Roses

[Chantal]

I have a bunch of roses that have been in a vase in the kitchen for nearly three weeks and are refusing to die. They've been fully open almost all the time and not a petal has dropped although the leaves are brittle. I noticed last night that all 10 of the stems have produced new shoots with lovely new leaves. To pot these up, what length of stem should I leave around the new shoots, and what mix of compost would be best to plant them in?

I've never had roses do this before, although last year a bunch of crysanthemums hung on for weeks before I noticed a mass of roots in the bottom of the vase. Is it something to do with having glass pebbles at the bottom of the vase?

[Malk]

Chantal, share. What else do you do to keep your cut flowers lasting so long? I'm lucky if mine last a week. Never tried glass pebbles.

Don't know what you do about roses. Think some are like apples and grafted onto stock, so I don't know if they'd take if you snipped the flower off and stuck the bottom in some soil.

[Chantal]

I don't do anything apart from cut the bottoms off and stick them in a vase.

[oldherbaceous]

Hello Chantal old girl, not really sure on this one, but i think i would treat them a bit like hardwood cuttngs. Cut the bottom of the stem off with four or five buds, discard the tops, plant in a free draining compost with the top bud about three quarters of an inch above the compost, keep moist but not soaked. Don't know if this is the best way, but i think that is how i would go about it.

Kind regards the Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

[Chantal]

Thanks OH, I'll give it a go. If it all works I'll have 10 gorgeous velvet red rose bushes by this time next year (ever the optimist me).