Please check out my post next to mine :

Problems with rooting? Check this out !
George Mander

Hi again Sengyan,

I meant : Please check out my post next to "yours"

George

Thank you George for your reply. I read your article " from cuttings to cuttings, to cuttings " in which you took cuttings during October and November. Unfortunately my roses are growing outdoors while yours were growing under light. It is rather late in the year and I am trying to find out if it is feasible to take cuttings at this time or later. I am disappointed not to have had any replies until yours.

Sengyan

Sengyan. If you have cuttings what have you got to lose by trying. So you throw the dead cuttings away after you give it a try or you throw the prunings away. Give it a try

BUT - why are you pruning now. Usually pruning off non dormant parts of the bush will just make them think they should send out new growth which will surely be killed by the cold as it has not had time to harden off.

From Sault Ste. Marie, I'm waiting till the last
minute, we've had a frosts, but there is absolutely
no reason why cuttings won't take if taken at the
end of the season. The only thing is the plants are
sometimes ravaged by blackspot, so I keep spraying them.
The frost wipes out the aphids, so that is even better.
I plan to keep watching the weather, and just before
a heavy snow I will take a bunch of cuttings. Indoor
propagation is ideal, because you can take cuttings at
the end of the season that would otherwise end up as winterkill. Good luck, Paul Mozarowski.

Paul. Your suggestion is logical and I will do as you suggested - take cuttings just before winterizing.

Sengyan

I took the cuttings last night (monday) because a freeze up was predicted. I wasn't ready to stick them, so I put them in a garbage bag and put them in my regular manual defrost fridge. Today, I took out a bag, and prepared my peat pots with pro-mix for the bottom 2/3 of the pot, and 50:50 sand and
pro-mix for the top third. I used a syringe to drop no damp onto the wetted medium, 0.5 ml per 4"pot. I poked holes with
new nails, 1.5" into the medium, and used the syringe to fill the hole with 0.5 ml of rooting gel per hole. Then I dropped in my cuttings - Lillian Austin in perfect condition, the leaves are all very nice, and the plant has set hips, which I cut off. I stuck 30 cuttings (2 standard trays), covered them with humididome, vent closed, and put them under the fluoros, set for 17/7, with a temp. probe to monitor the soil temp. Right now the medium is at 55 F, because I was working outside, but they should warm up overnight - I use the hanging garden method, with fluoros fastened to the ceiling. I still have 10 trays to stick, and I have a big garbage bag full of Fair Bianca cuttings, again all perfect, and I'll do as much as I can tomorrow.
I'm working on installing a new 4'x6' suspended garden that has room for 14 standard trays, but I'll only use 12 spots for now. The weather tonight calls for snow, so I do believe I waited until the last possible moment. Any longer and the parent plant might start to suffer leaf damage. Surprisingly, there were still aphids on her on Sunday night, so I gave her a good spray with combination fungicide and insecticide on Sunday, and on Monday again just before the harvest. Late cuttings is ideal because the plant has grown fairly huge, and you can cut her down almost to the ground to harvest huge numbers of cuttings, something you wouldn't dare do at the usual time for taking cuttings, that is mid to late July, or after the first flush. This is the first year that I have attempted this, but it should work well, because the plant has had a cooling off period of frosts and such to simulate dormancy and a very mild Texas style winter, and now the cuttings are brought indoors to simulate spring, so she should want to root readily. Now I'll keep an eye on the temp, as per George Mander, and we should be in business. Paul Mozarowski.

Unfortunately some kind of fungal disease seems to have affected a lot of the foliage. It's turning yellow in the area of the large veins, then turns brown. Some of the cuttings have stayed clean, and I think there might be some rooting taking place. I'll just keep waiting and watching, and be patient, because the stems all seem to be in good shape, and this time of year, probably the stem has accumulated a fair amount of carbohydrate to be used as food to grow roots. At least that's what I'm hoping for.
Paul Mozarowski.

I just took another set of cutting from Benjamin Britten, 48 cuttings, harvested right before the snowfall. The cuttings were not sprayed with anything, and so far they look good, no sign of yellowing (yet). They were trimmed and kept in a pan of water for 24 hours, because I didn't have sufficient time to stick them. My Lillian Austin cuttings are still
alive, but many leaves have dropped off, but the Fair Bianca which were sprayed and stored in the fridge for 4 days show a lot of yellowing and leaf drop. Will continue to update.
Paul Mozarowski.

I stuck 12 Rouge Royal and 4 Queen of the Lakes 3 days ago and already 80% of them are showing new growth. Some of the shoots are 1/2 an inch. As they have not rooted yet I am afraid that the new growth will tax the cuttings and cause them to die for lack of food. Has anyone experienced this and if so what was the result?

Sengyan

Hi Sengyan, I believe George Mander attributes this to the air temperature being too warm. Keep them well away from the lamps, and if you have a vent, like in the mondi humdidome etc., crack the vent open. Mine from about ten days ago, even those have have dropped their leaves, appear to show signs of rooting, there is some nice top growth from bare stems, and gentle excavation of one of them shows really healthy callus forming right below the level of the soil. I think this batch is going to be a winner. One tray of very tiny cuttings seems to be doing poor, but I have 90 other cuttings of Fair Bianca that look great, 30 cuttings of Lillian Austin look like they're rooting, and the last batch of Benjamin Britten taken right before snowfall look fantastic, with no sign of leaf problems. My main problem initially was that the stems went black, and I think I solved this with - more sand, drizzled rooting gel with fungicide into the holes in the medium, and innoculated the medium with .7 ml of no damp per 4" peat pot (I stick 2 cuttings per pot to economize). Leaves turning yellow and falling off - the cuttings seem to have rooted despite losing their leaves. I don't know what to do about premature growth, if you pick it off, the cutting may be shocked; if the humidity level is maintained, then keeping an eye on the air temperature in the propagation setup may help slow it down until roots form.
Paul Mozarowski.

Hi Paul. Thank you. You are right about the temperature being too high. I checked with a thermometer after reading your post and it is 77 F. I remember George Mander's recommended Temp. is 70 F(?). I opened a very small gap in the cover and I will monitor and adjust the temp. with the gap. Most of the leaves have dropped off. I hope the bare stems can support the new growth. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Sengyan