Rooting Multiflora Rootstock

Just had a look at some Multiflora cuttings I put into 8" pots middle of February. At that time thought they would not be ready for 1st April budding due to insufficent roots. Well they now have roots coming out of the drain holes in the bottom of the pot. That's just over 5 weeks ( 38 days ), could be the new potting mix (looks like 20% Perlite) or use of seaweed just after planting, everything else is the same. The last two days have been 35 and 36 degrees so that's good growing weather.

Bruce... have you seen that new Seasol potting mix (talking about seaweed). I wanted to see if anyone had tried it on their roses. Did those really long MF canes of yours take too?

TasV, the long canes suffered terrible neglect and wern't watered after planting or for the next 6 months. Really it's a shame as they were quite secure and not blowing around in the wind. Reason for neglect was a friend and I built a 2 car brick garage for me, he had a house to build and guess who helped him. One actually survived and is going well, I would recomend it to anyone who has time to look after them and water little regularly.

The Seasol potting mix seems to be a good idea as they have to extract the moisture from the seaweed initially. Seaweed meal is used for stock feeds etc and is quite expensive, the best comes from a little island south of Melbourne called Tasmania. When I lived in Stockton Newcastle there was plenty washed up on the beach after heavy seas. The local gardeners used to wash it with the hose and use it as mulch with great results.
So I think the Seasol potting mix could be a really good one for striking cuttings. Must mention there is a concentrated seaweed extract in Bunnings for $5.10, the Seasol is about $6.95. Guess which one I use?

Yeah... the concentrate mix is what I use as well. There is another rose specific product made down here called Marrawah Gold Roses (this is them: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] made from the seaweed washed up on the north west coast. It's been pretty good and pretty economical too as it too is a concentrate. They claim it is also a fertiliser (I reckon it would be mainly trace elements) and it's useful as a foliar feed. So far the roses seem to like it and I mix a bit with the Mancozeb I put on the cuttings. ot sure if it makes a difference but the cuttings seem to be doing ok with foliar feed every few days (figured it made sense as there were no roots to feed them plant).

Didn't know you were a Novacastrian... that's my old stomping ground too. Before I left for Norfolk Island I use to live on Lake Macquarie and worked in Belmont.

So... the way you struck the really long canes was to lay them on the ground and embed the ends in the base of a foam fruit box of potting mix (or some other substrate) wasn't it???

My tray of multiflora cuttings is about 20cm deep maybe... it has a perforated base (old worm farm tray) and I noticed the same rate of growth in the cuttings. Just filled it with potting mix, left them in the garden and watered them a little and they grew through into the ground in about a month-and-a-half to 2 months. But... another thing I noticed was that this rate was extremely variable. Thinking I should separate the 50 or so cuttings before they were a tangled mess I took them out and noticed that while some had roots going down into the ground others had only just caloused. How did you make your cuttings? When I made mine all I did was prune the multiflora plants back after flowering to keep them to a manageable size and then divide each long stem into about 5 or 6 sections about 30cm long and about the thickness of a pencil and discarded the top soft sections.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

multiflora standard in flower

Interesting Multiflora variety you have Doug. To the best of my knowledge is there are about 100 plus of it. Does your variety start off white and stay that way ?
As for your method against the Glenyis', how long does it take to  pot up ? We use to use Styrofoam boxes at the rose nursery and hessian sacks for standards and weepers in a cool dark shed. I am experimenting with a similar method to Glenyis', named the 'Burrito method', I am also trying it on some fruit trees.
Here is a  link [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

From memory the flowers have a pink tinge before they open. The original plant was a budded plant that was taken over by the rootstock. It is extremely vigorous, strikes very easily and is almost thornless. Laurie Newman was that impressed with it he took some cuttings to grow and use.

I have noticed it certainly attracts red spider mite.

Oh, if there is a remedy for humidity affecting cuttings, I would love to hear it. Can get the cuttings to callous stage and even start rooting, then they're taken over by the humidity. I am growing on a multiflora rootstock (as per Ausrose) to first flowering to see if I like it enough to take cuttings. Maybe it will ignore the humidity up here so I can bud onto it and circumvent the cutting/humidty/death cycle! I will not give up though!!!

Rosebud

I have found up here there is only a relatively small window to escape the black death and even then each year is different.

Some years it is late April other years it goes as far as June.

We did some at the end of June last year that struck ok but ones done in July-August did not do as well.

None done in September survived.

Also some roses we cannot strike yet other people have no problem getting them to grow (and visa versa) and some years we can get some plants to strike but other years no luck what so ever.

As for the method used after trying them all the best results have been achieved by just sicking them into the ground in the worst soil at our place. This maybe because you can water it as much as you like or we could get 8 inches of rain and the soil struggles to stay wet. It is also shaded by a camellia hedge in their early days but open to the sun as by late spring. I am not sue if this helps or not but by time they have struck and the first new growth is appearing the nut grass etc is growing up around the plants giving their roots a bit of shade.

We have also tried all the striking hormones and dipping them in anti-fungicide to try to reduce the fungal deaths which I believe is related to the humidity but nothing has jumped out as helping all that much..

Just keep trying.

Gary

I have a couple of friends in the Gold Coast Rose Society and one in particular strikes cuttings that survive. I know this because I sent him cuttings of Joyce Abounding and they struck as he has showed blooms from them.

Thanks Ausrose - Love to know what techniques the Gold Coast group use to overcome humidity (supposing humidity is an issue for them).

Some roses don't seem to be affected. Alister Clarke's rose Borderer strikes with no worries. Comm de Labarthe is also fairly good.

Last couple of years I've had a really bad run with trying to strike cuttings. Maybe I'm just too slack with them. Have tried several things. The one rose I really really want to strike I haven't been successful with but I managed to get 2 each of 'Firestar' and 'General Gallieni'. The general is particularly vigorous.

I used to be able to strike 'General Gallieni' but have had no luck for a few years now.

Its weird how something's strike ok one year then never again. Have the same issued with Etoile de Lyon.