The original idea offered me used paper towels, which was too cost ineffective to my sensibilities. Paper bags might work, I don't know. I haven't experimented with them. I don't know how damp they would be nor how malleable once wet without shredding. I have discovered there are various qualities of newsprint out there. The ones which appear to have the longest fibers, hence the greatest durability for squeezing have been The New York Times and USA Today. Both were saved for me by friends. The local paper in the South Bay where I most recently demonstrated the method turned into mush when wet. It was like wet lint and turned into huge spit wads when wrung out. I have used the small, local, multi page ad mailer with good results. Whatever you use should hold moisture without dripping and should be able to be tightly firmed against the cuttings to provide good contact when wrapped. It appears, like firm soil contact stimulates rooting, firm damp paper contact stimulates callusing and rooting. My last two batches came out earlier than the two weeks; were held under just under 70 degrees and had the damp paper very firmly pressed around them and all had greatly callused. They were much further along than the preceding batches which weren't quite as tightly wrapped and which were held a few degrees cooler. As long as your paper is soft enough to get firmly pressed against the cuttings when wrapped and doesn't remain too wet or too dry, it should work. Give it a try! It would be interesting trying some of the same cuttings, at the same time, in the same place, prepared the same way using newspaper, toweling and the wrapping paper to see if you discern any differences. That would make a very interesting experiment! My wrapping window appears to have closed. The roses are far too developed due to the heat. This last bunch were from cuttings I collected in the next valley north where they are a few weeks behind where my area is due to elevation and distance from the ocean. They were obviously less heat pushed and had experienced several rather stiff frosts where mine experienced no frosts and virtually no "winter" in comparison. Kim

Hi Holly, you're welcome! If you try soft wood cuttings, the wraps won't work. You'll need to either do something like Mel Hulse suggested in The Rose Rustler's Tool Kit (linked below), or the bottle method others have had success with and has been offered here on the forums. My micro climate doesn't work covering cuttings and it's arid enough that uncovered, most soft wood cuttings fail, so I can't offer you advice on that method. If the material you wrapped wasn't sufficiently dormant, it may not have contained sufficient stored nutrients to carry it through the rooting process. They won't absorb nor generate food until they have roots and leaves, so the several weeks required between cutting and wrapping them, and formation of new leaves and roots all require the food the cuttings already contain. That's why in my garden (climate) I don't have success with most until late December to mid January as they don't shut down enough to contain what they need until then. In particularly warmer "winters", they may not store enough nutrients at all, as they never really "shut down". In colder climates, they could probably be successfully wrapped earlier and even much later than here because they remain dormant longer. Mine began growing and flowering in February, so my window was quite short this year. I did have success with cuttings taken from my sister's garden in Newhall up in the Santa Clarita Valley, where it's been colder so the roses didn't begin pushing until a few weeks after mine did here in Encino. If you're seeing roots out the soil bottoms, sure, lift them higher, exposing more of the cuttings. You might want to do that first while leaving them in the dappled light, unless it's very damp/humid in your garden. In wetter conditions, you can safely put them in greater sunlight without the fear of them frying. I'm experiencing a bit of fry now that it's getting a lot more intense, but the only ones not succeeding are the ones I expected to have issues with. I wrapped some I've never had much luck with to see if that would vary from year to year. I also wrapped material which wasn't in the greatest shape to experiment. Those are the ones which aren't doing as well, but most are coming along as I expected them to. A few probably too well! The Smart and Final (great place!) 16 oz foam cups are what I've found the most cost effective and easiest to use until they out grow that size. Then I put them into gallons, but the 16 oz size is fine for quite a few weeks and I'm getting my third year of use out of most of them so they're particularly cost effective. Good luck! Kim Here is a link that might be useful: The Rose Rustler's Toolkit

