Pre-callousing cuttings...

Queen's Mother looks like an interesting plant wphvet. Might have to look into getting this one myself

ozeboy,she's no fool and realises the poor striking rate of hybrid teas.Not wishing to spoil her good record she buys these as potted,grafted plants from the nursery!!

Hi Dave, I'm guessing you were talking about cuttings that have developed leaves but since I had three calloused cuttings of Ben Britten just potted up I tried the soak thing on one of them. It will be interesting to see if it responds differently.

I'll try Margaret's method in a month or so.

Wphvet, having checked QM on HMF, I'm with Simon. Will try to find this one.

Our queen mothers grow to around 3 ft high and up to 4 feet wide which is bigger than stated on help me find.She has glossy green foliage and the flowers sit atop the foliage and are always present from spring until autumn.She self cleans very well.rarely sets hips however.

Will have to wait till next year for QM... Treloars has sold out... Haven't seen it in the shops... it does, however, have a parentage that could be duplicated without too much trouble I think... I have some full species wichurana now... got a few more little surprises that might work too like some 'Paul Noel' (wichurana x 'Monsieur Tillier' )... think that might do well put back to 'Monsieur Tillier' I think...

Thanks for the tips. Simon, Dave and Wphvet.

I'm going to try the seasol trick, although I have previously drowned a few things after potting. (too much TLC).

The tub of stagnant water just has to be tried.........in the interests of science! Some people have very green thumbs.

The stagnet water thing works well, I had some roses sent from a member and had purchased one bagged rose, I placed these in tank water(rain) and some seaweed solution. I had other things to do and yes I forgot about them. They had some added rain to the tubs. On getting back to them they had shot and all but one had started to produce hair roots in this "dirty" water. They have been in the ground now for a month or better and are flourishing well.

On the subject of seeds, I was given some "Cathedral City" hips which are sitting in the zip bag they came in and as an experiment I have left them sit on the kitchen bench. With the small amount of moisture in the bag the hips have started to break down so I am going to leave them and see if this process will break the seed coat down enough for the seed to germinate, nothing lost, nothing gained in not tried.

Snap ! Roseman .
That's exactly what I did with most of the hips that I gathered off the bushes in my garden ; even more so after reading about the difficulty of getting the R. gigantea to germinate.
I'm not very scientific , I just figured that it was following the natural stages.
Also I found a lot of hips at that stage under the fallen leaves below my bushes [especially with some of the Austins]
I get a lot of volunteer tomato and apple seedlings [both roses relatives]come up from where the kids have dropped their core or martie in the garden.
Also a friend of mine who is a big commercial pumpkin grower over here , collects his own seed each year.
He selects the very best pumpkins and puts them aside and just leaves them . The interior starts to break down , then it goes all mooshy and fermented like and then eventually goes liquid and drains away . Then you just have the pumpkin skin and the seeds left behind .
He has a near perfect germination with his pumpkin seeds each year.

I must say the rose seeds are much easier to extract from the soft mushy hip than a hard one that you have to cut into.

Good Luck with your Cathedral City hips .

cheers. Rosalie

The cuttings of Multiflora I made on 16th January were calloused by 26th of January and will be planted today which is well under the 3 weeks.
Amazing what day and night temperature over 20 degrees C will do to speed up the process.

Bruce, do these still have a few leaves or are they leafless sticks calloused under wet hessian?

Simon, no leaves just cut top and bottom at 180 degrees and not disbudded. I have found the more exposed wood by removing the buds slows down the process of callusing on the bottom of the stick. I didn't disbud today and plant due to the 41 degree day

I use the thick potato sacks, one on the bottom and one on the top of the cuttings. These are on my garage cement floor but have done them on an earth floor as well. At this time of the year I spray the top bag with water every evening. There are around 150 cuttings to a pair of bags so it's unwise to heap them too high. The cuttings remain with a slight cover of moisture and are not allowed to dry out. Seems like there is a good supply of air through the bag as under 3 weeks damping off is not a problem.

In July August when working the understocks for November budding they take a lot longer to callus.

If Multiflora cuttings are put straight in after cutting and not callused the roots will come from the first node and not the bottom cut. They still seem to strike OK but are not as quick off the mark as the calloused ones.

I never use hormone powder or gel with Multiflora as this bumps the price up.

The sticks are sorted into pencil thick and some between 3/8" 1/2" to be used for the larger buds like climbers etc.

I just budded some large Altissimo buds onto some 3 year old Multiflora growing in pots which is a little difficult as the rind on the rootstock is as thick as boot leather and the bud is like news paper thickness. When activated these should be the fastest growers like the one that got up to 8 feet in six months from bud to 8 foot is very incredible growth.

