I am sure most of us have failed many times trying to propagate roses from cuttings. Rooting Rose stem or branch cuttings needs some special care and application of certain hacks and tricks unlike other plant cuttings which are easy to grow. And you get a genetically identical copy of your Parent tree which is not the case with seed grown plant, which differs significantly from its Parent plant.
Whether you are growing rose cuttings in water or in soil, use these common tips and tricks that will give you the best results.
- The Best Cuttings: – The first and foremost criteria to choose cuttings is selecting a disease-free branch. Make sure you choose a healthy branch free of any disease like rose die-back disease or any fungal black spots or white spots. If you choose a diseased branch, the rooting will certainly fail. Secondly always choose semi woody cuttings from the branch which is healthy with young shoots and leaves at its tip. Semi woody means – neither too hard nor too soft and young.
- Length of the cutting: This is very important and should neither be too long nor too short. An ideal length for best results would be 6 to 8 inches or max 10 inches. This length also depends on the internode distance of a branch which varies with the plant species. Remember one rule of thumb: the success rate of rooting is inversely proportional to the inter-node distance. That means the lesser the internode distance, the greater the chances of success.
- Cutting Tricks: – Firstly the Cutting Tool: A clean and sharp cutting blade or pruner is important. So, disinfect it using hydrogen peroxide swab or any household disinfectant you have. A germ-free cutting is shown to produce great results.
- Secondly the Cutting Point: Make a sharp cut about half to one inch below a node. This is where the rooting starts. Do not make a crushing cut which can damage the plant tissue and the outcome may be poor.
- Thirdly the Cutting Angle: A 45 degree cutting angle using a sharp and a clean cutting tool is shown to provide the best results and faster rooting because this gives the maximum surface area to produce roots and also it helps the cutting to absorb water quickly.
- Removing Leaves & Flowers: Remove the lower leaves and leave only a pair of top leaves. Cuttings do not have the root system to take up water yet, so fewer leaves means less stress on the cutting. Also Remove any flowers on the branch by snipping of dead or any flowers along with its twig. This is to divert energy to root development.
- Sealing the Top: This simple hack gives best results by retaining the moisture within the cutting and thus increasing the success rate. Simply light a Candle and pour on few drops of wax on the upper end of the cutting to seal it to prevent moisture loss from this top end. Check out my 100 Gardening Hacks Post.
- Orientation: Make sure you insert the cuttings in proper orientation and not reverse, especially if the cutting does not have any leaves on it. You can identify this by looking at the orientation of thorns and nodes.
- The Growing Medium: This is very important. If you are rooting in water, the container water should be changed every 4-5 days or at least weekly to prevent contamination and infection. If you are using Potting soil, use a loose or well-draining soil for faster root development. You can choose a sandy soil, cocopeat or peat moss, perlite and stuff like that. Or you can make your own potting mix using all these stuffs or whatever available.
- Insertion depth: How deep should I insert the cuttings. This is another important factor to consider. An insertion depth of 2 inches is considered better, one reason perhaps is better anchorage into the soil and keeps the cutting less disturbed.
- Rooting Hack: This simple rooting hack will help not only get faster results but guaranteed results. If you have rooting hormone powder like Indole Butyric Acid (IBA) or Naphthalene Acetic Acid (NAA), that’s great, you can apply this to the cuttings. But, If you do not have it, you can use a lot of natural rooting agents. One such stuff is Aloe vera. Yes Aloe vera has anti-microbial and rooting properties. You just cut a fleshy piece of aloe vera leaf, split it and place the cutting or just insert the lower end of the cutting into this piece and then insert into soil. The success rate using this method is great. You can also use this trick for air layering.
- Growing Conditions: Where to keep these cuttings? When to take out and repot them independently? And how frequently and how much to water these cuttings? These factors are very important and matter a lot for achieving best results. One common mistake people do is – taking out the cutting too early to check for roots. This happens because, when they see fresh shoots and leaves coming, they think adequate roots would have formed and they tend to remove it for transplanting. This is not right. Minimum period of at least 4 to 6 weeks or even more, is must, before sufficient roots have formed. Other factors like, A warm and humid environment is very important for rooting. Do not keep the cuttings in direct sunlight to avoid moisture loss before rooting. Keep them in indirect bright light. To maintain humidity and prevent moisture evaporation you can cover with a polythene bag and make some small holes for air circulation. You can water them only if the top soil is dry on touch or finger dip, or roughly you can water once every 2-3 days for best results depending on the climate. You can check my post on How to care for your Rose bush and get maximum flowering in Rose plant from this LINK.
Happy Gardening!
In this article let’s list out the 10 useful rose plant care tips one by one.
10. Bare Root Roses or Container Roses?
You can purchase roses already potted in soil thats container roses or as
dormant bare-root plants. If you are a beginner, container roses is the best
option, because they are easy to plant and they establish quickly. If you are
planting bare root roses, which are commonly sold online, they need to have
their roots soaked overnight in water before planting them in the soil, and the
roots must be kept always moist for the first few weeks after planting.
