my dog peed on ly roses and they died.

I use a sprinkler. I don't care if the leaves get wet! As a
matter of fact, sometimes I rinse them off every day. I had
to do that when spider mites were threatening to take over
the garden. I had less blackspot than usual too. I don't have
a huge garden though, otherwise maybe it would not be very
efficient.
Alida

I have a 6 foot high oscillating sprinkler that can do huge areas at once. As Alida said, I don't care about the leaves getting wet, and actually prefer it since it tends to eliminate any spider mites. My gardens are far too spread out for drip irrigation, and this works fine. I even fertilize this way quite often.

I use a sprinkler and water early in the morning, and try, once a week, to give the roses a deeper watering by hand/hose. I might consider soaker hose or irrigation if I could figure how to install/regulate them, but I don't know how and don't feel like taking the time to find out and fiddle around trying to get the just right and moving them again when I dig up stuff and move it somewhere else, etc. I'm sure there are many posters who will praise soakers/drip/etc., and they are probably right, but I'm just not interested in changing my ways--sign of getting old, I guess. LOL

Kate

most of the time Mother Nature handles the job for me...

I also use a sprinkler, but early in the morning. Although here in S.E. Louisiana mother nature has been doing a wonderful job on a daily basis.

We almost missed summer here in DFW, we had constant rain in the last few weeks. But now that it's back... lol

Our sprinklers are on once a week, that's because I don't want to water the lawn more than that. Every two days or so, I water the beds/potted plants using the hose. So far, everybody is happy with this arrangement.

I only keep 50-odd roses, and I can hand-water in 15-20 pleasant minutes. To hand-water efficently:

-Dike the plants in spring unless you have level ground with rapid infiltration.
-Use a large bubbler head that doesn't reduce flow. This prevents erosion and accidental splashes (if watering in the evening).
-Get a little timer to wear around your neck, so you don't have to count seconds.
-Measure the time to fill a 2-gallon can.
-Drop the bubbler in the dike and deadhead or inspect until the timer goes off.
-Try applying 2 gallons every 5 days in 70s weather, twice a week in 80s, three times a week in mid-90s. If you have deep, medium to heavy soil, or organic soil, you could water 4 gallons at a time at wider intervals. The amount needed could be less in half shade, more with tree roots or inland-western climate.
-With large plants and light soil, use a large, soft spray head to cover the whole rooting area at about 2 gallons per square yard every 2-4 days.

I use a home-made irrigation system in both my pot ghetto at home and in our Memorial Garden of 45 roses downtown. At home, I have a 1/2" PVC line running into the middle of the pot ghetto, with a 90 degree ell and five foot riser straight up. Atop that I have a 360 degree Rainbird shrub head. My piping is attached to the spigot via hose connections and runs through a battery operated electronic timer set to come on for 30 minutes every other day. Works great and there is no hassle for me. I know many rosarians say getting the foliage wet is a "No-No," but when it rains, God does not discriminate. Down town, I have run two 1/2" PVC feeder lines from the spigot to headers on either end of the bed, and run 1/2" PVC lines down the rows to the half-way point. Along those lines, I have put in T's, short risers and Rainbird bubblers. The system runs for 2 to 21/2 hours twice a week in the hot weather, or until the water runs into the gutter, whichever comes first. The downtown garden soil is covered with nursery cloth and pine straw mulch. The roses I look after are doing extremely well. I have found that in our hot climate here in southeast GA (106 degrees yesterday), drip irrigation does not provide nearly enough water to keep the roses happy. You just have to deliver more then drip provides if you want the roses to remain happy. I also find homemade to be better then purchased, because with a little enginuity, and materials you can get exactly what you want inexpensively.

In general, I simply water with a hose by hand in the wet seasons, and with a sprinkler, in the dry seasons. If I had groupings of exclusively potted roses, I would desire to invest in a drip system.

In the past I only planted BS and disease resistant rose cultivars. But, on one of the webs sites, a friend pulled up her favorite, landscaper's suggested bed for clay soil.

