GET GROWING!
A CUTTING-EDGE GARDEN!
The first rose rooted years ago from the original rose.
By LADYBUG
There’s a lovely story in Chicken Soup For The Gardener’s Soul about a lady who walked by a neighbour’s rose and couldn’t resist taking a cutting.
She might have justified her act thus, I imagine: It was a rare colour, one she had hunted for without success at local nurseries.
She rooted the cutting. Away from the neighbour’s eyes, I’m guessing. It grew into a beautiful shrub that she loved. One spring morning some years later, the lady saw the neighbour lamenting the demise of her rose over winter. The lady came home and debated with herself if this was the right time to confess to her having taken a cutting without permission. Her conscience (and the gardener’s spirit that wants to share) got the better of her and she marched back to her neighbour with a cutting from the rose that she had rooted. And that neighbour was then able to resurrect her favourite rose!
The story inspired me. No, not to pinch cuttings – while I have been seriously tempted on more occasions than I remember, I have resisted thus far – but to attempt to root a rose. The story in Chicken Soup for The Gardener’s Soul came with the steps the lady took to root hers and they are so utterly simple and doable I am surprised more people aren’t replicating their roses.
The third generation of the same rose.
All it takes is a cutting and a two-litre bottle of pop or juice.
Slice the bottom of the bottle off with a sharp knife. You may have to heat the blade for a few seconds before it will cut through smoothly if you, like me, lack proper tools.
Take a cutting from a rose, about 12 inches long. Remove the leaves on the lower part.
Dig a hole in a garden bed and bury the branch about 3-4 inches deep. Prop it up in the hole with soil and then place the pop bottle over it.
Pile a little soil around the bottle to hold it firmly in place.
Open the lid of the bottle and pour in some water to get your cutting growing. Place the lid back!
Water lightly for a few days and then forget about it.
Do it now, before the ground freezes over.
Your little pop bottle greenhouse will sit there for a few months, through the depths of winter. Come spring, you will notice a few new leaves on your stem. Gently pry the bottle away from the cutting and voila! you have a new rose!
Trust me, it works. When we moved to our present home some 14 years ago, I brought a cutting of the very first rose I had purchased in Canada. The gorgeous blooms used to draw admiring glances in our first garden.
That cutting rooted – following the above methodology – and is now a tall, sturdy, point of focus in a bed in the front yard. A couple of years ago, I rooted a cutting from this in the backyard and the baby plant is just as beautiful.