Rose Cuttings: When and How to Take Cuttings from Your Roses?

Welcome Tips Rose Cuttings: When and How to Take Cuttings from Your Roses?

In the garden, we love the rose bush. It produces magnificent flowers that enhance our outdoor space. Potted rose bush, climbing rose, rose garden… We never get tired of it! And for good reason, this plant is easy to propagate. Thanks to cuttings, it is possible to preserve and reproduce a variety in order to share it with friends or family, or to install it in another part of the garden.

Below we show you how to get a beautiful collection of roses from the stem.

How to successfully take cuttings?

It is imperative to select a mother plant that is healthy and vigorous, free from any disease. It must also be productive and perfectly representative of its species and variety in terms of shape, color or taste, depending on whether it is grown for its foliage, flowers or fruits.

To ensure they are saturated with water, which will facilitate their recovery, water the plants copiously the day before and take the sample early in the morning. Depending on the diameter and rigidity of the cuttings, equip yourself with pruning shears, a grafting knife, a pair of scissors or a cutter for the finest ones. And do not hesitate to prepare several cuttings from the same plant to increase your chances of success; depending on the species, the recovery rate varies greatly.

How to take rose cuttings?

This is a simple cutting, which corresponds to the most common technique. Locate a stem of a rose bush from the year, in good health, very straight, with several eyes and budding buds.

Cut the head, too tender, above two alternate leaves, and cut about 15 cm below. Remove the other leaves to limit water loss by transpiration, as well as the thorns of the part of the stem that will be buried (about 5 cm from the bottom of the stem).

Plant the stem by pushing it about 5 cm into a small pot containing a substrate made of a 50/50 mixture of sand and blond peat. Some people dip the base of the cutting in a powder or gel of rooting hormones before putting it in the ground: this encourages root production but is not mandatory.

To increase your chances of success, do not hesitate to take several cuttings, each in a different pot.