The leaves will eventually fall off or you may have to pull them off once they dry up. Are you having success? I have been trying for the last few months using the burrito method, but it doesn't work well at all with florist roses. I've gone back to just potting the stems, similar to what you're doing. I have a frame I made out of pvc pipe covered with clear vinyl film. I put the potted stems inside a big underbed storage box, with wet clay pebbles under the pots, heating pads under the storage box, and full spectrum fluorescent lights on a timer for 9 hours a day. I have to mist them every day and add water to the pebbles about every 3-4days. So far I have a handful of the ones that I tried callousing with the burrito method first, that appear to be surviving, plus several directly potted with leaves on. The leaves on the earliest ones from a few weeks ago are beginning to dry up. If they don't fall off by themselves, I'll carefully pull them off in a few days or so. So, what roses have you tried so far? the ones that appear to be rooting for me are ROSITA VENDELA, PAILINE, OPUS and hopefully, IGUANA.

Hi Markiz37! My method is basically just a hybridized version of what George Mander does. I tried his method first, then played around to see if I could get better results. I'll try to civer it here again, but please feel free to ask questions if you do not understand. I actually emailed George about 5 times to get clarification of what he was doing before I started playing with different methods. First and most important - get some coconut coir. This is the major difference between mine and Georges' method. I find coir to be the best rooting medium available. Once you have that, the rest is easy. You'll need the following; Rubbermaid dishpan. Mine measures about 11"x 14"x 5". You'll place containers in here. Next, find some small containers. I use 2 3/4 inch by 6 inch deep containers. That would be 7 cent X 15.25 cent for the Alberta crowd. Next, go to a fabric store a get 1 meter of elastic, like you would get for clothing. It is usually white in color. Next, go to a hardware or paint store and grab a roll of 2 mil thick clear plastic. You'll also need a CHEAP florescent light fixture and bulbs while you are there. The fixtures are about $10 for a 4 foot type. They take two bulbs for each fixture. Again, cheap is good here. Last, you'll need rooting hormone. You might want to start out with what your local gardening center sells. I use Rhizopon AA#3 powder, but that can be expensive if you are just starting out. Now you can make your cuttings. I like to really would the cuttings and then stick in hormone. There have been studies done showing that cuttings that are wounded root more easily than those that were just cut at 45 degree angle. After dipping in hormone, place in pot. When you are finished, place all containers in dishpan and spray leaves with water. Then cover with the 2 mil plastic. Use the elastic to keep plastic in place. A staple gun works well for this. Now place dishpan directly under the lights. I place as close to the lights as I can without actually touching the fixture. You can also use bottom heat, but keep the temp below 75 degrees (24 c). Leave alone for a few weeks, and then lift plastic and spray leaves. I usually start to see roots also now. Cover and check weekly. Here is the link to the George mader site. Here is a link that might be useful: George Mander Roses of Excellence

Another point I wanted to make - is unfortunately a lot of cut flower roses that are for sale are not bred to grow here. They grow well in Ecuador and similar climates. Look at black baccara (a florist rose that's risen recently especially in wedding design) - it's plagued with disease when it isn't grown in ideal conditions and even in ideal conditions it is a poor performer. Love/Osiria fortunately is available as a shrub - breeder code JACtwin and is very available in the market. Snow Fire and Double Take are also very similar and available. The other reality is - that even if you do get a florist rose to root, that doesn't mean it's going to perform the same way as it does for the grower (who has at their disposal a myriad of fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides, and not to mention workers and lest we forget - a near perfect climate for growing 'florist' type roses). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for starting something from free-ish and it's certainly worth a try, but you gotta be realistic with the results you're going to get. I think you'd be better off seeking similar alternatives suited to your particular climate zone - by finding people nearby willing to give/trade cuttings on a similar rose, shopping around at the nursery's, and just overall finding something suited to and/or grafted to suit your particular conditions. Obviously, give rooting it a try (what's a little rooting hormone and starting mix?), it it roots! Woohoo! If it doesn't, well you're not really out anything and you know you can still get the rose you liked and/or something very similar to it that may be better suited to your area.

Michelle, if you succeed with rooting Red Intuition, let me know how you did it. I rooted a few florist roses but I could never root this one. I assumed that they might not have been fresh or were treated with something but most probably it was just my bad luck.