Plant your wedding bouquet roses!
August 13, 2009 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under Gardening
Did you know you can save the roses from your wedding bouquet and plant them? I LOVE this project because what’s better than having your actual wedding roses around forever!? Romantic, pretty, and a great addition to your home garden.
How to plant your wedding bouquet:
- Clip each rose stem from your bouquet about four to six inches long. Create enough clippings so that if some fail to sprout you’re still ok.
- Place the stems into a vase of clean water. Make sure to change the water each day to avoid grunge.
- In about six weeks you should see little sprouts of root at the base of each clipping.
- When the roots around four inches long, plant each in a separate pot full of organic nutrient rich soil. Place outside and water daily.
- As the plants get larger move them to larger pots.
- By your 1st anniversary, you should have some nice little rose bushes ready to be placed in your garden.
This is an excellent project for your own wedding and also makes a killer 1st anniversary gift for a sister or best friend. The only downside is how to get the bouquet. If it’s your own wedding, you won’t be able to toss it, or you’ll have to steal it back. If it’s your friend’s wedding, you’ll have to practice your catching skills so that you for sure catch the bouquet. IF you really want to toss that bouquet, or your sports skills aren’t up to par, a second option is to use the roses from the table arrangements.
[Images via stock.xchng]
I’ve tried to get roses started this way, but I’ve never gotten it to work:-( Someone even suggested putting a crushed up aspirin in the water, even that didn’t work for me. Maybe there’s a special trick to it I’m missing. Or maybe I’m just not having enough patience:-)
Did you try using root powder?
I can’t remember. I remember trying a couple different ways. Someone gave me a couple white roses, and I so wanted to sprout them and grow them. I think I tried plain water, and another with aspirin, but I have some rooting powder so I may have used it. I’ve tried once since, and gave up on it.
This is a nice idea, but it’s more urban myth than anything else. Cut flowers have been subjected to all kinds of chemical preservatives, and a bouquet especially has been out of the ground (and out of water) for so long that it’s very unlikely any stems will root, even if using a commercial rooting hormone.
Another thing to think about — the kinds of hybrid roses that are grown for the cut flower trade make notoriously poor garden plants. The vigor has been bred out of them in favor of tight, high-centered buds that open slowly. This means they are exceptionally prone to fungus diseases and a multitude of pests. Hybrid roses, in most parts of the country, require such a heavy spraying regimen that they’ve lost favor with most gardeners, who opt instead for “antique” or “heirloom” varieties of roses.
A better idea would be to plant a rose bush well before your wedding and ask your florist if he or she would include a few cut flowers in your bouquet, provided your wedding is during spring/summer months when roses are blooming.
Another thought — roses in the cut flower trade are not grown on their roots. Rather, they are grafted onto a hardier root stock. This is another reason stem cuttings from a wedding bouquet will fail to root.