We set out to find the tree, shrubs, and plants needed in the design, but one end of the bed's design calls for 3 F.J. Gootendorst rugosas. Our local nursery did not have the F.J. cultivar, But they did have the F.J. branch sport, a Gootendorst 'Pink' rugosa. My friend liked the shade of pink that the branch sport's blooms had, so she purchased three for her new bed and one for me.

I offered to care for all of them in pots until she kills the bermuda grass, and gets the soil prepared in her bed before we plant them this coming fall.

Well, I stuck the rugosas on the east side of my house, and since then, they have displayed with horrible, mutiple problems. BS, rust, spidermites, and some kind of dark gray powdery looking mildew. Even at the nursery they had were showing some infestations, but that did not cause me to take notice, because it seemed reasonable to think that with all the spring rains we had this year, most roses are expected to have some problems. Little did I know, though, just how suseptable these Gootendorst Rugosas are!

What a pain. The bad thing is that I blindly accepted the professionally offered landscape bed plan, and let my friend talk me into ordering two more of the Gootendorst Pink roses for planting in front of some of my almost door shaped and sized windows.

Bad, bad, bad! These Gootendorst 'Pink' Rugosa that I am caring for have been a nearly constant concern, as almost daily I have to pick off the sick leaves, and treat all these potted roses for multiple infestations. The only good thing I can say about them is the fact they seem tough enough to survive even after they loose so many of their leaves. This particular rose cultivar also looks very nice when pruned into a leggy form.

In the past, I only purchased rose cultivars that I researched first and found out that they were at least resistant to such diseases.

Anyway, I will only sprinkle water these potted roses in the morning, or otherwise set the hand held hose head to spray in a manner where I can water the soil in their pots without splashing any of the water on the branches or leaves.

If I want to keep watering with a hose, these Gootendorst rugosas will have to go.

Even though they are surviving after I soaked their roots with Bayer Advanced for roses systemic treatment, I still have to keep picking off infested leaves. but they almost do not seem worthy of all the work I have been doing for them, since they seem to have quit blooming. like I mentioned above, it sure is a good thing that their leggy form appeals to me.

If I could figure out how to do drip irrigation, I would consider it. We went out of town recently and I couldn't really ask our petsitter to water all over the place.

I used to water by hand which took forever. A few weeks ago I bought a drip irrigation kit from Dripworks. It is great. You should buy it and try it redsox. It's very easy to set up and you can add on easily too. Once I saw how nice it was I hooked up every plant in my backyard and I think I might do the front yard next year. I used to be able to rely on Mother Nature to do the watering for me but she took an extended vacation this summer and has only recently decided to come back.

I actually carry around gallon jugs. Of course, when I first started out a few months back, I only had 6 things total to water: 2 roses, some newly transplanted monkey grass, baby hostas, and 2 clematis. I watered everything daily, early in the morning, and to be honest I'm surprised I didn't drown most of the plants. 1 gallon for each plant, each day!

I still use the gallon jugs, but only every few days now. Still early in the morning, and I've still only got a small number of things to water. About 10. It takes me 5 trips, but I don't mind. I figure it gets me some much needed exercise. Plus I enjoy going around and checking on all my little 'babies'.

Only thing is, if I don't get out there first thing in the morning, before it gets too hot, they just have to wait until the next day. I'm pregnant with our second son and ready to pop just any day. This heat and humidity just about kills me!

athenainwi, I wanted to ask you more about the dripworks system, if you wouldn't mind e-mailing me.

redsnowflake, good luck with the baby! Every summer I was ever pregnant was like this one: hot as sin.

Redsox,
The drip system is really easy once you sit down and look at it. I can understand the confusion, though, because for a few months I refused to even touch it and tried to make the husband do it but after it really got hot and he hadn't finished it yet I dug in and learned.
Now that I know how to do it I was able to do the whole drip system for my new rose garden with around 80 roses and shrubs and it only took 1/2 a day. Once it's done, then you just turn it on for a couple of hours a couple of times a week and that's it. I don't understand why everybody doesn't have them, except maybe not everybody lives in an area like I do where it gets 100 and doesn't rain for a while. It's way easier than moving a sprinkler. And it's way way easier than dragging a water hose. I've got enough pots to where I have to water by hose for 30 minutes or more a day, I can't imagine watering the rest of the plants by hand.
I am trying to find an email I sent to someone about which brands work the best. If I find it then I'll email you, otherwise you can email me. There are definately some brands which should be avoided.
Carrie

Redsox, I sent an email to you. If you don't get it, let me know at goddessathena42 at yahoo dot com. (email is spelled out so spammers don't get it) I really love it and I certainly don't mind talking about it.

