Question
My question is can you get seeds from a cut rose? I love roses but they are sometimes a little expensive. I also hear that roots grow from the leaves from roses! Is this true or false?

Answer
Roses from a Florist, or in the garden, are cut while still in bloom -- before the Rose has produced seeds.

Your question is whether you can get seeds from a flower that is spent, if I understand you correctly.

You see an utterly beautiful Rose, and you want to grow it.  Or there is a Rose that looks exquisite that someone has cut from their own bush, and you would like to try your hand at cultivating one of your own.

Nope.  Can't be done.

Those cut Roses don't make seeds.  They don't have what it takes -- enormous quantities of carbohydrates and sugars and energy from Photosynthesis -- to make seeds.  Pity.  It would be so much easier to do.  Simply from an identification standpoint.  Many people just love a stem of Roses -- my last breathtaking moment was a bouquet of brown miniatures purchased on the street in striking shades of cream, tan and chocolate.  To my disappointment, only one is available in the U.S., the others are Australian and New Zealand hybrids grown there and not yet imported here as plants.

Good idea, though.  On paper.  Nice try.

As for Rose bushes being expensive, have you shopped at Home Depot or Lowes lately?  They sell bushes out of patent (patent protection is what drives up the price of these Roses, produced by licensees, who pay for the right to grow and sell them, for as long as the patent is valid) for as little as $9.99.  Or less.

You can stem-root Roses with a technique called layering.  Slice the stem with a razor blade and add rooting hormone, wedge the slice open and surround with peat moss or sphagnum, moisten, wrap in plastic and wait for a few months.  Roots will eventually emerge and you'll have yourself a whole new Rosebush.

Parts of the stem taken from the tip of a branch can be grown as cuttings.  You slice above a node a piece about 3-4 inches long and dip in rooting hormone powder, then lie tilted (to ease water uptake) in sphagnum, peatmoss, vermiculite or sand and keep moist.  Wait for roots and plant.

Very hard to do.  Tricky.  Lots of luck involved.  I do not have the patience, my life is too short and I have to see flowers sooner than it will take these virtually free Roses to bloom.

But maybe you have more patience than I do.  Still, for less than the cost of a month of Netflix or Netzero, I have to get the rooted version.

If you can get someone to let a Rose go to seed -- something that is actually good to do at the end of the summer, as it helps trigger dormancy -- cut the spent Rose 'hips' (red or pink, hard, round former blooms) off before they wrinkle and shrivel.  Plant the whole hip in a pot in peatmoss or humus and dampen and place the planted Rosehip outside for the winter.  It should be allowed to freeze.  In late April/early May, remove the seeds and place in water.  If a seed floats, it is not fertile and won't grow -- discard all floating seeds and save the sinking seeds at the bottom of the glass.  You can plant these outside in your garden or in pots and water as needed, in rich soil and bright, full sun.  Fertilize when seedlings sprout a second set of leaves.  Remember, these are not CLONES of the Rose you got them from.  The genetic variations on the offspring will be completely different.

And this exercise, Rosalia my friend, is guaranteed to work.

Thanks for writing.  Let me know if you need clarification.