Hmmmmm, I would have thought the window for semi-ripe cuttings is over (it certainly is in the UK) but there is plenty of time to go for the traditional hardwood cuttings - certainly the easiest, if not the most reliable method. I use a 5litre pot, filled with a mix of horticultural sand, a bit of perlite and loam based potting soil - well, whatever I have around usually). Nice fat cuttings of this years wood, about 20cm long and as fat as a pencil are ideal. Don't bother with rooting hormones or anything like that - I just insert 4-6 cuttings in the pot, water and leave somewhere the pots will not be disturbed. Takes a whole season, here in the UK - nice little plants by this time next year though.

I have not had success wrapping cuttings lower than 15 C nor higher than 20 C. Lower than that and they preserve like produce in a crisper. Higher and they attempt to grow foliage instead of callus. Nor have I succeeded with any cuttings harvested from actively growing plants. The material needs to be from as dormant wood as possible. If I collect it too early here, it fails to callus, attempting to produce foliage instead. If I collect it from plants which have already begun pushing new foliage in spring to early summer, the same results occur. As long as the plants from which cuttings are harvested are NOT producing new foliage and blooms, and the cuttings are held in the temperature range stated above. my success rate has been very high (90% +) with the method. Kim

-20C is still way too cold. That converts to -4F. They'll freeze. If you stick them now you'll have to bring them inside for the winter. It's doable but keeping roses alive in the house isn't easy. They'll need a lot of light and humidity to keep them alive until spring. And I'm not talking about just watering them. You need to keep the air humidity around them high too. If it were me I'd wait until next spring to do another batch.

Don't feel too bad about having failures at rooting. Most people do. Only about half of what I stick takes. I do use rooting hormone on mine. I just did a program on it for my rose society. If you'd like a copy PM me with your email address and I'll send it to you.

Camp - thanks for the tip. I will try that method again in the spring.

Roseseek - I must have totally overlooked the part that stated to only use dormant wood. Might be another dumb question but how long can I keep cuttings for? Reason I am asking is one of the places is up for sale and I don't want to lose a chance at this beautiful yellow rosé. TIA

Seil - if I got cuttings going this year, I might have one success, what would suggest I do to make them go dormant? After posting I remembered my crawl space where my water comes in doesn't get much below -5C. I really don't want to run my indoor greenhouse all year for one rose.

Thanks all for answering my NOOB questions and I hope others can benefit too.

SCG (a new rose addict)

South country - I dunno how hard -wood cuttings would do in the spring - we always do them over winter since it never really gets continually freezy here in the UK (a week of frozen pots doesn't seem to bother mine at all, but months?). I cannot actually see a good reason why hard wood cuttings wouldn't be OK though because it is a slow, slow way of rooting woody perennials - I don't even bother with pots, just dig a slit trench in any spare bit of soil and line the cuttings out (I do heaps of easy stuff like willow, dogwoods, philadelphus, forsythia and so on.....especially the reliable species roses such as moyesii). It has also been the only way I have ever managed to get a single cutting from pimpinellas and various other asian early yellow roses such as the recalcitrant hugonis.

I hate to be discouraging but I still think that any temperature below freezing will kill newly stuck cuttings. They're not going to have time to produce much of a root ball and protecting and insulating that tiny root ball from freezing will be nearly impossible. You can give it a try but don't be surprised if they don't live to spring.

I have one of those small greenhouses and have had cuttings that were rooted from June freeze and die on me inside there over my winters. It depends on the rose and how hardy and vigorous it is to begin with and how big and healthy the plant is going into winter.

I do have one other suggestion if you feel you have to do these this fall. Stick the cuttings now and give them as much time as you can to root before winter sets in. Once you get your first frost try digging holes and sinking the cutting pots right into the ground. Go deep and bury them completely. Be sure to put markers where you've sunk them so you can find them easily in the spring. In the spring when your roses just begin to leaf out dig them up and put them back in the sun. I have done this in the past with very small seedlings with some success. Like I said though, no guarantees, but it's an option.