Getting October Moon To Put On Growth

9 years ago

I'm posting this on the Antique Roses forum, because I suspect at least part of the issue I'm asking for help with deals with the Tea Rose genes of October Moon. It is one quarter Tea through its parent Its Showtime.

I imported this rose 4 seasons ago from Oregon, it was a well grown one gallon pot rose. I planted it in a very large ceramic pot and it bloomed quite well in year one. I wintered it in my unheated garage in year one, and years since, and it came through the first winter in excellent shape. In its second summer the longest canes died back, the rose still had healthy foliage but only at the base. This year, season four, I pruned out the dead and declining canes. It is now just a small stump with leaves. I have been feeding it with fish fertilizer, bone meal and composted manure as a mulch. What is left is looking green and healthy, but now sign of new canes or basal breaks.

Most of my other roses, especially the ones wintered in the garage, are growing like weeds and some will bloom in two weeks or so. This is such a gorgeous rose and I really want to see it grow, but have no idea if I can save it. I have lost other tender roses with Tea and Bourbon breeding in the past the same way, long slow decline till they die. Anyone else grow this rose in a zone 4 or 5 climate. Any ideas on solutions from the Tea experts or people who grow this rose?

Got my fingers crossed and hope you guys and gals have some ideas.

Cheers, Rick

Here is a link that might be useful: October Moon @ HMFR

Featured Answer

stillanntn6b

8 years ago

Something I saw in my Tea roses this past winter might help (or maybe not).

Tea Roses that had done well in many years (like ten +) hated this past winter. They lost canes that I would have called winter hardened. Many of them look like.....four letter word.
Chinas came through winter better.

Now this past winter wasn't our coldest...not by a long shot. No temperatures below 5 F. BUT the difference was that cold winter began mid November, almost a month early. Then I was checking the teas in February and the still looked ok. But then the mid March deep freeze hit. And canes that looked good in February had blackened and died. That was a winter cold that lasted four months....which isn't the conditions to which my roses were accustomed.

Many are coming back from the roots, no right where the main plant was but a few inches off.....I expect that to be the site where the last living growth axil is on some of the roots.

I wouldn't have survived this four month outdoor adventure, either.

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Comments (7)

User
9 years ago
Rick,
Not sure what to suggest, but this rose needs heat to thrive. I've found it can sulk in my climate, even, with our consistent cool summer nights, so it only performs optimally for me when kept under plastic.
rideauroselad OkanaganBC6a
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks for the information Paul. Guess I'll just keep feeding it and perhaps a dose of Epsom salts. It is in a pot on a paved corner of my patio, so it does get heat in our short summer. The night temperatures often stay above 70 F with highs in the 80s or even 90s. It was 85 F today. So hopefully it will leap in its 4th summer.

Cheers, Rick
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AnneCecilia z5 MI
9 years ago
Never grown this rose, Rick, but reading about it on HMF, this statement jumped out at me:
"Resist the urge to prune this rose too heavily -- it doesn't like it!"
If you have to cut it back severely after winter does its worst, it is likely October Moon is resentful and sulking, as a Tea would be in that situation. You may need to find a way to overwinter it where it will be warmer and not lose any canes. I kept several potted teas under lights in my basement for a few winters. They did pretty well - until I got tired of the weekly showers they required to keep them healthy indoors and I let them go. OM may need the same sort of pampered set up.
rideauroselad OkanaganBC6a
Original Author
9 years ago
Hi Anne,

That is the strange part, The plant has wintered in my unheated cold room for 3 winters with no die back. Temperatures in the room only go to about 19 F even when it is much colder outside.

The canes that declined did so in the summer. Right now, my hope is that the plant was just growing root mass. All of the bands I have imported from the U.S. over the years since I moved to Ontario, seem to be slow to establish and grow, most taking three or more seasons to get going well. Quite a high percentage of imported bands don't survive at all. I do have others from the same importation that are still quite small, though none of the others have died back.

I have found consistently that most cuttings that I strike from my own mother plants usually establish and grow at least twice as fast as the imported bands. My own mother plants are largely sourced from Pickering nurseries which is only 3 hours away. My own "unsubstantiated theory" on this is that over time the northern sourced roses have somehow adapted to the colder climate and shorter growing season and have a slightly "hardier constitution". Though my theory is based only on anecdotal observations for the past twelve years, the observations are remarkably consistent.

R
AnneCecilia z5 MI
9 years ago
Well, I never thought about it like that, but I do know that in the African violet grower's world, many avid growers will buy a plant and then remove a few leaves to start baby plants from, discarding the original plant under the theory that a plant raised from the beginning in your own particular environment will do better than one raised elsewhere and having to adjust. All those people who grow to show know a thing or two about raising the best plants and so I have to believe there is some truth there somewhere - which is a long way of saying that you may not be off base at all, Rick.
That said, I still think there are some roses that do not like the winter dormancy forced on them. I know you have kept the rose from the worst of winter's cold, but it still may not be the conditions that the rose prefers. (is that 19 degrees C or F you're talking about as the coldest temp in your winter rose storage room?) Even if you were saying 19C, that is still months and months of cool growing weather. If this is a rose that loves/needs heat, it may be to much (or too little) for it. That the canes died off in summer doesn't mean that something wasn't going on at the end of winter that created that decline you saw later in the year. It would be interesting if you could start a new cutting from this rose and see if that does any better for you, but that doesn't help you get your present plant to put on growth, I know. Perhaps potted in black pot and enclosed or partially enclosed in some kind of "greenhouse" structure would get it heated up enough to shoot up and out.
Good luck and let us know what happens please!
rideauroselad OkanaganBC6a
Original Author
8 years ago
Just an update on this thread from last June; my October Moon stayed out on the patio through the remainder of the summer. It just languished there, but at least it didn't die. I brought the rose into the house over winter and put it in front of a large south facing bay window. It got no winter chill at all this year. Early in March, it began to put out a few new leaves. Right now, it has two new canes, about 18 inches long, though quite lax in growth. It is looking healthy, though not yet what I would call vigorous. It is my hope that it will now keep growing and putting on new growth. So it appears that it does like to be indoors as Paul suggested and doesn't need a dormant period as Anne opined. It is truly a lovely rose when it is happy.

Cheers, Rick