day: 22
thing: A prepared rose cutting
It's already past time to prune roses here, but I only managed to get around to it today (and didn't finish). It always seems a shame to throw away perfectly good chunks of plant. I decided to try to root a piece of rose cane, even though I know the success rate is low. The best thing about this Thing is that I did not look up how to properly start a rose cutting, even though I have a huge awesome book on plant propagation. It is true; I live on the edge.
Things that cuttings like:
- high humidity
- sterile dirt
- rooting hormone (although not necessary)
First order of business... get a rose cutting. I chose this one because it's budding out and already has some leaves at the top. I figured it needed some way to get energy (besides the energy stored in the stem). I had to hose aphids off the baby leaves, because those bastards have already started hatching.
Next, I sterilized a bit of potting soil that's been sitting in a container on my back porch forever. (About 180F for 30 minutes, as recommended by the Internet for sterilizing dirt. As far as I'm concerned, sterilization doesn't happen with dry heat unless you subject it to 320F for 2 hours, but... this dirt isn't going in a wound, so whatever.) Also, by this point I had decided to use a paper coffee cup as a pot, which is definitely not sterile.
I scored the stem of the rose cutting, removing long thin slices of the tough outer covering, and then rubbed rooting hormone into the wounds.
Lastly, I planted the cutting with the sterile dirt into the coffee cup, watered it (with non-sterile water, oh!), and made a tiny greenhouse for it, to keep the humidity up. You can make a greenhouse by turning a gallon bag upside down and closing it around the base of the pot. If you use a setup like this, it's very easy to do a sniff test when you take the bag off for watering-- if bacteria is building up in there, you will smell it. I hope I do not smell it this time.
In case you're curious... the roses look like this:
