Own-rooted roses are grown by those who want to have a lot of roses in their garden. With minimal costs, but don’t mind working and experimenting. You can root varieties that you liked from friends and neighbors. It's not difficult at all.
To do this, you need to know some cutting rules. First, I’ll tell you how roses grafted on rose hips differ from roses grafted with their own roots.
What is the difference between self-rooted roses and grafted roses?
Self-rooted roses are roses grown from cut shoots (cuttings). Mostly grafted roses are sold in shops, markets and fairs. It is advisable to have both in your garden - each has its own pros and cons.
Winter hardiness in our region does not play a big role, since absolutely all roses need to be covered. But those with their own roots, if at least one bud survives (they can be deeply buried when planting), they will recover. Grafted roses have the most weak point above the graft, and the kidney is unlikely to survive there. If only it is well covered with earth.
Self-rooted roses grow slowly and reach decorative effect only by 5 years of age. The grafted ones grow much faster, but there is also a minus of these roses - they live less. In my garden, the first self-rooted bushes are more than 15 years old and they bloom profusely every year. I have already updated the grafted roses purchased at the same time.
I didn’t notice any difference in the number of flowers or bud sizes. Theoretically, there should be 10% more buds on self-rooted roses, but I won’t say so, I haven’t counted them.
- rosehip shoots from the roots cause a lot of trouble. There are rootstocks that do not produce, or produce but little growth. But how do you find out when buying? Just take the seller's word for it. Often, especially with age, rose hips begin to grow very abundantly and it is not convenient to remove these shoots around a large spreading bush. It's very annoying. I try to translate such roses into own roots, and I’m deleting these.
The roots of grafted roses go to a depth of 1 m, while those of self-rooted roses go no more than half a meter. The convenience here is that landing hole no need to make it deep. Roses love soil rich in nutrients and when planting it must be cultivated to the full depth of the root layer. This is especially important for areas where groundwater lies close.
Of course, any variety can be propagated by grafting, but knowledge and experience are required, and a gardener who does not have special skills can grow a rose from a cutting. You just need to follow a certain sequence of actions.
Where to get cuttings for rooting
Remember, your friends or neighbors probably have roses that you like. Ask to cut a flower with as long a stem as possible in early June, during the first bloom. It is better if it is a bud, but if it is inconvenient to ask (there are few flowers on the bush), then let it be a flower that has just faded.
Climbing and , take root better than Hybrid Teas, start with them.
In the end, the flower you like can be bought at the market.
During the period of mass flowering they are not expensive. If you don’t know how to distinguish a local rose from an imported one, then it’s better to ask the seller.
Modern varieties of roses are the result of thousands of years of selection of ordinary rose hips, which have brought their magnificent fruits. What was so interesting to ancient breeders about this flower besides its amazing beauty? At that time, roses were considered medicinal plants with a healing aroma, and rose oil became a real breakthrough in perfumery. IN at the moment All varieties of these flowers can be divided into two main types - self-rooted roses (that is, plants with their own root system) and grafted ones.
If you decide to create your own rose garden, you should decide in advance which type of flowers to give preference to, since the care and propagation of own-rooted and grafted roses are somewhat different.
Video “Roses, how to plant a rosary”
What flower can be called ideal? The one that has a delicate aroma or an amazing shade, an intricate shape of petals or rich green leaves? Whatever criterion you choose, the rose will perfectly meet it. Back in the days ancient civilizations people identified roses with greatness and beauty, endowed the flower with truly divine properties and improved it in every possible way.
Most resistant varieties roses were considered to be self-rooted - what are they? These are plants whose root part carries all the genetic characteristics of the selected variety. It doesn’t matter whether the first shoots froze in the spring - new ones will come from the roots and they will have the same roses as the old ones.
But grafted varieties do not have such resistance. As a rule, they are obtained by budding, that is, grafting a varietal cutting with adapted and stronger rose hip roots. Over time, such flowers can run wild, become smaller and degenerate. And if the varietal part freezes, rosehip shoots begin to grow from the rootstock.
Own root roses
The method of propagation of these two types of roses is also different. The main difference is that self-rooted plants can be propagated by layering or cuttings, as well as by dividing the mother bush, while grafted roses can only be propagated by grafting onto a “donor” rootstock.
