Here's my version of it. I don't use the mason jar because it gets too hot under the jar when we get those long spells of sunny weather in Feb. that is so common here. I leave the caps off the soda bottles for the same reason...you may need to leave them on until early March in your zone. I like the idea of using the gallon pots so that I can pull them out of the ground when it starts to get too warm in early spring. I moved mine to the cold greenhouse and then outside in light shade until I was sure they were rooted and then gradually removed the soda bottles. Left them in shade for another 10 days, and finally moved them, slowly, into full sun.

WINTER/DORMANT ROSE CUTTINGS MADE FIRST WEEK DECEMBER ZONE 6

Materials needed:

Well prepared bed
Clean, sharp, pruning shears
Rooting hormone
2 liter soda bottles to cover
Gallon pots, if using
mulching materials
shade cloth, if needed

For rooting directly in the ground, have a good bed prepared that can be left undisturbed for a season. Add lots of compost, sand, peat, fine pine bark, composted cotton burs, or whatever is needed to keep it loose. ( Do not add fertilizer as it might burn the new roots) Holes may be punched in the soil with a broom handle and filled with fine sand. Make another hole with a pencil for the cutting.

Another option is sticking them in gallon pots filled with a good grade of potting soil mixed with perlite, and burying the pots to the rim in the garden. Soda bottles fit over them very nicely leaving room for watering around the edge. They can be lifted when rooted without damage to the new roots. Especially good if you are rooting them for someone else. Mulch these, also.

Cuttings with 4 buds/nodes, of current years growth, cut inch below bottom bud and ½ inch above top bud. (Make sure you can tell the difference between top and bottom later) Drop them in a pail of water while collecting.

Prepare each cutting by taking a very thin one inch slice off each side of the node at the bottom of the cutting, leaving the node intact. Dip in powdered rooting hormone and knock off all excess. Stick in holes in sand, or in prepared holes in pots, having two nodes underground, and the 3rd at soil level. Firm up around the cutting. When all are done, water the bed or pots. Place a bottomless 2 liter soda bottle over them...working it into the soil a bit. Leave the labels on for some relief from winter sun and the caps off for ventilation. Place about 4 inches of mulch (wood chips or old hay) around the soda bottles.

DonÂt let them dry out over winter, but no need to keep them excessively wet. Watch for growth earlier than normal because of the cover. DonÂt remove until you are sure the growth is strong enough to indicate that roots are in place. Some shade may have to be supplied when you first uncover them.

Labeling may be done on soda bottle covers, or better still use a stick label in each pot or row if done in-ground. If done in rows in ground, make a chart with North and South clearly marked. Labels can fade out over winter.

Thanks Millie,
I know just what to do now. Do you know if this will work with other plants as well? (like hydrangea stems or azalea cuttings?)

Not sure, but you could try. Hydrangias will root if you just place a stem on the ground and cover with a bit of soil. Weight it down with something to hold in place and keep it moist. This "happens" in my yard annually without help from me. I have not tried to root azaleas...maybe someone else will answer that one, but it can't hurt to try. I believe blueberries are done dormant by local growers, and the needs are similar.

I prefer "BALL" jars to "Mason" jars but that coud be because I am from Muncie Indiana. & my first BS was from Ball State (University) in the same city......

My Grandmother and Mother also used fruit jars to root roses. I have, in past years, used them for azaleas, buddleia, variegated euonymus, and aucuba as well as a lot of herbaceous perennials. I used the jar in pot method as mentioned above, as it's easier to control moisture in the mix that way.

George

Yes, my reason for the 2 liter soda bottles is ventilation. Winter sun can raise the temp too high where I live, so I use the soda bottles without caps in the garden. Inside I leave them on for a week or two. Heat and excess humidity can escape when needed. I had 54 of them in the garden last winter...just need to keep it simple. When the sun became to intense for that, I just pulled the pots and moved them to the unheated greenhouse to finish the rooting process. By that time, the greenhouse beds were free of lettuce, etc.

Georgez5il, are you sure it wasn't Ball "Mason Jars"....I go way back there with canning and jars....all the way to wire bales and glass lids. LOL

Frankly these days mason is generic for canning jar, be it ball or atlas or perfect mason. Anyhow which size do they use most often quart, half gallons, certainly not pints or the half pint. I would guess the shoulder type would be the best, as it would hold more moister as the water would have less gravity at the angle and wouldn't leave the jar as quickly into soil. the bail jars have even more of an angle so may actually be better. LOL maybe i should try and sell some on ebay as Rose propagators, could probably get more for them. Also, the amber blue colored ones would not get as hot I'm thinking, therefor produce even more moister.

And here I thought I was talking everyone out of using the darned things. LOL Can't you just see me out there all winter trying to find enough rocks the right size to let air under 54 Mason jars every time the sun came out?

Millie you can just score the ground from base of cutting in an x patteren slightly bigger then the lip of your jar. the lip of the jars will sit over the shallow trenches, thusly allowing for air flow..

Yep, that would work if it were not for all the mulch I had piled up to keep the soil temp more stable in my zone 6. As it turned out, we didn't go to the -10 possible in this zone...only 8 degrees a few times, but hey you never know and I tend to hibernate around a wood stove when it gets that cold. We are due for a bad one.

MPO,
All the Mason, Ball, Atlas jars or Millie's two liter drinks are doing is creating a 'humidity chamber', so that relative humidity surrounding that cutting remains high, and they're not subjected to dessication - may also diminish temperature swings, though, as Millie indicated, it can heat up pretty well in there.
My dad used to root rose cuttings 'under glass'(I don't know if it was Mason, Ball, or a Bama mayonnaise jar!, but our rooting bed was in the backyard, in the shade of two big old cherrybark oaks, and didn't get much direct sun, especially in the afternoon.

Lucky_P, that's it exactly. I get away with propagating in the winter sun by leaving the cap off and pulling mulch up about halfway on the soda bottles. When warm spring weather comes, I have to pull the pots out and move to the cold greenhouse where the light is diminished by the covering I use. Are you familiar with the stuff used to cover the windows on chicken and rabbit houses here in the Ozarks? It has strands of fiberglass embedded in the vinyl. Lasts a good ten years and works fine for my purposes. I could save a lot of effort by building myself a raised bed of sawdust in the shade of a building and just sink pots in that...nah!...DH would kill me if I start anything else to clutter the yard.....unless I can convince him it's something he wanted all the time. ;O)

Hi,

My great grandmother used to root banana shrubs by the dozens using the "jar" and I believe sand. I also think it was done in either the spring or summer. I've tried with no success at all. Does anyone have an idea what time of the year would work for banana shrubs (Michelia figo) using this method? What type of cuttings would work (softwood, semihardwood, etc?)