A fair number of roses are easy enough to root that all they need is humidity. So if you are feeling scientific, I'd try also doing a control attempt without any additives at all. I've rooted a fair number of roses in my life with not much more than a large peanut butter jar. Of course now I have no idea where you would find a glass jar that size.

Hello All - I have in the past root pruned fig trees that were in ~ 11 gallon plastic pots in miracle grow + peat moss + perlite. When I did the root pruning it was a bit past due but the plants came out fine. I had read about a couple of methods of root pruning - 1) cut ~ 1/4 inch off the bottom and make a 1inch cut in 4 positions from the top to bottom i.e. cut at north, south, east, and west positions 2) remove all the dirt and then trim the roots removing roots that seem to be growing upwards or in a circular path around the base of the tree - removing I believe only about 1/3 of the overall root mass. When I did the root pruning in the past I did method number 2 - removing all the dirt -- I have a bonsai root pick tool and once all potting mix is removed I sprayed the root mass with a bit of water from a hose to make sure all the potting mix was removed. I also lightly misted the root mass with a spray bottle of water while removing the mix and cutting the roots. As I said before this method #2 worked well for me with the fig trees. Questions: 1. It seems to me that although method 2 is much more work --- especially when I have done it I was a bit past due and the root mass was really overgrown -- i.e. roots growing up into the center of the root system --- that it is a better method because more of the root system is addressed and the cut off roots totally removed. However, am I wrong? Are both methods above equally efficient for producing strong new growth in a (fig) tree? Question #2: I would like to soon put a tree in ~ 11 gallon or larger pot (15 or 20 gallon) containing gritty mix. I recall seeing a picture of a bonsai tree Al Tapla had in gritty mix that I believe he had just root pruned or was getting ready to root prune. It seemed like it had a good amount of the gritty mix attached to the root system. I am just thinking forward to the time when I would have to root prune a fig that is in such a pot of gritty mix. Obviously, the gritty mix is very heavy - I will use a two wheeler to move the pot around. Should I expect a significant amount of the gritty mix to stick to the root system when I try to remove the plant from the pot? The entire potting mix mass containing miracle grow with a small amount of peat moss and perlite mixed in is removed from the container when I root pruned before. I am just worried that if a lot of the gritty mix adheres or is not easily removed so that it can fall back into the pot then it will be far too hard to root prune a plant of this size that is in gritty mix because of the weight of the mix - i.e. I will not be able to lift the tree out of the pot if a significant amount of the gritty mix is attached to the root system due to the weight of the gritty mix. I currently have a number of other plants in gritty mix in much smaller pots -- I have not yet had the need to root prune any of those so I don't have any direct experience root pruning something that has been growing in the gritty mix. Any thoughts? Thanks, Brian

You will get much better results when rooting in a bag if you keep your baggies away from any heating source (heating mat, furnace, hot water heater, window sill, etc.) Also, you will have less problems with humidity and moisture control if you keep your baggies in a CLOSED plastic container. Putting your baggies in a closed box helps stabilize the temperature inside of the baggies which greatly improves moisture control. A nice steady even room temperature works well. Before you try to root your cuttings be sure to clean them properly. Clean your cuttings with a toothbrush using a solution of warm water and Dawn Anti-Bacterial dish-washing liquid. Rinse your cuttings with water to remove the soap. Now clean them again with a toothbrush using a solution of 1 part Clorox and 9 parts water.....be sure to wear gloves. After cleaning your cuttings with this dilute Clorox solution....allow your cuttings to air dry. Be sure to clean them with soap FIRST then dilute Clorox SECOND.....it is important that you clean them in that order. You should not have any problems with mold as you root them. Dan

