"But something important was missing; I felt I just had to find a way to keep that rosebush. I couldn't very well dig it up. My only option was to take cuttings and try to propagate them. I didn't inherit my parents' gardening skill or, more important, their confidence, and I approached the task with energy born of sheer desperation. It was summer, not the optimal time to propagate a rose. But it was now or never.Link.
Just days before the real estate closing, I gingerly snipped six or eight cuttings and carried them carefully home in damp newspaper. I put them into a hand-thrown pot (also from my parents' yard) in sand and perlite, watered them and covered them with plastic to keep in the moisture.
Every day I visited the pot -- all through the hot, dry summer. One by one, the cuttings dried into brown sticks. But two of them stayed green. I talked to them, stroked their leaves, watered them and shifted them around so they'd get just enough sun. And finally, new green leaves began to unfold on them.
Now Ethelred stands in all his enigmatic glory beneath the redwoods surrounding our patio. Just this morning I looked at my 'Perle d'Or' and there were two tight, slender rosebuds, just about to open."
It's really about desperation and [feining] confidence. So just do it!
Take spring cuttings, strip the leaves off green (new) stems, and stick them in a thoroughly wetted mix of two-to-one perlite to vermiculate. Keep in bright shade. Keep your fingers crossed.
