cambel, if you want any chance of saving the sport, don't cut it off for propagation yet! Mark the cane with a string or something so you don't accidentally prune it off and so you can find it easily to watch for any new growth. Hopefully, it will continue flowering the deeper sport. From experience, when you have a tip which has begun sporting like this, often the growth out of the side which shows the other color may continue expressing that color, while those from the other side of the cane usually produce the traditional color.

Permitting it to remain on the plant and developing more growth, should, hopefully, give you more material to propagate from. If you have several stems you know demonstrate the sport, there is a much greater chance of success isolating it. If you chop it off now and it fails to root, you've lost it. Since you know what the original is, if you really want to, you can prune off the traditionally colored canes and force all the energy of the plant into the sport to try to push it into more growth. If the sport is really unstable and tends to revert a lot to the original, it may be the best way to maintain it. In any case, it's safest to not do anything with it until you have several stems available so you've greatly increased your possible success. There are several methods of rooting available on the Propagation Forum you can read to see which seems easiest and most likely to succeed in your climate and gardening style. Once you have multiple stems to use, you can explore to see which works best for you. Actually, you probably should be doing that already with material you have on hand. If that doesn't work, you've not really lost anything. Once you've practiced and become proficient in rooting cuttings, something like this is very easy. I've isolated quite a few sports over the years. At least two continue growing in other peoples' gardens. You may look up Festival Pink and Golden Julia to see them. Good luck! Kim

It's very pretty! I hope it's stable and you're able to make cuttings. Good luck!

I heartily second roseseek's advice to wait a while. I lost a most interesting sport of my Peace rose because I did not wait, and clipped too soon.

Your zone isn't all that cold but perhaps you should still take precautions that Winter doesn't prune away your sport.

Listen to what Kim said and let this potential sport of yours remain on your bush for a while to gain size ... and so you can watch it.

Last year, a friend told he that he had a potential sport on his bush of 'Marilyn Whelan', and he asked if I would root it for him. He brought over a 2-foot-long cane, which ended up making 3 decent cuttings.

As he handed over his cane, he told me that this was all there is and he hoped that I could root it.

'You cut off the whole sport?', I exclaimed.

'Yep', he said.

What pressure I felt to get one of those cuttings to root! Within a few days, two of the three cuttings died. The third one eventually sprouted roots and grew quite well. When I handed it over to him in the spring, and it flowered for the first time ... it was exactly like the parent ... not a sport after all.

Heed my example and let this cane gather strength and size before you do anything with it.

Connie

P.S. I'm only an hour south of you, if you need help or advice. For rooting your rose when the time comes, there's a good tutorial on rooting roses on my web site ... link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Click on How To

Thank you for the advice!!! I am going to mark the cane, and cover the bush with a nice burlap bag for the winter, and put in some additional mulch to make sure I don't lose the branch.

Even better, the sport has a nice scent too. So I really hope it holds. I'll also prune the other branches leaving the sport in late winter and hit it with some fertilizers. Wish me luck! and thank you again! :)

Good luck, and be sure to tell everyone who might want to "help" you, to leave the blamed roses alone! LOL! I wanted to eat the sweet, little old lady who walked through my old garden, merrily snapping off the tagged hips I labored to create, thinking she was "helping" me by dead heading! It took great restraint not to jump all over her, but her heart was in the right place, just misguided. Losing a potential sport can happen just as innocently. Kim

Another option may be to work with someone skilled in grafting, such as Steve Singer of Wisconsin Roses, to graft budwood onto root stock. This may enhance your chances of propagating a sport, as each new rose only needs one bud eye.

Yes, budding may offer more chances, but you should still NOT touch anything until you have more growth and more definite mutated stems. Kim