The most popular method of vegetative propagation of roses is the cultivation of plants from stem cuttings. The difficulty of propagation by stem cuttings is to maintain the viability of the cuttings before rooting, and its transformation into an independent plant.
The material for grafting should be young, healthy and without visible damage by diseases and pests. The cuttings are taken from the rapidly growing shoot of the current year (green shoots are cut, for example, in early summer, and lignified ones – during dormancy). You can treat them with a weak solution of root growth stimulants.
Conditions for cuttings
Freshly cut cuttings for root formation need appropriate temperature conditions. At elevated temperatures, the rate of root formation is higher than at low. Only the substrate should be warm, and not the whole cuttings. In this case, part of the nutrients goes to feed the buds that have moved to growth, and not to the root system. Lignified cuttings propagated in open ground. Cuttings from the floor of matured shoots need warm and humid conditions. Such conditions can be created by placing pots, with cuttings grown in a substrate, under cover from a plastic film, where small vessels with water are also placed. Or you can place vessels with cuttings in larger pots with wet peat. The main thing in these methods is not to go over with moisturizing. Otherwise, there is a risk of rotting the cuttings or the defeat of fungi. It is preferable to grow new rose plants in cold greenhouses, tunnels, closed chambers.
Groups of cuttings
Harvested cuttings can be divided into five groups.
- Green cuttings cut from the first spring shoots.
- Sliced from early to mid-summer.
- Semi-lignified, which are cut at the end of summer.
- Cuttings from ripened wood are cut in the winter.
- Lignified cuttings are cut from lost leaves, resting shoots.
The lower cut of the nodal cuttings is made directly under the knot or kidney. A cut in the middle of the internode is done when cutting cuttings from the floor and mature shoots. Other methods use cutting cuttings with a kidney and a leaf, cuttings with a heel or a hammer.
Thus, you already know what propagation by stem cuttings is, when to cut cuttings, what they are, and how to create optimal conditions for the proper development of a small plant. Only the first time is scary, and after you bring up a full-fledged plant from the cuttings, you will click the cuttings like nuts and grow roses.