Part One of a Series on Rose Propagation
When you think about it, it's really quite amazing. That Souvenier de la Madame L'Un Pronoun C`able out in your garden once bloomed in some sweet, sunstrewn part of France, over a hundred years ago. Well, at least the original did, and if you are certain of Madame's lineage, yours not only bears the same pedigree, it *is* the same rose. It just happens to be detached from the original by geography and time.
Just as a cutting of ivy will go on to make another plant, and as the process is repeated, another, and another, so can a rose live on. Therein lies the beauty and wonder of cloning, or propagation. I find this magical somehow, but I'm admittedly amused by small things.
Though most roses bear fertile hips, it is not via seeds that one particular rose manages to rub shoulders with immortality. A seed from a rose will be a child of that rose, and unlike any rose seen before or after. But we'll get into rose breeding in another article. For now, let us concentrate on the joys of making more of a good thing via propagation.
Your rose, propagated by stem cutting, root cutting, air layering, or any of the asexual methods most often conducted in laboratories under sterile and very secretive circumstances, is genetically identical to the one that first opened its petals in that garden long ago. Old Blush, probably the most important rose to lend its genes to the rose world, was introduced from China in 1793. It has born witness to everything from the splitting of the atom to the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. If you imagine, as I do, that this rose existed in China long before that, you can only wonder at the march of history that stamped past its nodding, ruffled head.
I prefer growing my roses on their own roots and so there are roses that I don't bother to propagate. These include the hybrid teas, a lovely lot, but with weaker constitutions than many, and it is for that reason I don't use them. Most that you purchase are budded onto a stronger and more vigorous rose, called the "root stock", and though I've grown a few of the HT's on their own roots, they perform badly and remain a sickly looking bunch even well into their fourth and fifth season. I'm certain there are growers who have great luck, and to them I send up a hearty "Hoorah For Yours!! Mine still bite.."
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