The list of differences and advantages goes on, because our own root varieties:
- resistant to low temperatures;
- have more powerful immunity;
- are distinguished by lush flowering;
- do not form root shoots;
- they do not run wild and can self-rejuvenate.
The disadvantages of growing and caring for self-rooted roses include difficulty in growing and a long period of growing the root system - at least two years. In this regard, young bushes, especially in winter period requires special care. Such plants are more demanding of soil and watering schedule.
Methods for propagating self-rooted roses
The most effective and productive way to propagate rooted plants is considered green cuttings. Stem cuttings take root quickly and reliably; moreover, such propagation does not require a lot of space and knowledge of budding techniques.
To increase the reliability of green cuttings, you should choose plants with high performance rooting cuttings. These roses include the following varieties:
- large-flowered climbing;
- small-flowered climbing;
- semi-climbing;
- miniature.
Floribunda, polyanthus, remontant, hybrid tea and park roses take root a little worse.
So that the roots do not rot, and the flowering is always lush and long, roses are planted on a hill, in a well-lit place.
Preparing planting material correctly
It is best to take cuttings from your own rooted roses in the spring, after the ground has completely thawed. If this did not work out in the spring, cuttings can be postponed until summer or autumn, although rooting is worse during these periods.
Preparation of cuttings consists of several stages:
- Selection and cutting of annual completely healthy shoots into fragments of 20-25 cm with the obligatory removal of peduncles and lower leaves.
- Keeping the resulting cuttings in a honey or manganese solution for disinfection and nutrition.
- Dry the cuttings and trim the lower ends at an angle of 45 degrees with a sharp tool, as close as possible to the lower bud.
The finished cuttings are planted in pots with peat soil, buried a few centimeters, that is, two buds. After this, the pots are buried in the soil up to the top edges. And water well. Watered cuttings are covered with a jar to create greenhouse effect. The plants will spend about a month like this, you need to keep an eye on it. So that the walls of the jar are always covered with droplets of water. To do this, the jar is periodically removed for a short time, and the plants and soil are generously sprayed. This procedure is recommended to be carried out every three days.
You can remove the jar only when the green cuttings no longer fit under it. Plants also need to be acclimated to the sun gradually.
Planting rooted cuttings in the ground
Before planting rooted young roses in the ground, you should prepare the planting site in advance. To do this, dig a planting hole with a depth and a diameter of half a meter. A layer of expanded clay is poured onto the bottom, and then a layer of fertilizer made from humus with ash and dolomite flour. The finished rose is planted in this layer, carefully sprinkling the hole with fertile soil, and watered.
The nuances of caring for a rose garden
The main and regular steps for self-rooted roses are: proper watering, timely sanitization, pruning and fertilizing. An alternative to watering in humid climates is loosening the soil and further saturating it with oxygen.
Watering rules include regular and abundant irrigation, since overdrying of the soil can negatively affect not only the above-ground part of the bush, but also its root system. Insufficient watering leads to crushing of flowers, loss of brightness of shades and lack of aroma. Watering is reduced only with the onset of autumn cold weather, and in the winter it is stopped completely.
Fertilizers should be applied according to the following scheme: at the beginning of summer - liquid organic matter with minerals twice a month, from mid-summer - twice a month nitrogen-containing compounds with potassium and phosphorus, which slow down the growth of stems.
If roses are no more than a year old, they can bloom only towards the end of the season, and will disappear into the snow with open flowers and buds. It's not scary, nah next year flowering will begin on time.
To help roses survive the winter, the bushes must be carefully pruned in the fall, carefully removing all tops and young branches. After pruning, it is best to hill up the bushes well, creating an earthen roller at least 20 cm high around the trunk.
As soon as the temperature on the thermometer drops below 10-15 degrees with a minus sign and the surface of the soil becomes hard, the rose should be carefully covered with spruce branches or dry leaves. Sawdust or pine needles are suitable as a replacement. The height of the shelter should be more than 20-25 cm. Remember to thoroughly moisten the soil around the bush first. In winter, you should be afraid not only of frost, but also of rodents, which do an excellent job with the shelter material, making nests in it and eating up trunks. To avoid this, you can first install a metal or plastic barrier made from cut canisters, buckets, or kegs around the bush.
