04/15/2024
Interesting
On Valentine's day, my child brought me roses. Today, I have tons of new growth from every rose in that ten dollar grocery store bundle.
Soon, I'll plant them.
Here's what I do.
I just use a blue quart or half gallon mason jar. I don't like using wide mouth jars for this purpose, but I can't explain why. It is probably just superstition on my part, but I think they work better.
I get the roses and immediately cut off most of the leaves on the lower part, then I thoroughly rinse the stems. I do this for supersitious reasons and for scientific reasons.
They could have chemicals on them that hinder new growth.
Then, I use a very good knife or pair of loppers and cut off about one or two inches of the ends. I always cut at an angle so the stems are diagonal.
Then, I swirl the bottoms of the freshly cut stems in local honey and put them in a blue mason jar. I change out the water about once a week.
After about two weeks, the roses are spent, so I lop those off the tops and will cut my stems in half if they're very long or will leave them how they are if they're short.
The little horizontal lines on stems are nodes where you'll see buds and new growth start.
I cut diagonally halfway between those nodes with a very sharp knife or loppers so as not to crush the stem. Swirl the bottom in local honey, then plop it down in water in my old blue jar.
Change the water about once a week.
Leave it near a window. Once there are a few roots looking like fine hair, I plant them. I dig a hole with a screwdriver or awl, and stick it in any dirt. Then I put a Mason jar over it and kind of screw it into the dirt.
I come back in a couple weeks and remove the jar.
This has worked almost 100% of the time.