Becky WernFor the Times-Union| Florida Times-Union
My mom has some old roses that seem to do well with little care. I’d like to grow some new plants from cuttings for my yard. How do I do that?
Cuttings are a very rewarding way of growing new plants. By taking cuttings, you are assured that the new plant will have the same characteristics as the parent plant.
Take cuttings from areas of the rose plant that are actively growing. These will have the most growth hormones present. Cuttings about 4 inches long are best. Remove any flower buds. If you are taking from several different bushes, put each kind in a separate plastic bag marked with the name of the rose bush. Wrap your cuttings in a damp paper towel to help ensure they travel well to the next step.
Use a container a couple of inches deep to one-gallon size, filled with a clean media. You can use a fresh potting soil mixed with vermiculite or perlite or even just perlite alone. A mix of 50 percent peat/50 percent perlite may be ideal.
Recut the rose cuttings to 3-4 inches and remove the lower leaves. You will have greater success if you dip the cuttings into a sterilizing solution, such as 10-percent bleach solution or 10-percent Lysol solution. This will kill off any of the bacteria or other microbes on the surface. You have cut through the plant skin (bark) and opened the interior to infection, so this is much like applying an antibiotic ointment to a cut before you bandage it.
Use an unsharpened pencil or similar device to make a hole in the perlite. Dip the cutting into a rooting hormone, which is available at most nurseries and will last for years.
Ease the cutting into the hole you have made, just deep enough to hold the cutting. Insert the container into a plastic enclosure (a clear plastic bag of some kind) to form a nice humid place for your cuttings. You may want to leave the bag partially open to allow some air movement. Place the container in a brightly lit spot without direct sun. Check periodically to make sure your soil mix is not totally dry but moist. By 3-4 weeks, you should have a mass of white roots at the end of some of your cuttings. Some of them will fail. This happens even in commercial greenhouses.
Once you’ve transplanted your new plant into a pot, give it a week or so in a sheltered place before you plant it in direct sun. It will need a little time to adapt.
Old or antique roses are much tougher and more disease-resistant than the modern varieties. While they can get black spot disease or a virus, they usually are vigorous enough to grow and flower in spite of the disease pressure. Here is a good starter list of old roses that do well here: http://paulzimmermanroses.com/resources/best-roses-for-florida/
You can often find them in local nurseries. If you can’t find your favorite, there are also two nurseries in the Gainesville area that ship roses: http://www.angelgardens.com/ and http://www.rosepetalsnursery.com/
I have a new flower bed area and it’s easy to find the flowering plants. How do I fit green plants in the design without having them overpower my flowers?
Lots of plants grow well here, but you are right: they usually grow too well and grow to 5 or 6 feet. You don’t want to spend your time cutting them back, which is difficult to do and leave a natural looking shape. Fortunately you have a partially sunny site, with some good mid-day sun, so there are quite a few things that are possible.
If you like the shape of them, there are many agaves that will stay small and yet provide a green oasis between sections of flowers.
Probably a favorite in flower beds are the ornamental grasses. They move in the wind and take very little care. As long as your soil is well drained, you’ll have no problems growing plants like the lovely Muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capallaris). The pink flowering plant will reach 30 inches in a sunny spot. There are also a couple of Pennisetums that will work well, "Oriental" and "Karly Rose." Avoid Pennisetum setaceum, Red or Purple Fountain grass. It can be invasive.
For shorter areas, lirope and mondo grass can fill an area and give you green areas.
Boxwood is very popular, but it really strains to survive well here. With our relatively high water tables and fall deluges, root rots and nematodes are endemic with boxwood. A better solution is one of the dwarf hollies. The new "Soft Touch" should only get 2-3 feet tall. "Bordeau," a dwarf yaupon, will only grow to 2-3 feet. If you can fit in taller hollies, try "Carissa" at 3-4 feet or dwarf "Rotunda," which reaches 3-5 feet. I should note that "Rotunda" has sharp spines on the leaves.
When you become a “picky” landscaper, you sometimes have to order your plants through local nurseries. All of the plants I have mentioned should be easy to order from a nursery near you if you don’t find them waiting for you.
Becky Wern is a Master Gardener with the Duval County Extension Service and the University of Florida/IFAS. For gardening questions, call the Duval County Extension Office at (904) 255-7450 from 9 a.m. to noon and 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. and ask for a Master Gardener.
