i think it's working

So far with my new system, I've gotten 4/4 of my rose cuttings to root. 100%! Sounds much more impressive. To be honest, the first two roses I tried are known to be roses easy to grow from cuttings.

Remember Annemarie's rose? Here it was in November, growing its first roots. This is an heirloom rose from Louisiana, and Annemarie tells me that people hack a stem and stick in in the ground and soon it is taking over the yard. So not too much of a challenge I suppose, except that neither of us were able to grow it in pots over the winter.

Here it is today, two months later:

Kinda floppy, growing in the windowsill, but it will perk up once the weather is warmer and it is planted out, and hey, this is practically a houseplant in the rose world where it's tough to keep a rose alive and blooming indoors. This one's practically a dracaena, once you know the trick: plant it in a peat free medium.

I took a cutting of Mrs. BR Cant at about the same time. I guess I forgot to take photos of its first roots, about a week or two later than Annemarie's rose. Here it is today, with a strong new basal growth.

Again, this is a rose that is known to be easy to root, so not much to brag about, except that I'm a proud papa.

The one at the top of this post is 'Iceberg' and I didn't expect much, since I took the cuttings after the weather turned cold in November. I have no idea whether or not 'Iceberg' is easy to root or not, but 6 weeks later, and it is busting out all over, new growth on top and everything. I'm pretty stoked.

Before you ask what I'm doing with such a common rose, let me say that I love 'Iceberg'. It has always been my second favorite rose, since I was a kid, and if you plant a garden filled with 'Iceberg', you can't go wrong in my eyes. So if it is my second favorite, you might ask, what is my #1 favorite rose? Well, I can't really tell you that, because I haven't found it yet. The only thing that is keeping 'Iceberg' from being in the top spot, is that it is not a heavily fragrant rose. It blooms almost continuously, even through the summer heat, is tough, with nice flower size and shape, has crisp white flowers (even though they turn pink in cold weather). I've never had a problem with disease. It has a very nice bush shape, even though it is more of a "bedding" shape than sculptural as some roses can be. At certain times of the day it has a delicious and moderate fragrance. But a lot of times, the scent is barely discernible. I'm hoping one day to find a rose that has all of that, plus intense fragrance (like 'Mister Lincoln' but without that awful plant appearance) and maybe sculptural bush form (like 'Madame Isaac Pereire' or 'Abraham Darby'). Until then, although 'Iceberg' is second, it is second to none in overall performance.