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Gardening in the UK

How do I take a cutting from a rose bush?

18 years ago

I am a complete novice gardener and would love to be able to take a cutting from a 40 year old rose bush in my front garden (blooms every year)so that I have have the same variety in my newly landscaped rear garden.

How do I do this, and when is the best time?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Yvonne

Comments (17)

ionads
18 years ago
Hi Yvonne,

It is not at all difficult. I've done this many times.

Choose a straight stem and cut off about 12inches from the top just below a leaf node. Pull off the leaves along the stem and leave just two at the top.

Dig your spade into the ground where you want it to grow, wiggle it about to form a narrow hole and bury about six inches of the cutting into this wedge. Firm up the soil around the cutting, name it, water it and watch it grow.

Within a few weeks you will see more leaves appear, which is a sign that it has taken. Leave it in this spot until next spring, and then uproot it carefully and replant it.

I usually take three cuttings off a plant and share the extras with friends and neighbours.

You can use this method for many other perennials too, like ceonothus, clematis, geraniums, potentilla, euonymous, hebes, weigela and even abutilon. Just make sure you pick a healthy straight stem. For other flowers I only use about 6-8 inch stems and they work very well.

Do tell us how it goes,
Iona
ymv13
Original Author
18 years ago
Thank you. I will give it a go.

Yvonne
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I have rooted old-fashioned antique roses and have had success with 4 inch long soft wood cuttings in potting soil with rooting hormone keeping the potting soil moist in bright shade. I rooted two roses from my grandparents' home about two and a half years ago and they are over four feet tall now. I have done it all times of year but I have been more sucessful in spring and fall. I don't see that it would hurt for you to try now. You will know within six weeks or so if the cutting rooted. I put three or four cuttings of the same rose in the same pot and usually 2 of 4 make it. You can try again in the fall if some of them don't work. You should probably leave them in pots and protect them from freezing weather next winter. My experience has been that the roses bloom a little less than a year after being rooted and are a good sized shrub within eighteen months with regular blooms. (Again, it doesn't really freeze here more than a few night a year, so that might matter.) Can you tell if they are the old-fashioned own-root garden roses or grafted? If they are old fashioned, the roses put out new side growth with roots. The rose might also be many smaller plants with roots. Check and see if there is a side shoot with its own roots. If so, I have divided the roses successfully in February here by cutting the side shoot from the main shoot with the roots and digging that portion up. Then I cut them back and palnted them in pots and babied them for a few months until they recovered. Finally, the rose forum people are exceptionally nice and helpful and many live in the South, so you might be able to get some good tips from them.
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Hawthorn_Cottage
18 years ago
Yvonne, l do mine in a similar way, last year l tried this for the first time, l cannot believe how easy it was.
My method is this:- cut lengths of rose stem, about 1ft, strip off some of the lower leaves, cut below a leaf joint,dip in hormone rooting powder, and plant up to one third of the stem in a very deep flower pot, about five to a pot. Label them, and stand the pots outside, l did put mine overwinter in the cold greenhouse, but two l just planted in the border, did as well.These were taken last summer and by this summer, they have made bushes, as big as those you buy in pots, and all are flowering.
brian2cv
18 years ago
Anyone tried rooting apple cuttings? I have to trim a damaged stem off my Red Sentinel crab and it has 3 nice shoots on it. I know they can be grafted but it seems a waste not to try rooting the cuttings.

Brian
ionads
18 years ago
Brian, I think a hardy tree like a crab apple might work from a cutting. Why not try it? You might end up getting a different tree to the one you have, but why not?

Iona
fonzie47
18 years ago
For what it's worth there is another method of producing another rose bush and that is by air layering.
With a sharp clean kinfe make two parralle cuts about 11/2 inches apart around the circumference of the stem through the cambium layer then connect the two cuts wiyh one long cut and remove ring of bark exposing woody tissue.
Apply sphagnum moss (moist not wet) to the wound and then wrap in clear polythene wrapper. Tie off both ends to stop moisture escape and to curtail pathogen invasion.
From this wound adventious roots will form and when this occurs cut off just below root formation and plant out new plant where required.
dampflippers
18 years ago
Is it too late to do rose cuttings now? Or when all the leaves have fallen? Or is it better to do them in the growing season?
fonzie47
18 years ago
Growing season.
dampflippers
18 years ago
I was wondering whether you could just plant your winter prunings.
flora_uk
18 years ago
Concerning the idea of cuttings from crab apples. You will get an identical plant from a cutting. It's seed where you might get something else. This is, of course, providing you take your cutting from above the graft point if your tree is grafted. Regarding rose cuttings, I have a climbing Buff Beauty grown from a cutting which is fine but if your original bush is grafted on to a vigorous rootstock you may find a cutting on its own roots is weaker growing.
dampflippers
16 years ago
Rats, forgot to take my rose cuttings earlier in the summer. Is it too late now?
I think I'll try anyway, but thought I'd ask.

Also, what is the best time to take cuttings from a hazel? Corylus avellana.
andrew_london
16 years ago
The normal time of year to take rose cuttings is autumn. You take a hardwood cutting and bury it either in the ground or in pots in a cold frame until the next autumn. The likely success rate is 50 per cent.

Many of the old roses are better from cuttings because they will spread slowly on their own roots - and you don't have to worry about suckers. The problem (as Flora says) comes with Floribundas and Hybrid Teas which may grow weakly.
angie
12 years ago
So, what if every likely stem already has buds on it? Do I clip off the buds? Leave them? Wait until fall?
Thanks.
martine67
10 years ago
hi, all im new to this forum and just wanted to ask if any one has tied roses from seeds as only 2 of mine came up , and I lost one an d now have just the I which is now about 15 inches tall , how long before it flowers .all so my rose cuttings only 10 out 50 have taken , I put them in pots as I have a sandy soil here.
siobhan11891
8 years ago
hi

two weeks ago i took cuttings from my rose bush. they are in small pots hopefully starting to grow a root. when they have grown a root what do i do.
Jean Rogers
7 years ago
Hi I wont to tack some rose cutting I have not done it before so also I would like to know when is the best time to do it please
TaraMaiden
7 years ago
What rose is it? Do you know which branches to clip? A member has already said that autumn is the best time.... did you read the thread?

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