Valentine's Day

I hope every one had a good Valentine’s day; and those of you waiting for this weekend, cheers!  If you bought or received roses for or from someone special, (Or you bought them for yourself because you're WORTH IT!) and you want to keep them alive or even re-grow them, I have a few simple steps to take that bouquet and turn in into a beautiful, thriving plant!

Step one.  Before they start fading, in fact, as soon as possible, cut off the flowers on a few of the stems.  When the flower is still tight closed.  Yep, Morticia style! You can still enjoy the flowers, by taking the cut off bloom and floating them in a bowl cool water.  They will last quite a while this way and it’s a beautiful and unique look.

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Step two. Take the stems, take of the leaves from the bottom half of the stem.  Then cut off 1 inch of the bottom of the stem.  Immediately place the stems in to a glass of luke warm water.

Step three. While the warm water is opening up the vascular system of the rose stem, get a small plastic plant pot with drain holes.  The kind annuals come in. (We have some. Or Braums sundae or plastic drink cups with drain holes melted in the bottom) Fill it with a light, loose potting mix.  Cactus and succulent soil or seed starting mix work well.  Make sure it doesn’t contain and fertilizer of any kind and make *absolutely* sure it doesn’t have and of those water retention crystals. (Avoid miracle gro) Place the pot or pots in a saucer of water and let the water soak up into the pot.  Do not water from above, that will tamp the soil down too much.  Take a pencil and jab a hole in the middle of the soil.  Place the stem in the hole and fill in around the rose.  Make sure there are 3-5 inches of stem under the soil line with no leaves.

Step four. Place the pot in a bright room but out of direct sun light.  Near an east window is perfect!  You can either mist the soil, stem, and leaves 2-3 times a day, or you can cut the top off of a 3 quart soda bottle so that it fits over the plant and pot.  In that case you can mist once a day.

Step five. In 4-6 weeks you should see new growth.  You can permanently remove the plastic, but continue misting the plant once a day.  Let it grow for another 2-3 weeks, you can move the plant outside and into a bigger pot.  By mid April you will have successfully made your own rose plant!

Now, florist’s roses have been bred for flower production, not beauty of plant.  But you should have yourself a source of beautiful cut flowers!  You have also become a plant propagator!  You can use this process for pretty much any shrub and tree!