Wow, sydseeds that is amazing. Did a blanket of your winter snows come early and cover them for a long period, and then after they broke dormancy in the spring, did the temps stay above 32 degrees F. all during your early spring? If so, those conditions could be an improvement over what occured over our winter and early spring. Though we did not get as cold as your zone, Our trees and shrubs were stressed by temps swinging back and forth below and above freezing many times during the winter. Then when temps warmed enough for the trees and shrubs to break dormancy the night temps dropped below freezing again. That actually happened in early spring 2006 and twice in spring 2007 with the latter one dropping low enough to be a hard freeze. Since there was no blanket of snow cover during those times, such conditions caused lots of death to many of even our established trees and shrubs. If you took the cuttings in late summer, the twigs must have been much thicker than mine taken in spring just prior to my shrub beginning to produce bloom buds this year. Is that true? I would be a lot less concerned about mine if their main stems had thickened up some this Summer. Maybe this fall, they can get a little stronger by being out in full morning sun and afternoon shade. This is about the second week for them in the new location, and they do seem to be responding well. Anyway, thanks again for your encouraging report about how tough the hardy RoS cultivars are even in your much colder zone.

Here on the east coast, the air stays pretty humid enough so that I don't seem to need to make little "greenhouses" for cuttings -- just keep them out of midday sun, and keep the soil moist. My first round of cuttings are starting to put out new growth, and I think I'll have far more of 'Rose du Roi -- original' than I expected. I took a lot, thinking it'd be harder to root than others I've tried, but so far none are showing signs of rotting before rooting. But in any case, that video is very informative. In different conditions and with different types of roses, we all have to try a few ways before we hit on what works for us. :-) ~Christopher

SUMMER, THERE’S THE KEY TO YOUR FLIES... YOU POTTED ROSE BANDS THAT WERE INFESTED WITH FUNGUS GNATS IN THE SOIL. THE BUGS ARE IN THE ROSE BANDS. It had nothing to do with the soil from Lowes. I had that same thing happen to me one year. I now rinse every bit of soil off of the roots before I pot them up in potting mix from Lowes. That is what removes the eggs from the soil that the rose is potted in from the seller. Usually, I use Miracle Grow seed starting mix but they aren’t carrying it yet this year. Anything works for me except coconut coir. Rebecca

Personally I prefer my roses to go own root. I figure that,if they are vigorous enough on their own roots, the scion-the rose I want and bought-will eventually take over the rootstock, and i'll wind up with a longer-lived,better plant. In other words,the graft just serves as support for the rose until it is strong enough to "stand on it's own". If the rose isn't vigorous enough to grow well own-root, I still like the idea of it having some of it's own roots,with the rootstock to help it along; I don't see how that would kill off the rootstock,because the own-roots wouldn't be vigorous enough to do so. So I don't understand what you are worried about. I plant mine with the base of the scion's canes just slightly below ground level (I'm in Tuscany, Italy, so about a zone 8); no deeper, because what you do want to encourage is the creation of one single, strong own-root plant. If you plant it too deep, all of the canes can root along their lengths,thus creating a tiny thicket of small,own-rooted plant that just compete with each other and wind up ruining the entire situation.