Happy Holidays!

Josh

Jackie

Leaving little roses in bands has always felt "chancy" to me. Not enough soil in there, you know? And though others do so, we have never had good luck putting little band plants directly into the ground. (Of course, we don't have a manicured garden.)

Also, I want to see how they do, here, before I give them precious space in the ground.

So, they stay in 1-G, until we see roots at the bottom holes in the pots. And THEN we plant.

Jeri

When bands arrive I immediately pot up to 1 gallons in basic potting soil. After about a month and they've shown some growth I start with a liquid fertilizer at half strength once a week. ("weakly, weekly")

The 1 gallon pots live on my kitchen porch at first where they get nice morning sun but protection from afternoon sun and strong storms. Once they start showing roots at the bottom when I gently pull them out of their pots to check, I pot up to 3 gallon. They graduate off the porch on to the walkway which is even a bit more sun and I can water them with a hose instead of a can! I hold off "weakly weekly" for a month or so.

I also disbud, although I'll let a bloom or two go every once in a while as long as everything else looks vigorous and it's not a rose that is known to bloom at the expense of growth. Throughout the spring and early summer I go over each band leaf by leaf and pick off rose slugs. At the worst of it I'll do this daily, but I can still get quite a bit of damage. The rose slugs seem to slow down about the time they get potted up to 3 gallons, but I still have to be pretty diligent in checking each plant for them every couple days.

I refuse to over-winter any in pots so I try to maximize time in the pots with time in the ground before the weather turns. This year I got them all in the ground in late September/early October and they had a good month almost two before it got really cold.

They go into beds and not single holes. I prep the beds at least a couple months in advance with copious amounts of horse manure/compost. A couple weeks ago right before our first extended cold snap (over night temps in the 20s for several nights) the beds all got 2" layer of compost plus 2" of pine bark fine mulch on top of that. I am done with them until Spring when I'll see how well it all worked out.

I propagate a few roses every year including older Austin varieties. I also buy bands, generally of rarer varieties I cannot buy grafted.

As an example of what I said about varietal differences above; cuttings from the variety St. Cecilia root extremely easily and own root plants will grow, build stature and bloom almost as quickly as will grafted plants. The rose Cressida on the other hand will root easily, but it can take four or more years for an own root plant to grow to a useable garden size in my climate. The same is true of the Tea Noisette Gloire de Dijon which is a grandparent of Cressida it generally grows much more quickly and performs better grafted. As a final example, the rose The Squire is extremely difficult to root and even once rooted, often dies before putting on enough growth to suceed.

I do agree with the advice given above, I plant bands in gallon pots in good soil. I have also found that it often helps to dig the pots into the soil which will help keep the roots cooler in hot weather. You also have to be careful about exposure of new bands to direct sun. If the young plants have been grown in a greenhouse the leaves will burn if they are exposed to intense sun too quickly. I give bands lots of water, but no fertilizer until the plant is well established and has a good root system. Fertilizing can burn tender new roots in bands that are not yet well started. Once the plant is growing well, I fertilize with a good fish based fertilizer in the spring and then again once or twice during the growing season. When the young plants begin to put out strong new canes, it is time to plant them in the garden. This can take two years to five or six years or more, depending on how well the variety grows on its own roots.

My two bits worth in answer to your question.

Cheers, Rick

Ingrid

Again, keep in mind the time of year and my area -- lots of overcast days, lots of rain, and relatively cool temperatures are what we get in April and May. We still sometimes get nighttime frosts until the beginning of May. By the time the hot weather started creeping in in June, the bands had already been getting used to being in the sun, effectively the same as putting them in bright shade and gradually moving them to full-sun over a period of a few weeks. This was a learning experience for me, and I realized that the few bands which came in June had a tougher time with the same treatment. Looking back, I should have started them in bright shade for a couple weeks before putting them with the others.

The bands naturally fell into three groups. The first group took off like gangbusters, and I stopped disbudding because they seemed vigorous enough on their own without it. The second group put out moderate levels of growth, but were on the small side when they came, so I disbudded somewhat -- when I'd see flowers forming, I'd snip off all but one. As blooming cycles kept coming, I'd keep snipping off all but one bud. The third group was tiny when they came, and grew very slowly. These I completely disbudded, allowing only that first flower to confirm I got the right rose. Gradually, some roses moved from group 3 into group 2, and from group 2 into group 1.

I've read lots of accounts of those who don't give fertilizer to bands until they start pushing growth. I understand that approach with respect to water-soluble synthetics (which can burn), but the organics I used need to break down first before they are available to the roots. And with the potting mix being 2/3 peat moss and hardwood mulch, excess nitrogen would get sponged up early on, to be released even more slowly to the roots later. And I'm sure that all the rain we got here was a big factor. When it came time to start planting the roses in July, I saw lots of white roots throughout the potting mix -- it was all held together in a nice ball. I just thought it'd be hard for the rose to be pushing growth first without nutrients in the soil to build it.