Video “Pruning and covering roses for the winter”
As soon as the snow melts, all the shelter must be carefully removed so that the roots and trunks do not dry out. survive frosts, abundant soil moisture. But in the spring, it is necessary to promptly rid the bushes of spruce branches in order to prevent damping off of the soil and rotting of the roots. It is possible to unplant the bushes only in cases when night temperatures become positive.
Own-rooted or grafted: which is better?
This question cannot be answered unequivocally. Among amateurs there are many admirers of both types. Here you need to take into account, first of all, the climate and your own preferences. If winter temperatures rarely fall below zero, and the sun is too active, it is best to choose grafted roses for planting, and for northern latitudes, own-rooted varieties are more suitable.
Despite the troublesome and difficult cultivation, caring for roses is worth the effort. As a result, you will get abundantly flowering, magnificent bushes that can decorate any area and delight the entire area with an incredible aroma. Such flowers are a unique way to create an unusual and spectacular design landscape.
Before planting, carefully inspect the bush. If planting material dried, immerse the roots in water for several hours. Remove damaged roots.
At autumn planting shoots are shortened to 5-8 buds and leaves are removed.
Pruning has a beneficial effect on the buds dormant at the base of the bush, which produce strong skeletal shoots, and helps to avoid such troubles as drying out in the sun and wind.
When planting any shrubs, especially those with a tap root system, it is useful to use a clay mash (clay, manure, water - 3:3:10), to which you can add a root formation stimulator, for example "Kornevin".
If it is just being developed, then the planting hole should be 60x60 cm, up to 60-70 cm deep. Drainage from pebbles and broken bricks is placed at the bottom, then a layer of fertile earth mixture is poured - up to 40 cm. And if the land is already developed and fertile, then planting the pit can be smaller - 30x30 cm or 40x60 cm, depending on the size of the roots. It is not advisable to include mineral fertilizers, it is better to let the plants take root first.
When planting, it is important not to bend the roots, but to distribute them evenly, covering them with soil. To ensure that it is well distributed between the roots, the plant is gently shaken, pressing the soil around the bush with your hands (there should be no voids), and then further compacted with your foot. The planting depth should be such that the root collar is completely in the ground.
Planted bushes are watered abundantly, even if the soil is quite moist. And be sure to cover them with soil to a depth of 10-15 cm - this protects the base of the shoots from drying out and retains soil moisture.
And before sheltering, the bushes are hilled up to an additional height of up to 30 cm. In the spring, after the buds have sprouted and shoots of 2-5 cm have appeared, the bushes are unhilled (preferably in cloudy or evening hours).
While the plant is taking root, it is important to ensure that the soil does not dry out. Slowly growing or dried out plants are watered intensively.
Planting our own root roses
Rooted roses planted from May to August (they should only be sold with a closed root system). They are first hardened in partial shade for a week. The shoots are pruned, as sometimes the leaves turn yellow and fall due to changes in location and temperature. The planting hole is dug twice as wide and slightly deeper than the container. When planting, they try not to destroy the earthen lump, planting 2-3 cm deeper than the plants were sitting in pots, hilling, watering, shading from direct sun rays. It is better to plant self-rooted roses on raised beds, as they root system afraid of getting wet in winter.
Distances when planting roses:
- Hybrid teas, floribundas, polyanthus are planted, maintaining a distance of 25-30 cm between bushes and 60-70 cm between rows.
- Miniature ones are planted, maintaining a distance of 15-20 cm between bushes and 30-40 cm between rows.
- Shrubs and climbing plants are planted, maintaining a distance of 50-100 cm between bushes and 150-200 cm between rows.
- Park trees are planted, maintaining a distance between bushes and rows of half the height of an adult bush, i.e., if the expected height of an adult bush is 1 m, the distance will be 50 cm, if 2 m - 1 m.
- The distance between the bushes of ground cover roses also depends on the width of the bush (50-150 cm).
Rose bushes are placed so that the crowns eventually close together and form a continuous carpet. The compacted fit creates some difficulties during maintenance and interferes with good ventilation. But its disadvantages are not so significant, and its advantages are obvious
Purchased roses often become wild over time.
The reason for this phenomenon is their grafting onto rose hips, the offspring of which begin to take nutrients, due to which the grafted variety gradually dies.
This can be avoided by growing own root roses, we’ll talk about this today in the next article in the “” section
The procedure is simple; both climbing and park roses take root equally well for me.
The main thing is to cut
In June, before the plants bloom, I cut annual shoots.