I am pleased that this thread is still alive. As so many people are waiting for results I should talk a bit about trying to get as many healthy cuttings as possible. You will soon find that many cuttings will grow leaves furiously as end of Winter approach. At the first break of Spring there are still cuttings thath ave no sign of growth at all. These cuttings should be removed in my opinion just because it will be hard to keep these into the heat of Spring when they are so late (without roots). This will free up some space for the promising ones to survive. Next you will find that they grow nice leaves but they do NOT have roots at the bottom. Don't pull up to have a look. I suspect that there is some relationship between the mix and the base of the cuttings helping them to get a little extra moisture into the cane. If you pull them up, you lose this formation. At this point in time they like gentle air flow, warm morning and cool night. They like a little bit of indirect early morning sun light but no more than 1-2 hour. The major problem the cuttings will face is sudden variation of temperature. In some regions of the world, the difference between day and night, and normal day and hot day is about 15 - 20 degrees C. That's just insane for rose cuttings if the top temperature reaches above 30C like many parts of Australia early in Spring. Dryness of the air can be a problem too in hot days. The only to counter this is to set up a timer to automatically spray them every 1/2 hours for a few seconds. If the weather is a bit too warm, they would grow too fast without the roots! Remember that the top couple of leaf sets have to mature before they will help rooting with enough sap flow to the base. This growth takes up the reserved energy and water. There is only one chance. If the leaves won't mature and generate sap flow, there will be no roots. The cuttings will just grow and burn itself out like depleted batteries. Therefore very slow growth rate is the key to sucess. Fertilizing will kill them. If you spray them with a little soluble fertlizers, they will grow beautiful leaves and within a few days deplete all the reserved energy and water and die!!! So never fertilise them and never use a mix that has fertilisers. When some of them already have some roots, what can happen? Many things I am afraid - When you see roots at the bottom, the chance is that many cuttings have roots and many still don't. If you are willing to destroy the ones that don't have roots then you can start fertilising them a little by spraying soluble fertlisers on the leaves or putting inorganinc fertliser pellets into the pot and water it. Otherwise wait another 2-3 weeks while you SELECTIVELY spray the cuttings that are most likely to have roots (you can tug them a little to feel the resistance) The reason why you would want to fertilise the rooted ones now is because the mix has no nutrients. They have drained all the reserved energy in the canes in order to grow leaves and root. They desperately need feeding but indiscriminate feeding will harm other cuttings that don't have roots. Finally you need to pot them out and discard the ones that are not healthy or don't have roots (or put the ones without roots back after you have taken other ones out). This is the time when you really appreciate the use of sand! You simply use a gentle water jet to wash the sand away and get the cuttings with 95% of the young roots in perfect condition. These rooted cuttings should be in water at all time until you pot them out individually. You should notice that young feeders are easyto break, bruise and rot. Again you should use sand as part of the potting mix. Rich potting mix goes in first. Normal potting mix goes in second. A bit of sand in third. Then the rooted cutting gets in. Some more sand in. Then normal potting mix fill the pot. Why 4 layers of mix? The bottom layer is rich with nitrogen which is good once the roots work their way down the bottom of the pot. The next layer is normal mix. Then the sand layer surrounds the young roots that need a relatively clean environment to avoid rotting away. It's a common mistake to use only one layer of potting mix and risk burning the young roots or having little nutrients for their development later. I have a guess about why many own root roses are sickly for a while until they get a bit older. My theory is that it depends on the rose type. Most modern roses have a life for a cane about 1-2 years. Some of them are even shorter. The aging of a stem is rapid in excessive heat and poor nutrition as it does not generate enough sap flow then bulk to keep it young. So when you root roses, the cane is effectively "old" by the time they have roots and become independent plants. This why they are sickly until they get around to renew themselves. The renewal process depends on sap flow and creation of new bulk (new wood). That's why I have a theory that the "effective" age of a plant or a stem of a plant is the ratio of new wood versus old wood. The bigger this ratio the younger it is. This process take time. It really helps to have lots of leaves growing rapidly. That's why it's better to grow rooted cuttings in shady areas for them to get more leaves. It also help to occasionally spray them with soluble fertilisers to encourage leaf growth during the first 2 months to build up sap flow down the main cane to the roots.