I had a few losses: 1) 'Barcelona' (sold as 'Francis Dubreuil' from Heirloom Roses) was really tiny when it came, got denuded by a squirrel, and slowly faded away; 2) ditto with 'Crimson Glory' from Vintage; 3) 'Indigo' looked like it was two rooted cuttings in one band, and I tried prying them apart -- but then I heard a snap. I popped it into its container, snipped off all but three or four leaflets, and crossed my fingers. But I must have inflicted fatal damage, because it shriveled and died in a few days. PortlandMysteryRose happily traded some suckers of hers and that's how I have this rose now; 4) 'Ducher' was one of the bands which came in June, and came already sprayed with fungicide. I think that was its undoing in full-sun, and it never refoliated; 5) ditto with 'Buff Beauty'; and 6) 'Annie Laurie McDowell' was very tiny when it came, and it seemed to be pushing top growth that was unable to be supported by root growth. I tried putting it in bright shade, same thing. I put it back in the sun, no improvement. I finally sent it to you (Josh) hoping that if it had a longer growing season it would recover, but I guess it was just not rooted enough when it arrived.

So I had six losses -- but 70-something thrived with this treatment. What of this would I recommend for you to try? Perhaps just the potting mix. Considering it gets much hotter by you, I wouldn't attempt putting bands out in full sun right away. Do you get a lot of Spring rain? Will the bands have a month or two of growing before dealing with 85F and higher daytime temps?

One final major consideration is the rose itself -- some are simply more vigorous than others. I noticed that a few HTs I got have been among the least vigorous -- some were more impressive than others ('Mirandy', 'Lagerfeld', 'Night' and 'Oklahoma' grew very well, while 'Nigrette', 'Chateau de Clos Vougeot' and, surprisingly, 'Heirloom' were just creeping along). Climbers happily put forth nice amounts of growth. Once-blooming OGRs naturally had no further bloom cycles to slow down growth, and so they just kept getting bigger and bigger.

In a similar thread linked below, I mentioned three threads I started, showing pics of many of my roses which came as bands this year. Overall, I'm happy with how what I did worked for where I am, though as I already mentioned, I know now not to go full-sun right away for any band coming after the end of May for my area. Whenever I get any more bands, I'll repeat what worked for me -- get them delivered as early in the season as possible for my area, pot them up with the same mix and procedure, and put them out in full-sun during the overcast and rainy days of our Spring.

:-)

~Christopher

That's one thing I am having a hard time deciding...when do I plant them? Since we are having a mild winter I may be cavalier and plant them soon since we don't get a good frost until February. After that the weather clears up and the growing season begins.

Ultimately I really have very few roses in my possession that will be planted here. My dad told me recently that he didn't want anymore roses in the front bed so I will have to choose carefully what I plant here. The others will be going out to the cemetery. The ones that are staying at my house can grow in pots a little longer than the cemetery roses.

Josh

If you would list some varieties, I believe your fellow Rose Forum"ites" could give you more definitive information, that could be very helpful to you.

Your Texas growing conditions should be very conducive to putting on size very quickly as compared to how much longer it takes where I garden, here in Western Pennsylvania. After all, are not many field grown roses on the commercial market nationwide grown in Texas? So, this is a plus for you from the get go. As long as good management of the bands is employed: a good sunny spot, good soil, ample watering, fertilizing, weed, disease, and insect control, etc., you should have very positive results.

The old saying about band size own root roses is: "The first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap."

My experience with bands is that they are the best choice for the money, as well as other criteria. My mentor in horticulture emphasized that when a choice is available as to size (age), of any plant material, be they trees, shrubs, vines, etc., always choose the smallest (youngest), stock.

He emphasized that comparing the growth over time of a small, younger specimen over a larger, older specimen, the smaller one will surpass the larger one. There is less transplant shock with smaller stock. Their vigor is greater, and the adaption to the new environment is less stressful to them compared to larger stock.

Bands do need a little more babying, but in the long run they are the best way to go with roses.

If you would list some varieties, I believe your fellow Rose Forum"ites" could give you more definitive information, that could be very helpful to you.

Your Texas growing conditions should be very conducive to putting on size very quickly as compared to how much longer it takes where I garden, here in Western Pennsylvania. After all, are not many field grown roses on the commercial market nationwide grown in Texas? So, this is a plus for you from the get go. As long as good management of the bands is employed: a good sunny spot, good soil, ample watering, fertilizing, weed, disease, and insect control, etc., you should have very positive results.

The old saying about band size own root roses is: "The first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap."

My experience with bands is that they are the best choice for the money, as well as other criteria. My mentor in horticulture emphasized that when a choice is available as to size (age), of any plant material, be they trees, shrubs, vines, etc., always choose the smallest (youngest), stock.

He emphasized that comparing the growth over time of a small, younger specimen over a larger, older specimen, the smaller one will surpass the larger one. There is less transplant shock with smaller stock. Their vigor is greater, and the adaption to the new environment is less stressful to them compared to larger stock.

Bands do need a little more babying, but in the long run they are the best way to go with roses.

I am in zone 9A, and we hit 28 for the lows yesterday, our first frost, so I am done planting anything but bare root roses until it begins to warm a bit, usually in mid- February.

Lynn