9. Repotting a Newly
bought Rose plant
The commonest mistake most of us do immediately repot a newly purchased plant.
Never do this. Keep this newly bought container in partial shade or indirect
sunlight for at least 3 to 4 days for it to settle down and then shift to full
sunlight or consider repotting in a new container and new potting mix of you
choice. Do not remove the entire mother soil from the plant, specially beginners.
Just tease the roots around and then
place in a new potting mix. Then after repotting, water it thoroughly and keep
it in shade for few days to prevent repotting or transplant shock which causes
the plant to wilt.
8. Drainage and Pot
Selection
No doubt, You need a well draining soil for all plants. This applies even to
rose plant. Make sure you have good drainage holes at the bottom that do not
get clogged easily. As you keep the
containers in full sunlight, plastic containers are not recommended. Clay pots
are the best and next comes the cement containers.
7. Potting Mix
Rose is a special plant and we expect a lot of flowers from it. So the nutrient
requirement for this plant is high. As you all know, Any plant requires
Phosphorous and Potassium for healthy flowering and fruiting. Keeping this in
mind while you prepare your potting. Steamed bone meal is the most important
source of phosphorous and a slow release fertilizer. One handful of it will be sufficient to
produce flowering for the entire year. You should also make a proper potting mix with
all ingredients like decomposed cowdung, vermicompost, coco peat or peat moss
and garden soil in proper proportions to make a well draining soil
6. Sunlight and
Location
Rose plant needs atleast 6 to 8 hours of full direct sunlight to produce
flowers and to keep it healthy. You cannot expect flowering without sunlight.
One more important point to remember here is its location. If possible protect
it from hot noon sunlight, like 12 pm to 2 pm sun or if this is not possible,
you can install a 50 percent green shade net to protect from noon sun,
specially in hot summer.
5. Watering
Requirement
Roses need daily watering and a well draining soil is very important and at the
same time moisture around roots has to be maintained by adding stuff like
compost and coco peat. You can add a little more compost like decomposed
cowdung or some extra leaf compost in your potting mix. One important watering
tip for roses to avoid fungus is Water early in the morning before sun starts.
Watering in evening can keep it damp and encourage fungus.
4. Fertilizer
Rose plant requires regular feeding to increase flowering both number of
flowers and also to achieve big sized roses. If you use chemical fertilizers, NPK
20 20 20 and DAP crystals that’s Di ammonium phosphate alternating every week
is sufficient to produce good flowering. But if you are completely organic like
me, Consider adding a hand full of vermicompost or decomposed cow dung in each
container every 15 days after raking or tilling the top soil. Raking or tilling the soil is itself an
important task to improve soil aeration and improve your plants health.
Then, You can also perform a foliar spray by mixing 1 teaspoon of Epsom salt in
1 litre of water once every 15 days for best results.
3. Pest Control
This is most important step. The only regular pesticide I recommend is Neem oil weekly once spray. This prevents and cures a lot of diseases and pests on rose plants. 5 to 10 ml neem oil mixed in 1 litre of water with few drops of liquid soap or shampoo. There are two most common disease attacks on rose. One is the Rose die back disease and the black spot rose disease, both are caused by fungus.
2. Dead Heading
This is another important task most of us are lazy to perform. Just pluck those
dead and fading flowers from the plant. This will conserve the plants energy to
product more new buds rather than diverting the energy in seed formation. Performing dead heading as soon as the flowers
starts to fade is beneficial instead of waiting for the flower to dry
completely.
1. Pruning or Trimming Rose Plants
This is important task most of us neglect. Do not hesitate or be afraid to prune you rose plant. You are not gonna kill it. Pruning is an important gardening secret to healthy rose bush because this encourages branching and makes your plant more bushy as a result more number of flowers. Perform at least a basic pruning what is called soft pruning in early spring season once in a year.
I have a detailed article on Pruning concepts and types of pruning.
Now! Two Bonus Tips:
Firstly About Soil PH: Rose loves slightly acidic soil. If you have a PH testing meter you can check it by dipping into your soil. Rose loves a ph of 6.0 to 6.5. To acidify your soil you can water it by mixing 10 gms of alum in 1 litre of water, once every 15 days or a month. This will certainly improve your plants health and increase flowering because acidic soil is important for nutrient absorption.
Secondly, You can add Mustard Cake Tea or Even used tea dust as discussed in my previous article on Used tea for Plants.
Happy Gardening!
What is Rose dieback disease?
Rose dieback is a condition commonly affecting rose plants where there is browning or blackening of the tip of the rose stem or a branch which then travels down toward the graft and may engulf the whole plant causing death.
It can either be a Branch die back or the main stem dieback towards the graft. It is infact a commonly encountered problem by every gardener and can sometimes be too bad causing death of the plant if no intervention is done.
What are the causes of Rose dieback problem?
