Sometimes it is the really counterintuitive ideas in horticulture that ironically turn out to be the most effective. So about a decade ago, when the internet was suddenly flush with a curious new technique for using potatoes to propagate rose bushes, I was keen to test it out.
Here is the basic idea: instead of inserting the snipped ends of rose cuttings into bare soil as is standard practice, you poke them into whole, raw spuds, which are then buried in pots of compost. Supposedly, this gives home gardeners better results.
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Raking up millions of views, posts espousing this idea soon spawned all manner of variations, some involving a coating of honey, and a few devotees not burying their potato-rose union at all, just sitting it on a windowsill. There are even viral time-lapse videos purporting to show these roses miraculously blooming just weeks later. A decade on, and this interest has made it out of internet memes and into mainstream newspapers, today seemingly part of standard horticultural advice.
Now, it doesn鈥檛 help the potato-rose cause that most of the viral videos popularising the idea are poorly produced fakes, showing roses sprouting the roots of bean plants, or flowering at impossibly small sizes. But the weirdest thing about these memes is that they don鈥檛 even explain what the benefit of doing this is. Do more cuttings survive when using spuds? Do they root faster? Are they more resilient to drying out or to fungal infection? Maybe all four?
While I could find no published trials in academic literature, and no explanations of how this technique might be beneficial, after some digging, I did find one or two historical accounts of using potatoes to help prevent the sliced ends of cuttings from drying out when transported long distances. Indeed, some of the first Japanese flowering cherry trees to reach Britain in the early 20th century were as cuttings of dormant twigs in this way, on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
So I decided to run a small home trial. I planted three cuttings each of three common rose cultivars, both using the spud technique and the traditional method. I am afraid to say the results were boringly predictable. None of the spud-poked rose cuttings worked, drying up and turning brown within a week or so, while the traditional cuttings had a 100 per cent success rate. In fact, the only things I successfully grew by the potato method were the potatoes!
OK, this was admittedly a minuscule trial by academic standards, but the hallmark of good science is reproducibility. And today, if you try searching 鈥溾�� on X, guess what? You will be faced with posts from people all over the world showing pots of very healthy potato plants 鈥� but absolutely zero living rose bushes.
James Wong is a botanist and science writer, with a particular interest in food crops, conservation and the environment. Trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, he shares his tiny flat with more than 500 houseplants. You can follow him on and Instagram @botanygeek
For other projects visit newscientist.com/maker.
