In my March 20th post I talked about the roses I grew from cuttings for the lavender/rose hedge, and I thought that deserved a post of its own. So here it is. I did buy some roses (including two shrink-wrapped and waxed packs of three barely rooted, allegedly red, roses from E.Lecerc — at least four of which seem to have taken, to my amazement.
The rest were rooted cuttings from roses already on the property. I think a few guest plants in my first and second cuttings pot come from the rose in front of the studios, and last year a rose identified on the tag as red came up a lively, if unexpected, pink, so I think in spite of my plan the hedge will be a delightful mismatch. I like the idea of the totally red hedge, but nature will do as it does. I took cuttings this year when I pruned the (red) bushes at the front of the house that I planted two years ago (Rose de Cahors mostly), so I might have a few more red roses to go there as replacements if any fail, or they can join the others in the front.
The image below is of the cuttings I rooted from the new growth I pruned this year in January. I followed the generally prescribed method, described on this great WikiHow site, which has links to all kinds of gardening tips that I hope to follow in the future so I do not spend a fortune buying plants every year. Those trying this for themselves may also like Pamela Groppe’s blog. She describes a useful (but slightly more complicated) method in her post “easiest ways to Root Roses from Cuttings.”
I’d like to grow new fruit trees from cuttings, too, but it is basically a one-two year process from cutting to planting (autumn to autumn) so I need to be here full time to do it properly. I tried to take cuttings after the last roses at the end of the summer (when the bush starts going dormant) as folks recommend, but they did not root. This is part of my reasoning for waiting to try bigger rooting projects until I am here in the autumn to take care of them. The potato method all the range on social media did not work for me either (or for Pamela Groppe, she writes). There are a lot of “tips” for rapid rooting (onions, aloe, potato) but honestly if they are going to root they do so pretty fast in my experience and a quick dip in rooting hormone works wonders.
The new spring growth seems to have worked for me this year. I didn’t use any kind of covering to create a greenhouse, just slit (“injured”) the bottom of the stems, dipped them in rooting hormone, and stuck them in the pot when we had a warm spell in late January. The first image is them two months later. I will plant out the biggest plants before it gets too hot and see what the roots look like on the others.
Back in New Jersey, Andrée and I planted a Rose of Sharon hedge by cutting branches from an existing bush behind the garage and sticking them in the ground along the sidewalk (too close it turned out). My mother planted a privet hedge this way as a child, too, casually breaking off twigs from other people’s hedges as she walked by and sticking them in the ground. She told that story proudly, so we have a long history of this method and I plan to do the same with the solitary and spindly forsythia in front of the house by the wall (I will post another time about the bushes in front of the house).
A few weeks ago, Christine gave me some cuttings from Andrée’s yellow climbing roses she had saved when she pruned (first image, above), and I hope enough will root for me to plant a few in front by the pigeon house and maybe even by the front gate and perhaps the garage if I get enough (fingers crossed). I hope I am as lucky with these as with the January cuttings, but if they don’t take I am going to try using grafting balls, which I might try for some of the trees, too. They used to do this with plastic soda bottles on the farm we volunteered at in Honduras, but I have fancy plastic balls (here’s some information for those who are curious).
If these all root I will probably be close to max for a while—unless I find a new place to plant them.
I’ll post an update once I have one.
