Propagating

This is one of my happy spots: where I keep my roses. All of them have been propagated.

Roses are my favourite flower and in the city I live in I get to see them everywhere.

A few years ago I was attending a church that met in a hotel and every summer there was a gorgeous bush of mini white roses. We moved away and had to leave the church but before we left, I made clipped a small branch off and attempted propagating it.

Fast forward to now and I have four flourishing rose plants grown from clippings.

Little whites

I just love this colour

Mini pinks

The one plant not pictured is rose which I remember being very beautiful but its still very small and just beginning to become bushy. It may or may not bloom this year.

With all the roses that I see everywhere I go I can't help but propagate more. I'm hoping to have a rose garden one day.

The following is the propagation method I started using after reading a few articles about it.

You will need:

Rose stems with leaves

Sharp clippers

Pot

Clean jar big enough to cover the rose stem and leaves

Dirt

1- Prep the pot by putting dirt in and watering the dirt

2- Clip your rose stem so that you have leaves to soak in the sunlight (photosynthesis and all that)

3- Wound the bottom tip of your stem by scraping off the first layer of green (like my technical knowledge? Ha!)- I read somewhere that this helps stimulate root growth, 

4- Place stem in dirt deep enough for it to stand and, if your dirt is dry, water it

5- Put jar over stem and leaves

6- Place in a spot that gets good morning light but is shaded from the blazing afternoon sun. 

The ones I just propagated are on the middle level. I keep them close to my kitchen so I can watch them closely.

7- Keep an eye on it, water when the soil is dry: don't lift the jar, just water around the jar and tilt pot so that water goes under

I've noticed in the summer that new growth occurs really quickly and you'll see new buds growing out of the stem in a four to six weeks. In the winter it's taken longer- like six months or so. Just be patient and as long as the stem is green, you've got hope.

This is a clipping I propagated about a month ago. If you look closely you can see new buds forming just under the leaves. Also notice that leaves that fall off and die don't indicate the propagation hasn't worked.

Give it a try!