Any factor that contributes to stress on the rose plant can result in dieback. The actual agent that causes this die back is the fungus which start multiplying and engulfing the entire plant. They gain entry from any form of physical injury to the plant and this can be even from a simple scratch to bad pruning techniques. Not taking enough aseptic precaution specially not cleaning the cutter, not cutting at 45 degree cutting angle and things like that. You can check out his article on all pruning techniques and how to safely perform plant pruning.
Now the other factors that are believed to cause this rose dieback problem are:
- Both overwatering and underwatering can cause this problem.
- Another cause is poor soil quality with no proper nutrients.
- Poor absorption due to soil ph problems. Rose plant needs a PH of around 6.5. I have discussed about soil ph and ways to check and rectify this, in my previous episodes. Please check description links to watch related videos after this episode.
- Dieback can also be physiological – meaning a normal process that can occur on a branch that has already flowered and if no further buds or yield is expected in that branch. This is a natural response to conserve energy for the rest of the plant, So dieback process can happen by itself.
The Treatment of Rose dieback problem:
Non-Chemical Methods and preventive steps:
1. Soil Preparation: When you plant a rose, the initial soil is very important to prevent rose dieback. Ensure there are enough nutrients including micro and macro nutrients for the plant to gain that strength to combat any infections. You can check out some good soil or potting mix recipes.
2. Check soil drainage hole if grown in containers: There should not be water logging. Also always use a well draining soil mixtures for roses or any plant for that matter. Avoid using clayey soils. You can watch few good soil recipes from my video title Universal Potting Mix recipes, I have linked all related videos in description below.
Now the most important step to treat rose dieback problem.
3. Pruning: This is a very important step for treatment as well as prevention of rose dieback disease. First of all for beginners in gardening, when you start to perform pruning, do not take it lightly. You have to follow the protocols. Some people due to laziness or whatever reason, just take their cutting tools and start snipping their plants. This is not done! Please always Clean or wipe the cutter with a disinfectant like rubbing alcohol or 6 percent hydrogen peroxide or alteast the home antiseptic solution from your first aid box. Optionally better to Wipe the pruning tool after every cut. Regarding how to make the cuts and the exact procedure for pruning, please check out my important video on Pruning techniques.
The main treatment of Dieback disease is pruning the involved stem or branch. With aseptic precautions, cut off the involved stem including an inch of the normal stem and dispose it away from other rose plants. That’s it.
The Chemical Treatment:
Nothing much, this is usually applied or sprayed after pruning that is cutting the involved branches. You can use any broad spectrum antifungal powder like the SAAF powder which is a combination of Carbendazim and Mancozeb. If you prefer to be completely organic, direct Neem oil application at the cut end will also help. If you do not have anything, atleast try to apply some turmeric powder to the cut end. This way you can stop further progression of this problem.
Rose dieback and black spot rose disease are two most common problems affecting rose plants. Also please check out the Black spot rose disease problem article.
Black spot rose disease is characterized by black spots on the upper side of leaves. This Fungus spreads quickly and can move from plant to plant if intervention is not done quickly. So, these are the 5 important steps to control black spot rose disease.
- Location: Carefully Choosing Your Rose Garden location is very important to prevent the development and spread of this fungus. Choose a location which receives Atleast 6-8 hours of direct sunlight and preferably morning sunlight is best so that the night time dew dries out early. Also there should be enough air circulation around the plants.
- Soil: Water should not stagnate around the plant at any cost. So make sure you have a well draining soil for your potted plant.
- Watering Frequency and method should be appropriate. Watering early morning is best way to prevent fungus so that the leaves dry out quickly rather than leaving them wet overnight by watering in the evenings.
The first three steps I discussed are mainly preventive measures and also a part of treatment of this black spot fungus in rose plants. Now moving on to the two most important steps for actual treatment or the complete removal of this problem. - Pruning: If your black spot disease is not so extensive, so soft pruning or remove only the affected leaves. Trim off all the affected leaves and branches and keep them away and dispose them safely so that your other plants should not get infected. Better use a trash bag and dispose them.
- Now before moving on to the actual remedy for black spot rose disease, we should understand the pattern of this black spot or brown spot rose disease:
- They are Circular black spots or brown spots on the leaves.
- The lower leaves tend to be infected first, and then it spreads quickly to the whole plant.
- The leaves then turn yellow and fall off.
- Then eventually the plant becomes weaker and it either blooms less or stops blooming.
Many recommend spraying with broad spectrum chemical fungicides like imidacloprid, mancozeb which is a component of SAAF powder and other like trifloxystrobin, Ziram, chlorothalonil and many others. Even Copper and Sulfur fungicides work great for black spot rose disease treatment. I think you can reserve this if your conventional organic treatment fails.
What I recommend is an Organic Solution – that is NEEM OIL SPRAY. 5ml neem oil in 1 liter of water weekly twice for 2 weeks and then maintenance dose of atleast monthly once or once in 15 days.
So, there we have it folks. That was a quick gardening tutorial on how to cure black spot rose disease. Please Share this Article by clicking on social share icons. Also comment your feedback below. Happy Gardening.