That's a great idea, thank you Sharon! I've never propagated plants before but I'll give it a try. The only reason I'm even thinking about cutting is because all the roses I want are out of stock.

I'm in Pearland we have chilli thrips :(. Where are you moving to?

We're moving to the Woodlands. As the crow flies it's probably only 20-30 minutes away

Its a nice area. You may want to join local gardening groups on FB or other platforms. But i think you will have chilli thrips no matter which part of Houston, unfortunately. Last summer was beyond brutal. This time, Im pretty sure I will spray.

More info for battling CTs.... last year we had a guest speaker from one of the Florida universities who had been doing research on CTs. He brought a little ornamental pepper plant to us that was a host for the swirskii mites. Then after a couple of weeks (so we could get some growth and flowers on it) he sent us the swirskiis.... They prey on CTs but when there are no cts they would die if they don't have something else to eat. Fortunately, they eat the pollen on the ornamental pepper plant.

I do think it helped, but not as much as I would have liked. After more research, it is suggested that people use Imidacloprid as a drench and the swiskiis.

Here is a link on the banker plants.

https://mrec.ifas.ufl.edu/lso/BANKER%20IST/XIao%20et%20al%202012%20Ornamental%20pepper%20as%20banker%20plants.pdf

How did chili thrips get here?? I swear they are evil.

You could just dig them all up and plant them at your new garden. This is what I am going to do this year.

The chili thrips are everywhere. I am in SW Houston. I am hoping our recent freeze will diminish their numbers a bit. They are seasonal and worse some years than others, but I doubt you will escape them completely. I spray when they start up with spinosad, and with oil and soap mixes but don't do anything more toxic than that. Some roses are more affected than others .