My friend, Rich, asked me to start a new rose for him from my ‘Clair Matin’ rosebush. I have had this rose for over 20 years. It was given to me as a 4” cutting and is now over 9’ tall and 9’ across in a perfect circle. My next blog will be all about her as a full-grown rose, but this is the story of a new rose’s humble beginning: propagating roses from cuttings.

Perfect Time

August is the perfect time to start a new rose from a cutting. Hot days and warm nights encourage all kinds of new growth. Select a branch that has bloomed and remove the dead blossom. This is known as deadheading. From the same branch, cut a stem that is 5-6” long. Make a diagonal cut between leaf nodes and remove all but the top two leaf petioles. Put the cutting in a cup of water for a day or so. That way, the stem will be well-hydrated when we really get started.

Things You Will Need for Propagating Roses

The next day, or whenever you are ready, there are some things you will need to assemble. You will need some newspaper to cover your work surface. A small, clean flower pot is necessary. Wash out a 4” nursery pot (I like the square ones because they sit well side-by-side). You will need a soft, fluffy potting soil. I like a soilless mix of peat, vermiculite, and perlite. Tender new roots can move easily through it once they emerge.

Root hormone powder, such as ‘Rootone,’ will encourage new roots to form. It also contains some fungicide which is beneficial in a humid environment. You will need a large zip-lock bag. For this purpose, I like the two-gallon size because it provides a larger space for new growth once the cutting is rooted. A pencil is handy for tucking in the cutting, and also a sharpie to label the pot and the bag with the name of the plant and the date the cutting was potted up.

Preparing The Hydrated Cutting

Fill your clean pot with fresh potting soil that you have previously moistened. You don’t want the soil to be soaking wet. Take your cutting out of its water cup and cut some vertical stripes in the green skin to expose some more of the white cambium layer underneath. This is where the roots will come from and that is also why we make a diagonal cut between nodes on the stem. This exposes more cambium than a straight-across cut. Dunk the damp bottom of your cutting into the root hormone powder and tap on the side of the bottle to remove excess.

Take the pencil and make a hole in the center of your soil so the hormone powder doesn’t get rubbed off when inserting the cutting. Slip the cutting into the hole and firm the damp soil well around the cutting. Open your two-gallon zipper bag and put the potted cutting in the bag. It is large enough to handle two pots, if you wish. Then, zip the bag until the zipper is about one inch from the end. Then blow the bag up with your own carbon-dioxide-breath and finish closing the bag. You have now created a little greenhouse to get your rose off to a good start! Bring the sealed bag outside and put it out of direct sunlight. I like to put mine under a big hydrangea on the north side of my porch.

What’s Next?

Now…here comes the hard part…don’t look at it for at least a month! It will take at least that long to get started. You will know your cutting is rooted when you begin to see new growth on the cane. Once you are sure your new plant is growing, you will need to re-introduce it into the world. Gradually, over a few days, open the bag a little more every day until it is completely open. Once you take the rose out of the bag, you will need to introduce it to sunshine in the same manner. Day by day, exposing it to more sun until your new baby is acclimated to her new world. Once the pot is full of roots, you can put your new rose into a larger nursery pot.

One Necessary Rule

You need to know that it is illegal to propagate plants that are under patent. Hybridizers put a lot of work into providing us with beautiful roses and they have the rights to those plants for 17 years after they are patented! So, if you would like to start some roses from cuttings, you need to make sure that they are old enough to be off-patent. There are plenty of gorgeous older roses to choose from, so be kind to our wonderful rose developers and choose off-patent roses to propagate. We don’t want or need a visit from the plant police!