Propagating roses from cuttings

Went to the in-laws for the weekend and my father-in-law was planning on cutting back his roses the following weekend, so I decided it was a perfect time to take some cuttings to root at home.  I went to Michael's and bought 4 packs of floral water tube picks (4 per pack, $1.49 ea.) to transport the cuttings home.  I took 2 cuttings each from 8 different roses; hybrid teas in pink (2 different roses), scarlet, medium red, white and candy striped, and floribundas in yellow and red.  I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have pictures of any of the parent plants.

To the left is a photo of two of the floral water tube picks with cuttings inserted through the cap and water sealed in the tube.  Each tube was marked with a permanent marker noting the bloom color unless the varietal name was known (7 out of 8 were unknown).




Once I got home, I prepared a potting mix of equal parts potting soil and vermiculite and filled 8 3" plastic pots with the mixture.  I removed the first paired cuttings from the tubes and using an Exacto knife, made a new base cut at a 45 degree angle leaving about 6"-8" of stem.  Next I held the knife at about a 5 degree angle and removed 1/2" of the bark above the top of the base cut, as shown in the next photo.

The cut end was dipped in a bottle of rooting hormone, the excess was shaken off, then it was pushed into one of the prepared pots.

 A "greenhouse" was made for each pot using a gallon plastic freezer bag with the zipper cut off and a bamboo skewer for a support pole.  The plastic bag was placed over the skewer and secured at the bottom with a rubber band.

The potted cuttings were placed on a plastic tray so they can be watered without having to remove the "greenhouses" and in 6-8 weeks I'll know if they successfully rooted or not.