I water my 400 roses with overhead sprinklers and I'm not hiding my head in shame. My system starts at 4:00 A.M. and waters each of 7 zones for one hour every day unless it rains. I have yet to spray any fungicides this year and, except for the few blackspot prone bushes, my foilage looks good.
If done at the right time of the day, overhead watering is beneficial. It keeps the blackspot spores washed off the leaves.
Not so with a superficial hand sprinkling done late in the day. This can cause the bushes to stay wet all night leading to severe blackspot.

cweathersby,
I can tell you why I don't, and that is because I'd never be able to get the system everywhere my roses are. It is much easier to use my oscillating 6 foot tripod sprinkler on a timer, and move it to other gardens on its day. My system does not start as early as Karl's, but otherwise we are doing the same thing, and no spider mites.

mgleason

I hope you had your timer off for the last few days.
That is if you had the rain I've had. Seven miles
south of you. And thanks Karl. I always thought
I should water at night. I will have to change my
thinking on that. I dont have a problem with SM, PM,
Aphids, and, thank God, no JB,s but BS is another
thing altogether.

John

I have soaker hoses in all the permanent beds but I water my 100+ pots by hand and yes I get the leaves wet. When it's 90 out it feels good to me to get wet. Why wouldn't it feel good to the roses too?

redsox - thank you. To be honest, because of the time of the year and knowing how the weather is here, I expected to be miserable. But fortunately I've had a pretty good pregnancy. I just hope the next few months are as good to me as the last few have been.

I am too busy to water consistently. There are city by-laws that restrict sprinkling to two days in a week. So, my permanently installed soaker hoses for the garden beds, and the drip irrigation for my containers are indispensable. (The city encourages wise watering, and allows drip irrigation and soaker hoses.) They are controlled by automatic timers - a boon for extended vacation away from home.

I have not touched my sprinkler at all this year. In fact, I have decided to let the lawn dry out instead of wasting water on it.

Like michaelg I set the hose down on bubbler at the base of each plant and let it run for a while. His 2-gallon time sounds good, I assumed the roses needed more and sometimes have left the hose for 10 min. at each rose. Good thing I have good drainage. The trick is moving the hose all throughout the garden w/o running over plants.

I have a soaker hose kit, enough to cover most of the rose garden, but it sits in the shed until that one day I have time to set it up.

In this sweltering heat and hot sun, the drip irrigation and soaker hose save my life, water, and a lot of time if I were to hand water or use the sprinkler. Every summer, I feel glad I installed it.

I bought a cheap system from qvc that comes with 3 sprinkler heads and 3-6 ft connecting hoses (I got 2 sets). The heads can be adjusted to spray several different ways and the one I use kind of adjusts the waterflow downwards. So far it has worked well and my roses seem happy. And I'm happy that, except for pots, all I have to do to water is turn it on at the faucet right by the back door!

I used to use soaker hoses. I had an extensive & intricate network of them running through the garden areas. I wasn't happy with the results and it was difficult for me to get the right amount of water on all the plants.

I eventually pulled most of them up and went back to the overhead sprinkler. I find it much more simple and effective, since I don't have a lot of gardening time. I don't baby my roses at all, and I don't care if their leaves or blooms get wet. I also don't expect them to look perfect all the time. I treat them just like I treat the other plants. Some of them have reacted negatively to this treatment, such as Clotilde Soupert, Rise-N-Shine, Paul Neyron, and those will never be my favorite roses ... but the rest have thrived including some pleasant surprises like Souvenir de la Malmaison.

Randy

Randy, my Rise n' Shine gets the same treatment as yours, but mine seems to thrive, in fact, I can't keep up with it. Where did you get yours? I had mine planted in front of my house which is facing north.

Hand watering. Hold hose in Ikea watering can. Pour when full. Never removing hose. 40 or so plants. Good exercise.