Have you ever tried budding onto freshly calloused understocks? I was thinking of trying this sometime to see if that worked ok. I know some do it straight onto cuttings but I've had very poor luck doing it and thought maybe if I left it until the callouses had already formed it would be more successful. Budding onto cuttings is dead easy so callouses would be similarly easy and maybe... might be a nice little experiment.

No Simon never tried any of that but have made mention of going to do it but some how other things get in the way of this sort of experimenting.

I am going to send you some plant material this winter. There will be one that I am budding now so will leave the tape on and suggest you plant it,wait until it grows top shoots in August then take the tape off and cut the top branches off leaving about 4" above the bud. The bud should start to grow at this stage.

Thanks Bruce... quarantine have stepped up their efforts on mail coming here so rooted plants will find it difficult to get through, according to an article in last weeks local Ag. newspaper. They are really worried about Myrtle Rust getting here so have basically shut things down. I don't even like the chances of cuttings getting through at the moment

Don't quote me anyone but i think the method placing buds on calloused cuttings/rootstock is called"dormant budding"

I think it could work too Dave... too many things to try... can someone else experiment with this My candle has run out of ends

I have budded onto calused rootstock before using indica major, mind you the losses were pretty high , I think if put into a green house environment, the success rate would be better.

Yes Simon, you have to many things on your plate, it is/was a memory thing.
Someone placed on here a while ago of a proffesional nursery doing budding with rootstocks on a production line. Don't go looking I will

I recently read in an American publication that Nematodes build up quickly in some states resulting in very poor growth or loss of the rose.
Bareroot and grafted plants are equally effected with the exception of those grafted on Fortuniana. This understock has been used with great success in most areas, unfortunatly it is hard to root and special treatment is no doubt required.

I have just prepared 40 cuttings hoping the ends don't go black.

This understock may have a lot to offer despite the difficulty rooting.

Bruce did you purchase a plant of Fortuniana or receive a cutting of it

David I have had it gowing for about 4 years starting with a small rooted cutting and propagated one more by soil layering. This seems to be a good way of propagating it considering all attempts to produce large numbers from cuttings has been unsuccessful.

This next attempt is based on callusing the cuttings then planting out.

After checking today it would appear the ends of the cuttings are darker than Multiflora would have been at the same age. There has to be a successiful method based on it's broad use as an understock.

I also like the idea of using it on roses I have found difficult to bud on Multiflora, Queen Elizabeth is one of those roses. no doubt there are others.

One of the local nurseries using Dr. Huey has problems with rootrot and sprays regularly to prevent this happening. Aoteroa seems to suffer more than the others for there's are excellent and mine have almost died on Multiflora without spraying.

The growers advocating ownroot as best know only too well how these plants can die back to the ground in hard times then shoot away after rain.
However rootrot and Nematodes seem to effect all rose roots with the exception of Fortuniana and possibly a few others yet to be identified

Fortuniana is the recomended rootstock for sandy soils, but there seems to be other advantages in all soils. If it doesn't suffer from Namatodes and rootrot together with better compatability then it has to be a great understock. Hopefully I can find a way to root commercial quantities.

I think the resistance to nematodes was the main reason I was hoping to try and use 'Fortuniana' in breeding, despite rumours it's completely sterile. It wold be good to improve this factor in all kinds of roses. I've not had any luck striking it, however, I have been thinking of a few ideas. What if one was to use 'Fortuniana' as an interstock? So 'Fortuniana' was grafted onto multiflora and allowed to grow and then the variety you wanted was gratfed onto the 'Fortuniana'. The interstock could be burried to root in it's own time and take over from the understock to then convey the nematode resistance this way. Seems like a lot of mucking around though.

Simon, may be easier than trying to root Fortuniana. The cuttings I have are all ages, 1 year 2 year etc so if it will callus all should be OK.

I am on the lookout for a special rooting hormone believed to be good enough to grow roots without callusing. The guy mentions dip the cutting in the hormone then next day place the cutting in clean water and watch the roots grow. Don't think he has tried Fortuniana.

Now is the perfect time for taking the cuttings, callusing will be slow due to the low temperatures. Fungus is slow in cold weather so it is not a problem plants callusing more slowly.

I will give the budding you suggested a try and see how good the compatability is. Definately a good way to grow a lot of Fortuniana plants quickly. I have a lot of self seeded Multiflora so Virus is not an issue.

I've struck a few cuttings in a glass of water but the ones that did best had the geranium cutting in the glass as well. (I was trying to strike a geranium and just shoved them all in the same glass)
No idea why it worked but thought I'd mention it.

Simon, using Fortuniana as an innerstock is amazing, to think you can graft two times seperate times andf have it work to make one healthly plant with all the grafts working together to keep it healthy.
Bruce, how did your weepers go that you were doing a few years ago ?