Get some of the largest zip lock type bags. Put the root tone on the cuttings and place them in cups. The cuttings are placed into cups, normally at a 45 degree angle with potting soil. Put the bags in an area with at most indirect sunlight. Keep them watered and check every other day for the roots to show at the bottom of the cup. I use clear picnic cups for this because they are easy to see when the roots show up. After some roots show you can slightly open the bag so the new rose has more air circulation. The cuttings have been taken at the best time that they can be so it is up to you to get them started. Good luck, Lance

There are just as many ways to root the cuttings as there are people who try, but this is one way that works for me :)

This is the best time of the year to root cuttings. It's been my experience that the easiest roses to root are cuttings taken from roses that have just quit blooming. Shortly after the blooms are spent, prune the "spent bloom" off the branch. Take 6" - 8" cuttings of the green, flexible stems. Leave some foliage on the "top" side of the cutting. AT the 'bottom' of the cutting, prune the stems so there will be a leaf node/bud at the bottom of the plant. Above ground, the buds produce leaves, below ground, they produce roots. When I take cuttings, I put them in a bucket of water to keep. I add a couple of drops of liquid rooting hormone to the water.

I make a "hillbilly greenhouse" to root things in.

I use a little styrofoam cooler. I poke several holes in the bottom and some on the sides (about 1" - 2" high on the walls) for drainage.

Next, fill the cooler about half way with a mixture of potting soil & perlite. Fill the cooler with water, stir the mixture with your hands so all of the rooting medium will get moisture. (it'll be like "mud soup") ... Let the mixture drain and settle.

Poke holes in the rooting medium with a pencil. This will give you holes to stick cuttings - without knocking the root tone off the 'rooting end' of the cutting.

Take the cuttings out of the water, shake them off and dip them in root tone. Tap the excess root tone off of the end of the cutting. Stick the cuttings into the 'hole', tamp the cuttings in place. Water lightly.

I put wire at hangers in the sides of the "greenhouse" and stretch them to make a diamond shape, "curved hanger side up". I then slip a dry cleaning bag over the top of the cooler and put it in a place that gets bright, indirect light. Morning sun is OK.

I leave it for a week or so, misting occasinally. In about a week, you will see a callous forming at the root; in another week or so, you will see roots forming. When you get good root formation, you can transplant the cuttings in to 4" pots to grow out.

Best of luck to you. I'm very tired right now, if I forgot anything, I hope somebody chimes in :D

did I mention.. For the hillbilly greenhouse, use a dry cleaning bag only, as it allows air exchange. I learned from a failed experiment that saran wrap will cook the cuttings dead & crispy.

This year I stuck six cuttings right next to the north side of a wall in poor sandy soil (no organic material) and 4 of 6 rooted and are growing. Only about 1/4" of the cutting was above ground. Easiest ones I ever did.

Pick healthy cuttings that have swelling leaf buds from well fertilized, well watered plants. That seems to make the biggest difference. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

In Wasco, they stick cuttings in the fall right when they get their valley fogs. The soil is still warm but the fog keep the cuttings moist. Their success rate is over 90%, apparently...pretty good!

There are various ways to root cuttings. For me, I have never had luck trying to root them outdoors. Perhaps the light is too harsh or the temperature fluctuations too extreme and it stresses the poor babies.
I've had lots of success simply taking 1 or 2 gallon ziploc bags, placing 2 inch deep fresh potting soil (not used before) in the bags, misting them with a water spray bottle until the soil is evenly moist enough to clump together but no water pools in the bottom. Then prepare the 5 to 7 inch cuttings as others have mentioned above, dip in rootone (try to knock off any thick clumps of the powder), insert carefully into the soil, seal them up, and place in a north-facing window (no direct sunlight). My success rate went up to about 80% when I added a plant grow light a foot or so above the plants in the window. It is not nearly as intense as direct sunlight but insures they'll get enough. I check them every couple of days just to blow more air into the bags if they've gotten floppy. After 3 to 6 weeks, you should see some white roots starting to show through the soil underneath. The right balance of moisture and light seem to be critical factors. If the bag is too wet, mildew will grow before the roots have had a chance. If too dry, the stems dry out. Light provides the energy for this process. The leaves often fall off before the roots develop but don't despare. As long as the stem is still green, the little bugger is still trying.

Occasionally, a stem will take much longer for me but still survive and grow. I had one extreme example that survived my 6 weeks of forced evacuation from Hurricane Katrina --that is to say, the stem had alredy been in the window 8 weeks without roots when I had to evacuate for another 6 weeks. The house had no power and therefore no air conditioning during that September heat. The stem looked completely brown and dead when I returned home, but I left it in the window for some reason, and the little sucker still sprouted. Today it is a 30 inch tall, bushy miniature rose, perfectly healthy.

Mike

I have an easy method that has worked very well. Cut the tops off of 2 two liter plastic soda bottles. Cut a slit up the side of one so that it will fit on the top inside of the other. The slit will also provide a little air. For the other one, make drainage holes. Put soil in.

I slit the bottom of the rose cutting about 1/4 inch and then put it in Rootone. Plant it in the soil, water it and then cover it with the other bottle. I placed mine in a window with indirect sunlight and watered them once a week if they needed it. You will be able to see the roots once they form also since the bottles are see-through.

This method has worked on 98% of my cuttings.

A few years ago, I bought a package of rooting gel stuff from Charley's Greenhouse....it was already packaged in cups and you just stuck the cutting in this gel. I never used this but may as well - anyone ever used this product?

Lynn

Do rose cuttings need bottom heat?

I managed to root some fig cuttings (which do need bottom heat) by putting them on top of my dryer (the laundry room has morning sun). Then I scheduled my laundry so I did at least one load a day.

I did something similar to aroidgardener's method, except I didn't have soda bottles so I cut off the bottom of a half gallon milk jug and put hat over a big plastic jar with drainage holes. I closed the lid and would open it for around an hour everyday. My medium was promix potting soil, styrofoam bits, & sand.

I might try doing rose cuttings ... sounds exciting. I will try to use soda bottles this time.

I start mine outdoors. After reading about many of the methods described on the internet, I settled on filtered light and covered with 4 litre jugs. I use the caps to control the humidity. Also, I put mulch over the jugs in winter. Take the cuttings as described above. My first set was started late, transported for a week wrapped in damp paper towels, trimmed and planted. Three years later, I have 3 plants from 8 cuttings. The moral, roses are easy to start; experiment with different diameters; take many cuttings; and expect 30-70% success.

The three year old plants are climbers about 2 feet high. Cuttings aren't a quick way to get mature plants.