Budding and rooting experiment

I will be collecting some long sought for cuttings of Lavender aLassie in a few weeks time when the flowers have finished and the buds are ready for budding. I want to bud them onto rootstocks because the cutting-propagated specimen I have in the garden is very unthrifty and hardly making any new growth even though it is about 3 years old.
Alas! All my struck rootstocks are already budded with other varieties so I have no rooted rootstock to bud Lavender Lassie on to. However, I do have a number of healthy suckers on a few rose bushes around the garden.
So I am thinking that I would like to try budding and striking simultaneously. I have read about it some time ago and I think it is called Stenting. Has anyone reading this had experience with this method of propagating?
I thought I would bud short pieces of rootstock that have no eyes in them and then place them in perlite in a closed plastic container to keep the humidity high.
I welcome all and any advice.

Hmmm.... I have been reading some websites about stenting and I have come to think that I had best wait until summer when the days are long because the process needs long daylight to work well. Also I will need to take buds earlier than for T budding on an established root stock.
Have a look at this web site, particularly the movie. I found it very interesting.
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So I now have another idea. I wonder if I T bud my Lavender Lassie buds onto a sucker that is growing in my garden now, then next spring I cut off the sucker at a suitable length below the bud and strike it? Would that work?

I can send you some struck root stocks if you like.

TasV wrote:I can send you some struck root stocks if you like.

Would you be happy to do that? Do you have enough to spare Tas? 2 or 3 would be very handy. Then I would be sure of getting Lavender Lassie to grow for me.

I can send you 10 if you like When would you like them?

Thank you Simon for this offer. I would like them within the next 2 weeks please. That is when Lavender Lassie will be finished flowering and ready for budding. I can bud one for you. lavender lassie is a lovely flower, perfumed, and grows tall. I wonder if it would rival climbing Angel Face?

LOL... Not my ruddy Climbing Angel face that turned out to be Dr Huey !!! Just PM me your address again as I don't think I kept a copy of it. Talking about buds... you know how all my Sparrieshoop cuttings failed... well.. the bud has burst and is growing strongly now and doing well. So... all-in-all I got at least one plant of everything you sent up

I have been checking up on the pictures of Lavender Lassie and they are not the same as the rose cuttings I am getting. The cuttings look more like pictures of Lavender Pinocchio which is a low growing florabunda.
As a result of this I don't feel like budding it now. So don't send me the rootstocks Simon. I will buy a correctly labeled Lavender Lassie from the nursery.
Seems my old mentor Les has let me down again, getting his names scrambled! Remember Centenery150/Jubilee150? And Rosa Cockade/Cocktail?

Hiya Deirdre... If you would like some rootstocks anyway, to diversify your propagation techniques to help improve your odds of success, or just to replace your unthrifty cutting grown plant let me know.

I've been thinking about this stenting thing though Deirde.... I wonder if you were to take a decent understock cutting with plenty of leaves, then budded the rose you wanted below the leaves and just above the soil level, and then struck it as a cutting whether this would work just as well.

Well.... I have made about 6 'Monsieur Tillier' stents with lots of leaves to see how they go Dee. Plan is to leave them until next spring and then lop the tops off down to the graft in two-or-three stages to minimise the shock to the newly struck cuttings (got this advice from Jean at Reliable Roses.. she likes to cut grafted plants back in two or three stages to minimise shock/stress to the plants). Will keep you posted

Yes, I could do that. I have plenty of suckers sprung up from the roots of my rose bushes. I should strike them in 100% perlite and a humid environment do you think?

That's how I've done it... will see how it turns out. I put mine in some perlite and peat though.

Hi Deirdre,

I wasn't expecting this! About half of the buds have burst on the stents I made back on the 30th of March like this:



These are just in a pot in a plastic bag in a warm light spot and don't have roots yet.

Oooo! cheeky little things! That is wonderful! I hope the roots grow as vogourously too.

I have to say Dee that if this works well this has to be the easiest way to graft I've tried yet. It's real easy to graft onto a cutting with no roots that you can turn around and handle easily in your hands without worrying about breaking roots or bending down etc. I can do one every few minutes easily and I have been playing with this idea in my head for a little while now about a way to secure the buds in a faster easier manner too. How do you reckon a normal bandaid would work? They are meant to help us heal better so maybe it would work on grafts as well I was thinking if you put a bandaid in a hole-punch and punched out a small hole in the middle padded bit then placed that over the eye and then pulled both sides tightly around the stem and stuck them to each other on the other side then you'd be done. Might try a few tomorrow to see how this idea goes

Meant to post this pic last time too. This is the way I've been setting up the stent. The cutting is about as thick as a pencil and they all have a good large leaves on them with the graft down lower.

I haven't been doing any rosey things lately. The garden is still tidy after the open garden over a week ago. Then our house turned into a motel for the Easter period (haven't caught up with the washing yet), and now it has turned cold and wet.
I have got a few nice healthy suckers coming up around some of the rose bushes in the garden. I think maybe I will leave them there until late winter when the sap in the stems are starting to flow again.Then I will bud and strike them. They will probably have a better chance of surviving in the spring than now in the autumn I imagine.

yup - I think so.

Tried the bandaid thing with an old Bourbon I have called 'Vivid'... I like the look of it and it was really easy but will try it with the sticky plaster type that are more sticky (and more waterproof as well) next time. Was harder to lift the bark this time so probably won't work as well now whichever way I try without heating.

Removed the bandaid today and the bud has caloused over nicely and is looking good. The cutting/stent looks to be growing and won't be shortened back to this bud until everything starts growing again.

Hi Simon and Deidre. I have found it interesting reading all your posts and photos here. Your rootstocks Simon looked good and thick. I have Lavender Lassie Deidre if you would like some budwood or cuttings ?
I had no luck grafting except for a few in Autumn and a few in Spring, only have one left as lost in the paddock the others because I didn't water them enough. Ingrid Bergman is the one that survived, from budwood Dao gave me when I visited him.
Hopefully the rootstock plant you sent me Simon will be sucessful for me too, as you sure have alot of success. I will have to find the best time to graft here in this area and perhaps I didn't water the rootstock enough. I like your bandaid idea, Simon, can I copy ?

I retried the bandaid idea the other day with the fabric-type bandaids. Bought two types to trial. The first one is the Coles brand ones called 'Medi-strips. Fabric Strips'. and the second one is the band-aid brand ones called 'Regular Tough-strips'. They are much harder to punch the hole through but are far stickier and make a tighter join that is water resistant. The coles ones were about $3 for a pack of 20 and the Band-Aid ones were about $5 for a box of 40. I don't think it's very economical if you are doing lots of them, and the budding tape works quickly and easily for me too, but for a small number it is very quick and very neat. For me, because I do so few, it has been a good method. I think it helps callousing too in a simialr way that they help wounds on us heal better and faster and they are nice and flexible so as not to restrict flow of materials through a stem. One stem I did last season with the budding tape I wound too tightly and it caused the stem to swell below the graft and the bud didn't shoot. When I noticed the swelling I removed the tape and within a week the bud had shot.

Simon, have we tried Brundretts for the proper patches

Thanks Simon for that about the bandaids.
Hi Carole !