so I have native soil and native grasses, dating all the way back to when Indians lived here. We did find pottery shards when we dug a new septic tank, so I think this was a native campground at one time. I wonder if our creek had clear water back in the 1850s?

>>>> I'm hoping the trees under the lines are safer than regular homeowner trees, because they are on the right of way, meaning nobody is spraying anything there.

Cindi ... That's my working assumption, too.

I can't let it age for a year, so I use it as a top mulch to my leaf mulch. I screen out the larger pieces and use those for starting my winter fires, so I am usually putting down smaller chips and they decompose faster over the leaf mulch.

>>>>Most around here are elm, cottonwood or cedar, so those are good for mulch.

I read somewhere that cedar is not good to use for mulch, but I can't remember why. If you haven't had any problems, it's not an issue. We have black and white oak, fir and pine that gets chipped. I've been using those wood chips for years and haven't had any problems.

A friend of mine got a load of chips from a tree trimmer that worked on homes up here, and almost lost most of her garden. Who knows what those homeowners put on their trees ?

I get the leaves for my mulch from a friend's property. I know she doesn't use anything that would cause a problem. She has told me that I am too cautious, but it's stories like yours that make me cautious.

Smiles,
Lyn

Lyn - If I get the chance, all I use is cedar for mulch. I love the stuff. It doesn't break down as fast as other wood does, but it's SOOOOOOO expensive!! "Gorilla Hair" usually runs $48-$51/CY. I usually just get the bags of Western Red Cedar @ the Big Boxes when they have 'em on sale.

Toni - Thanks for the information.

I truly cannot remember where I read about cedar, but it is very probable that the writer thought the problem s/he was seeing was due to the kind of mulch that was used at that time in the garden, but it was really another variable that caused the problem s/he was seeing. That happens a lot when we are trying to figure out what may be causing a problem in our gardens.

There are no big box stores up here, so I get what I can glean ... It's good to know that I don't have to worry about cedar, now.

That's what I like about this site. When people share their actual experiences, I can filter out a lot of what I have read elsewhere.

Thanks, again.

Smiles,
Lyn

Lyn - I've also discovered for the first time about "dog vomit mold". I'd never seen it before and it's quite disgusting. It actually looks like dog vomit! But it's 100% harmless and breaks down pretty quickly. It is more common with pine & other soft mulches apparently (from what research I did when I saw these giant piles of dog puke all over my yard that actually wasn't dog puke!) and from the humungo pile of mulch I got earlier this year, quite a bit of it was raw ponderosa pine chips (still sappy) and then with all the rain we got when I was putting down the mulch... yea, dogpuke everywhere. Yuck. Thank goodness it didn't smell or attract flies!

Lyn, I do remember when "experts" suggested avoiding cedar mulch. The factually deficient site E-How still has a few amateur articles warning people that cedar kills all insects on contact and other rubbish. Here's a decent site with good info:
http://garden-mulch.mywisdomba...

Here's a great article on mulches from Dirt Doctor:
http://www.dirtdoctor.com/Mulc...
I love this statement from Dr. Dirt:
"The best mulch for any site anywhere is recycled plant material (leaves, twigs, spent plants, buds, bark, flowers and other plant debris) that grew on that property. That's the natural way it is done in the forest and on the prairie."

Cindi ...

Thanks for the clarification. I knew that I had read about avoiding cedar mulch somewhere, but was reluctant to say, "Don't use it" because I couldn't remember the source of the information.

As for Dr. Dirt's statement, that is wonderful in theory, but there is no way that I can generate sufficient plant material on my property to mulch the garden. That's why I go out to my friend's place to collect the leaves I use for mulch and to the chipping pile.

I just do my best to make sure that what I bring into the garden is clean and doesn't have any pathogens or chemical residues that might harm the plants I grow.

Smiles,
Lyn