Congratulations, Jackie! It was very common during hot weather to root most roses in 7 - 10 days under mist in the old mist table at The Huntington Library. Sequoia frequently reproduced those results. You lucked out and replicated those conditions on your porch. I'm happy for you! Would those temps be worth the ability to root roses that quickly? They are what it takes!

Irrigation systems surely seem to present continual challenges Jackie. I hope your cuttings grow quickly. Your FDY was fabulous.

Yes, our irrigation system is worth it, because we have a "normal" period of 6 months every Summer with NO precipitation of any kind, and very dry warm/hot air. However, even though I have 4 bird baths (1 standing about 3 ft high, 1 about 1 ft high, and 2 on the ground) which I keep full of clean water, sometimes animals like to chew on the soaker hoses. We always check the system every Spring before we turn it on. The other day, I was strongly suggesting to my DH that we needed to check all of it again, because it will not be time to turn it off for at least another month or two. He demurred, saying we did not need to do that. I prevailed, and low and behold, the first station we turned on immediately resulted in a huge geyser of water, at least 15 feet high (our water is VERY expensive). He stopped arguing. Unfortunately, we had missed the problem around the bottom of the FDY plant until it was too late.

Jackie

Jackie, your schedule is exactly what I do here for checking the irrigation. I still do have an occasional problem here too. We too have 6 months dry.

Sheila - I did not know that you also have 6 months with no rain. I alway laugh when I see people say that they not give their plants "any supplemental water" - they are usually from somewhere where it DOES rain frequenly or even occasionally in the summer!

Jackie

I'm 30 miles from the California border.

Yes, I realized that when I paid more attention to your user name on here - my nephew lives in Ashland, and we visit him several times a year - it is always dry in the summer, and always warm, and sometimes way too hot for me! You are lucky to live so close to RVR - they seem to have a better selection of antique and/or rare roses than many nurseries.

Jackie

Update on my rooted FDY cutting: It is now sitting in its smallish clay pot, still inside of the upside down fish tank in front of the South facing window in our back porch. The water in the pot is making the inside of the fish tank all covered with condensation, so I think the fish tank has turned into a mini warm and humid greenhouse, even though the outside daytime temps are only in the mid 70s.. The rooted cutting is now putting out leaves, and looks green and healthy. I will leave it there until it gets too big to fit into the fish tank, and then try and put it outside in the daytime and inside at night, until it gets used to that. Hopefully I can then plant it outside - our winters are very mild, and hopefully very wet, so that strategy has worked in the past with baby roses. I will plant it in our "New Garden" which is surrounded by a deer fence, so our still resident orphaned fawn (it is 6 1/2 months old now) can't get at it. I hope to plant the rose where our irrigation system problem drowned its parent. We have fixed the irrigation, and will try and improve the drainage in that area before we plant the baby FDY. It is one of the few places in our garden where there is enough space and high up support for an FDY to grow.

Jackie