Well today was the day I pruned back and winterized the roses. It was a bit sad, but has to be done. Supposed to drop to the lower 20's tonight.
I had all kind of rose wood to work with. I tied them up in bundles and after dinner I started to work on them. I'm trying water and sand methods to see which works best.
First bundle was C.L. Royal Gold. A very prolific grower and everyone likes the gold colored roses. You can see some of wood grew like 12 foot long.
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The cutting I was looking for was good spacing inbetween leaf nodes and semi hard wood. Not old growth that is hollow and not new floppy growth. I went through a number of stems to find the ideal wood to try and root.
A little tip I found out. My clippers are sharp, if I was in hardwood my clippers wouldn't cut clean. So I would move up the wood and find another spot and they would cut clean because the wood was not hollow.
I cut the bottoms just above a leaf node at a 45 degree angle and dipped it in clonex rooting hormone, then trimmed off the leaves to resemble a bud stick.
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Then I trimmed to length at a 90 degree angle to fit in a gallon size ziplock baggie and coated the top with treecoat. One could probably use wax also, it's just to seal the end to help the cutting from drying out. Treecoat is some kind of tar, I use it when grafting.
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Then I added water ensuring I didnt drown the lower leaf node and sealed in a gallon size ziplock baggie. I placed them on my seed table under florescent lights. I'm trying 4 differnt varieties, each in corse sand and just water. I took 32 cuttings
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I'll post updates on progress and observations.
It was enjoyable and it'll be interesting to see how they do.
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