Hi Judith, they sound precisely as they should. Not all form actual roots in the wraps, though many do. As long as they are well callused, go ahead and plant them. I pot them as deeply in the cups as possible so much of the actual cane is kept damp, dark and cool which seems to stimulate them to root more successfully. Once the cup bottoms appear relatively filled with roots, I raise them higher in the pots, putting more soil under them and removing that higher up the canes so they are exposed to the light. Any green tissue will produce chlorophyll and feed them. It appears to help stimulate them into forming more roots and pushing leaves and wood faster. I've noticed from the four batches of wraps I've done since Christmas Eve that the most successful material is the thickest the variety produces you have available. I deliberately processed cuttings of varying thicknesses to see which appeared most successful. So far, even though they callused quickly, the thinnest wood of all types have failed while the thickest material of all the varieties is pushing roots out the drain holes. I also began experimenting with a few other types of plants in the wraps. Lilac callused two-thirds successfully. Four of six cuttings callused and are growing after one month of being potted. None of the Caesalpinia cuttings callused or rooted, though they remained greenish but turned a bit bronzy in the wrap. They didn't rot nor dry out. I potted them to see if they would root. We'll see. Myrtus communis compacta, Dwarf Myrtle, works well in the wraps. Annie Laurie McDowell worked 100% as did an old Arena Sweet Afton and Perdita. Morey's Pink was another 100% take from the wraps and after a month of potted up. Buck's Maytime has been a near total bust. The thickest pieces of Pink Petticoat are rooting like mad, but the thinner cuttings have failed. Gardens of the World succeeded nearly 100% with those of nearly the thickness of my thumb pushing roots and new growth very quickly. It's as if the thicker wood was at the right stage of food storage and dormancy to perform perfectly with the method. I received cuttings from a friend in Texas two weeks ago, which I unwrapped this afternoon. Of course, the one I most wanted, failed completely, but one of the three cuttings had already begun to turn dark in transit. The other two began turning black in the wrap. Those of her four new HT seedlings callused 100%. Velvet Fragrance, which I wrapped at the same time, callused 100% and has begun pushing new buds. It's going to vary a lot from batch to batch, type to type and location to location, but it seems as long as they callus well and can be kept cool, damp and dark enough while they form roots, it works for a wide variety of roses. Congratulations! Kim

At first I tried many methods including the burrito method which all ended up with the black stems. I began my experiment with store bought roses purchased at the local flower shop. I've had awesome success with other hardwood cuttings with Dip n' Grow, so I figured it would work with roses. I proceeded to look up methods online, I followed the instructions in the Dip n' Grow insert with all of them resulting in black stems. One thing I did notice was that with one experimental method using water with an air stone bubbling (oxygenating) the water the stems would begin to callous and they began to show new growth at the budding sites, but after a while the stems would turn black and die. At that point I'd tried different pH's, nutrient solutions and growing mediums. After several dozens of roses and a lot of wasted money on roses, I eventually got fed up. So on my last attempt I realized that the blackness on the stems was actually an infection of the stem. So I thought to myself "How can I eliminate the infection factor?". I tried one more totally experimental method using and uninfected portion of the main stem that exhibited new growth from one of the stems that was infected in the lower area and finally, SUCCESS!! Here is my original method that I used to propagate the first plant: You will need the following: 1. Coir (coco peat) 2. Microwave safe bowl 3. Microwave Oven 4 Clear Container with a lid, (many Chinese restaurants use them for soups) 5. Dip n' Grow Rooting hormone 6. Cotton swabs Step 1: Add your Coir to the microwavable bowl add enough water to have the coir in a liquefied state Microwave for 20 minutes to sterilize the Coir and kill any fungal spores or bacteria it may have in it. Step 2: Strain the Coir using a piece of cheesecloth or other fabric that has been washed in chlorine bleach being certain to squeeze as much of the water out as possible. Step 3: Wash the soup container with bleach then thoroughly rinse. Fill soup container half way with your damp coir packing it down. Step 4: Take a cotton swab and dip it into pure Dip n' Grow then dip your swab in water as to slightly dilute the Dip n' Grow in the swab. and use the swab to cover the areas of the cutting where it has been cut, being careful not to put the rooting hormone on any part of the cutting that will be exposed to light. Step 5: Put the Hormone treated area into the coir being sure it is not exposed to light, then cap the container. Step 6 Put your cutting under some form of artificial light, compact fluorescent bulbs work well (at least 25 Watts). In the above steps you've created a sterile environment for your cutting to take root. In about a week or two check for callusing, when you see the callousing then add a small amount(a few drops) of very mild, high phosphorus fertilizer (promotes root growth) around the area where the callousing exists, so it can easily gain access to the fertilizer . Look at the bottom of the container periodically for signs of rooting In another 1-2 weeks you should see roots growing against the bottom of the container. This is the point where you can gradually expose the leaves to the environment because once root formation has begun you no longer have to fear infection Note: if you notice any fungus growing anywhere in the container, it is better to expose the cutting to dry air which will kill the fungus and let the cutting have chance at growth.