I’ve had great success taking cuttings here in Tucson in Nov/Dec/Jan and using the Burrito method of propagating them. I’ve only tried limited cuttings a few times at other times of the year and had no success with them. Do you find it matters when you take the cuttings?
Absolutely! In my previous conditions, if they were pushing growth at all, they failed. They HAD to be “dormant”, no new growth pushing and absolutely no foliage or blooms. And, they had to be held at the critical temperature range or they tried to grow or just sat there. So, yes, timing is a huge part of success.
Kim, your conditions are, or were, closest to mine so that confirms what I’ve seen. I wonder, though if in the dead summer (dormant roses pretty much) I could get some take. Sometimes I think roses, or plants in general, respond to bad conditions by easing propagation. Makes me a bit concerned that my plants put out so many hips this spring, lol. Even the ones that never set OP hips before. Do they know something we don’t?
I doubt mid summer cuttings would work, Judith, for two reasons. The cuttings appear to require sufficient stored nutrients to carry them through callusing and rooting, which I doubt summer wood would have. And, I don’t know about your conditions, but in Encino and here, finding somewhere to hold them for two weeks in the sixties was impossible.
Good points.
Are you discussing only hardwood cuttings in this thread?
Softwood cuttings can be taken midsummer after the new growth starts to harden slightly. But you have to tent them or mist them and I imagine the most effective technique would vary greatly by region.
I suggest layering any time (if a cane cannot reach the ground use Google to look up air-layering).
I don’t think you will do well with stressed dormant plants, but if your weather is still conducive to such after your first flush of blooms, I have had very good results with semi-ripe cuttings of stems below faded flowers. It seems to reason that these stems would have stores on hand for growing hips, and I believe I recall reading that the nutrient requirements are similar for fruits and roots.
In cooler climates where roses enter a winter dormancy, roses that have stored up for such and which are just dropping leaves are excellent choices, but for whatever reason, in my climate, I seem to have better results with semi-ripe, warm-weather cuttings.
(Oddly, rooting hormone seems to be detrimental to my success.)
Secrets of Plant Progagation by Lewis Hill is the bible on this subject. (I still believe in books.)
Well, seems like everyone has a different take. Gonna give it another try with easy to root cuttings. I’ll let you know how it goes. Philip, I never use rooting hormone - it’s has not seemed to help with my cuttings either (at least using the burrito method).
Henry, thanks for the air-layering idea. I’m just curious - it’s not essential that I get rootings now.
Just make sure they don’t dry out. I bury about 2/3 to 3/4 of stems into medium after stripping leaves from bottom 3/4+ of plant. Cut remaining leaves back by 2/3’s or more, and keep fairly shaded and relatively humid for a week. The cuttings may drop leaves in a week or so, but that’s okay since dihiscing is an active living process, and a normal reaction to stress. As long as stems remain plump and green, you are good. If leaves shrivel on the stems, stems start turning black, or shriveling; that’s a bad sign.
Bigger stems are actually harder to root this way as it takes longer for them to get feet enough to support the load… Anything from pencil lead thickness but not more than pencil thick has good potential with this technique, in my experience.
(I’m sure you know all that, so pardon my pedantry…)
Before grafting became choice propagation method, nurserymen used to grow summer cuttings among others. Rather hard ones.
I have never had much luck with the method of burying the stems in any medium, but using that method, at least in my yard/climate (dry and hot), the heavier, woody stems fair better than the thinner ones and in fact, I have some varieties that will ONLY root using woody stems in some type of soil. Perhaps because they don’t dry out so quickly. I don’t use hormones nor misters.
But using the burrito method, the thinner the stem, definitely the faster they root for me. About half the size of a pencil thickness seems to root fastest. So goes hybridizing! The more I learn, the more mystery there seems to be in this science. Not that many years ago, I recall it was generally accepted that triploids WERE sterile. 
Just for fun, I will try cuttings at different times of the year. We’ll see what happens.