Rooting Roses

I have been successful rooting roses from bouquets in the past, but for some reason, I never thought of doing this with the $2 roses I bought until a couple of days ago. The roses themselves were past their prime, so I'm not sure if they will successfully root or not. I really have nothing to lose except for some soil, a little rooting hormone and time.

I took the roses and cut off the bottoms of the stem at an angle just under a leaf bud. I made sure to remove the woody part and am using only the younger green part of the stem. The next step is to remove the flower down to a leaf bud and then to trim from 1/3 to 1/2 of the leaves that are left off.

Dip the bottom in root hormone then put this stem in potting soil. There are two ways to do that - first is to put just a small amount of soil in the bottom, put the stem in and fill in around it or you can put the soil in first, poke a hole with a chopstick or dowel and put the stem in being careful not to brush the hormone off when inserting the stem. Some people say not to use soil, but instead use soaked perlite, then fill the container with water. Others say to just use water to root the plant in. I didn't have perlite on hand, so I opted the soil method.

Since roots aren't happy in light, I covered my container (the one from my amaryllis purchase after Christmas) at soil level with brown paper to keep the light out. I then inserted the whole container in a 1-1/2 gallon Ziploc bag, misted it some and then zipped it half way closed to allow for humidity retention but also allow for air circulation. I put them in the brightest window in the house and they will need to be kept warm - the way roses like it. In 6-8 weeks we will see if the roses survived and any sent out roots. I'm not sure how this is going to work with spent roses. I did crowd all 12 branches in the container, as I'm not expecting them all to live. Some say only expect half to root, and since my roses were spent, I'll be happy with just getting one! Keeping my fingers crossed.

Frugal Valentine's

Every year since the time we met, my husband gives me a single rose for both Valentine's Day and on our anniversary. He has been creative with giving the roses - especially on our anniversary. Not all of them were alive or single long stem roses. In the past, I've received a necklace, pin, water globe containing a real rose, a Capodimonte rose, a rose plant, etc. Usually though, Valentine's Day brings a single long stemmed rose. This year, he gave me a chocolate one!

Valentine's gifts have always been so expensive, and when we were first married, hubby used to feel badly about not being able to afford a nice gift. I soon talked him out of seeing things that way by showing him just how wonderful it could be the day after. Everything is marked down at least 50% and really, what's one day? We started hitting the sales the day after and even stocked up on our chocolate for a few months. So many times you can find other things - not just the overpriced boxed hearts, but things like Hershey Kisses, Snickers, Reese's, etc. as well as baking items and even apparel. I've come home with some really nice sleep pants and t-shirts at a huge savings - just because they had hearts on them or were marketed for Valentine's Day!

This year, I got to the store later than I wanted to, but still found a few good deals. I picked up 7 bags of Hershey Kisses at $1.44 each, 1 bag of Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate strawberry filled squares and a couple of Brookside Dark Chocolate Pomegranate and Brookside Dark Chocolate Acai each at $1.50.  All roses - actually all cut flowers were marked down and I ended up bringing home a dozed peach colored roses for $2. They look gorgeous displayed in the glass holder that my after Christmas purchase of the 98 cent Amaryllis was housed in.

Remember, being frugal does not mean you have to give up the finer things in life - it just means you know when to purchase them.