I cut each of them into several cuttings 15-20 cm long, remove the peduncles and 2 lower leaves.
After this, I keep the cuttings in a honey solution for 1 hour (1 teaspoon of honey per 1 liter of water), and then immediately plant them at an angle of 45 degrees, on a prepared bed with light, fertile soil.
I plant in such a way that the grown plants do not interfere with each other in the future. After planting, I water the cuttings well and cover them with plastic wrap.
Watering
For about a month, until the cuttings take root, I water them at least 2 times a week. Then I gradually open the film for ventilation: at first for no more than an hour in cloudy weather, gradually increasing the time and after a few days I remove the film completely.
Feeding roses
Every 2 weeks, I feed the rooted plants with an infusion of slurry (1:10) with the addition of 1 liter of ash (per 10 liters of solution). Be sure to loosen the soil between the rows and pull out the weeds. In the fall, with the onset of steady cold weather, I cover the bed with spruce branches, and in winter I sprinkle it with additional snow.
Transplanting roses to a permanent place
In the spring, when the soil thaws and warms up a little, I transplant the roses to a permanent place.
I dig a hole measuring 50x50 cm, put drainage on the bottom (a little crushed stone or broken red brick), pour in 2-3 buckets of humus, 1 liter of ash. 300 g superphosphate and a little dolomite flour, mix everything thoroughly and form it into a mound. I install the seedling so that its apical root is 7-10 cm below the soil level. Then I fill it with the top fertile layer soil and water it abundantly.
Pest Control
When pests appear, I treat the bushes with a solution of Inga-Vir or Fufanon (according to the instructions) with the addition liquid soap. I try to do this late in the evening, when the flight of bees and other beneficial insects stops.
Advice for rose growers:
For longer flowering of roses, pinch out strong annual shoots. Thanks to this, lateral growths with peduncles will appear on them.
Self-rooted roses are a crop grown from varietal cuttings, without a rootstock, and therefore are very demanding in terms of growing conditions. Self-rooted roses can grow well, bloom profusely and overwinter only on well-drained, deeply cultivated (at least 50-60 cm), light soils rich in humus.
Groundwater should be below the root system of the plant, and the area should not be flooded in the spring. On heavy clay soils, it is almost impossible to obtain the desired result, especially with hybrid tea varieties. But there is still a way out.
Conditions for growing self-rooted roses
If the soil on your site is unsuitable for growing roses, you will have to work a little.
To ensure good drainage of excess water, the area for self-rooted roses must be raised. Clay soils need additional sand and humus, at least in the planting holes.
Remember, you are not planting a rose bush for a year or 2. To ensure normal growth and lush flowering for decades, it is necessary to take care of the soil in advance.
It is most rational to prepare a planting hole. To do this, we dig it out, the deeper the better. Divide the excavated soil into 2 parts. The upper half is set aside, the lower half is removed from the site.
One and a half buckets of crushed stone or broken brick are poured into the bottom of the pit. Cover with a bucket of sand. The deferred earth upper layers mix with a bucket of sand and 2 buckets of humus, add half a bucket of ash and 200g of superphosphate. Mix thoroughly and pour into the planting hole.
If the soil is dry, water and wait until the soil settles slightly. Only after that seat It’s ready, and you can plant a bush of your own roses in it.
Roses grown in a greenhouse, 10 days before planting in open ground hardened.
Container specimens are planted in a hole, slightly deeper, approximately 3-5 cm, to form additional roots.
The distances between bushes for floribunda and polyanthus varieties are 25x50 cm, for hybrid tea varieties - 35x50 cm, vigorous climbing varieties of roses - 100x200 cm.
After planting, the holes are well watered and mulched with humus or spruce branches.
Young self-rooted plants in the first year need frequent watering, mulching and loosening the top layer of soil. If a crust forms under the bush, aeration is disrupted and stops normal nutrition roots, the soil overheats, the rose blooms poorly.
By August-September, on well-prepared soils and with proper care, annual self-rooted roses grow beautifully and go into winter as strong, mature plants.
For better ripening of the shoots in August, watering is reduced, the buds are cut off, without shortening the shoot too much, so as not to stimulate the growth of new ones. They do not apply nitrogen fertilizers, but only phosphorus-potassium fertilizers.
With the onset of persistent cold weather, winter sheltering of rose bushes is carried out.