I would never buy them to try, but I asked a coworker who got a bouquet for her birthday for hers when the blooms faded. She may have waited too long to give them to me, but I'm going to try anyway. I have the room and time will pass anyway.

Do you find them just as easy to do as garden varieties?

Oh goodness another new term. What is "bunch of spray roses" ? Floribundas? Hybrid Teas or something else?

I have so much to learn. Thanks in advance.

I am no expert but consider spray roses to be floribundas with small blooms - mainly grown for the florist trade. I found these links http://www.interplantroses.nl/assortment-roses/spray-roses and for a definition http://www.ehow.com/info_8075178_spray-roses.html

Sharlene

I'm working on trying the florist roses again. Last yr I had them in clear cups with 2-litre soda bottles over them, in an enclosed chamber I built with wet clay pebbles in the bottom of a plastic under-bed storage container and a heating pad underneath with a full-spectrum fluorescent light on them for several hours a day. They all fried. Now I'm potting them up and putting them inside zip-lock bags and misting water inside to make a greenhouse effect. They are in this big reptile "cage" my niece gave us yrs ago for the lizards we had. I have the fluorescent light on around 12-15hrs a day. No heat other than from the light. So far, after over 2weeks, I have 11 out of 12 cuttings of the orange rose IGUANA still looking green, supple and alive! One stem did turn black, but I expect to have a few do that. I also have a gorgeous dk purple rose called SHOGUN in there for almost a week. Those are still not even dropping the leaves yet. I got 2 1/2gal zip-lock bags and put two small pots in each one. Could probably get three in there. I'm using up old band pots from roses I've gotten from various suppliers, and when I run out I have the clear plastic drink cups that I'll use next. Oh and I cut the upper (buds) off and enjoy them in a small vase, and the stems get put in water with peroxide before they get potted up.

I get my florist roses from Safeway Market because they are only $9.99 a dozen in the off season and they all have the names on the cellophane wrapper. Today I picked up a lovely ruffled green one called LEMONADE. I'm checking tomorrow to see what comes in. (They get them in Mon-Wed-Fri.)

I'm really excited about these looking so good. Last yr they would turn black within a week. I really think it was too hot with the heating pad under them. Anyway, it's all an experiment I'm doing and looks like this time I might have found the best way to do it. Will keep everybody posted!

Beth, if I could get named florist roses at $9.99 a dozen I would definitely try rooting over winter again. Our markets don't carry named roses and the florists are asking +/- $5.00 per rose!

According to George Mander's 'Own Root Set-up' temperatures should be between 70 and 74F. http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/ezine.php?publicationID=639&js=0

Sharlene

sutekesh - thank you for posting the pictures - It may have also given me some insight to as why I don't have a bigger success rate. I take the same size cutting but I am only putting the the lower leaf node under my growing medium, leaving 3 of the nodes above. From the picture it looks like they are putting 3 under the growing medium. I thought it had to have two sets of leaves above the ground. (All of the leave under the dirt should be trimmed off right?) In picture it looks like only the second set of leaves down are trimmed?

Sharon, I must admit that the first picture on the link above is a bit confusing. I think your method is ok. I normally take cuttings with 3 bud eyes and I also only have one bud eye (node) in the growing medium (coco coir). I leave the leaves on the top two and remove the bottom leaves - NO leaves in the growing medium. The main reason I posted the link was to show the set-up and the temperature recommendation.

Sharlene

Sharlene that's probably about the temp in the cage. So sorry the florist stems are so expensive for you! That seems a little ridiculous.

Sharon, I'm putting the stems in with at least two nodes, sometimes three. Just depends on how far apart they are on the particular variety. If you're familiar with the band pots, they are a bit taller than the plastic cups. I stick the stems all the way down into them, and two per band. Then there's about 4-8" above, also depending on the variety and how long the stems are, with at least 2 to 3 leaves. So far, so good!!

Boy, what a difference a day can make. Looks like all but maybe two of the IGUANA cuttings are goners. But this is a good experiment. Because with that, the first batch, I only had gallon sized zip-lock bags. The cuttings I took were too tall to totally enclose in the bags, so I put them over the top and zipped them up as far as I could against the pots. I probably should have taped them to the pots. However, I think the pots also do need to be enclosed in the bags. Because the one pair of stems I had cut a bit shorter in order to fit them inside the bag, are the ones that are still looking good. The others don't have as much condensation to keep the stems moist, but yet they are growing patches of mold, and turning black.

The SHOGUN cuttings are totally enclosed in the bags and are still nice and green and the leaves are just beginning to fall off, whereas the IGUANA ones dropped their leaves a lot sooner. I also took some cuttings of a handful of my rare roses to see if I can get them going too. Those look ok, but one has leaves turning yellow.

Yesterday I picked up the one rose I had really wanted badly, as I had gotten it from Carltons yrs ago and just found out it died. That's CHERRY BRANDY. I'm not too sure these will go because they were pretty thin stems and the leaves were already dropping. I think they must've had those in the back and brought them out and added them to the new shipment of roses. That's one thing about the florist roses.. if they aren't fresh, they don't work as well. I may have wasted my money and efforts on this batch, but we'll see. One thing I also noticed... I didn't realize this was an 18-count bundle, and I think they put the thinner stemmed ones in those, and use the thicker stemmed ones in the dozen bundles.

Fresh is the key, but also budding. Many florist types are never tried own root, though some do grow OK as own root. Learning to bud pretty much guarantees your success.

As Kim said, florist roses have probably never been tested own root so who knows how vigorous they might be. They're also always grown under perfect greenhouse conditions. Conditions we are hard pressed to duplicate at home when trying to root them. I think any luck in rooting them is a matter of numbers. The more you can stick the better your chances of getting one to take.

Update on IGUANA... I'm down to just the two cuttings that were originally inside the zip lock bags. All the ones that I had the bag slipped over the top and snugged up to the side of the pots have turned black, got moldy and obviously died. The ones in the bag are looking good still and sprouting. All the other ones that I put inside the large ziplock bags seem to be doing ok so far! Hopefully they will root.

Seil, I have a few own root florist roses, and they do ok. One I rooted myself a few yrs ago, VERSILIA, is doing pretty well. The others are ones I got from Cliff just before he closed up EuroDesert Roses. He was getting into the florist roses, and had some pretty nice ones. I got ILSE, PURPLE CEZANNE, RED PARIS, MALIBU, SPICY, FARFALLA and my favorite one COFFEE BREAK. These are all still pretty small and most are in one gal pots. I will pot them up into bigger pots in the early spring most likely. Oh that RED PARIS has done the best of Cliff's babies. Gorgeous deep red with perfect spiral form. It's going to be a good one.