21,402 Garden Web Discussions | Roses


I have always envied central Californians their proximity to Reagans and their convenience at shopping a middle man who has brought together a huge collection of interesting roses.
If we lose them, it will hurt the producers who have had a known number of sales. That's bad. Yes, I can still go to the original producers, but I want the producers to have as healthy a business as possible.
Without knowing what percentage of their business is walk in vs. mail and ship bare roots, it's impossible to guess where they might go. There are parts of the country where land prices aren't as dear; but how many such places have so many rose fanatics ready to buy roses?
No easy answers.


Yes, that is Brother Cadfael. As you grow in experience growing roses, you will see that depending on the age of the bush, the weather, the soil, water, food, etc., they can and will surprise you. The older the rose (that is, the type of rose, not the specific bush) the more variable they can be, in my experience.
I have old tea roses which can vary in color, size of bloom, shape of bloom (!), etc., all depending on the season & weather. I love that they do that. Here is a picture of my rose which varies the most in color - it is the old tea rose 'Anna Olivier'. Normally its blooms are buff with a sort of brick color splotch on the reverse of the petals, but as you can see from this picture, the blooms can also be pale yellow or pale pink. The buds are normally a pale pink, but the ones in this picture are much darker.
If you look at any rose on HMF which has lots of pictures, you will usually see this sort of variability, even in some modern roses. Since the Austin roses were bred with some old types originally, perhaps it is not surprising to see some variability.
Jackie



Do remember that this is not a public forum--GW can set whatever parameters it wishes because it "owns" it.
Over the years, they have tended to discourage conversations that include the topic of banned posters.
On the other hand, I was a bit surprised to see a "gossipy" thread on this forum. Those usually do appear over on the Conversation side.
Not that I personally care much, one way or another, however.
Kate
This post was edited by dublinbay on Fri, Jun 27, 14 at 11:11

I wonder if the ban on a certain California grower still exists? Long after 'Spike' sold GW (Spike loathed that grower because Spike thought that the grower was trying to publicize his selling roses in his signature line, which he was), any mention of that grower still set off bells and whistles and got zapped, fast.


No surprise to me. It has been in NJ (and PA) for a very long time. Ann and Larry Peck came to visit one of our district conventions years ago, and Ann gave a wonderful talk. One of our younger district members helped with some research, but still nothing new to "crack the case".






Sara-Ann, I work back in the mail room. We print 9 papers for different towns here in N.E. GA. I only work Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 1/2 day. Some weeks can really get crazy. My home rose garden is my relaxation. Taking care of the garden at the office is simple.

Ken - Your situation is quite different than mine. We are one of the newspapers that have our paper printed elsewhere, pretty common for the smaller ones. I can definitely understand how your rose garden is your relaxation. Even with where I work being a small weekly, back in the old days it could get hectic. Modern technology has changed that by speeding up the process.

Vinegar is a herbicide! Oil and soap can burn foliage in hot weather. Please do not use these jackleg kitchen-pantry mixtures that you might see on the internet. In the eastern US, powdery mildew is usually not a severe problem and is easily controlled.
Probably your plants will recover just fine if you are patient and do not "help" them too much. Just water thoroughly every 4-7 days depending on the weather and when the soil surface is dry-ish. Put down a 2" layer of mulch.Don't fertilize until they are growing out happily, and then use less than the label recommends. Best wishes, and come back for advice any time.

If they have no leaves and it is hot, it would help to give them some shade for the heat of the day, not super pretty but a plastic chair over the plant is an easy way.
There are some home mixes that are probably fine on your roses, but if you find one you want to try, ask here first. Usually some one has already tired it and either knows it works or it doesn't. There are a lot of "organic" mixes posted out there but people often leave out big details on usage and side effects on different plants and how they effect the long term overall health of your garden.
Seems like many of the rose issues we have on my coast could be helped with a spray of water no need for other additives :)



I know this thread is ages old, but I really need to correct some of the misinformation in here about the EZ-FLO.
The dilution theory is correct when you forget that the EZ-FLO is designed to have MORE fertilizer in the tank that can be held in suspension in the water.
Normally only a small amount of fertilizer will fully dissolve in water. As an example, potassium nitrate will normally only allow around 5lbs of fertilizer to dissolve in water before no more will dissolve. Any additional fertilizer will remain un-dissolved. As fertilizer solution is drawn out of the tank and new water enters the fertilizer will continue to dissolve up to the maximum capacity that can be suspended in water. Mixing with water is then done by adjusting the speed selector in the cap of the EZ-FLO system.
Dilution does not occur until all available fertilizer has been dissolved in water. Even then fertilizer tends to be heavier than water and will gradually sink to the bottom of the tank. This is why the water supply and fertilizer tubes are at the bottom of the tank.
The actual dilution of solution does not occur very much until the end of the tank. Most people are not used to dumping large amounts of fertilizer in a small tank. I feed around 1/2 acre of squash, pumpkins, watermelon and muskmelon using the 3 gallon version. I routinely dump 25lbs of 10-0-10 Calcium Nitrate and 10-15lbs of 13.75-0-45 Potassium Nitrate in the injector depending on the stage of growth.
This is pushed out thru around 2400ft of drip tube that is placed subsurface next to the plants in the rows. I have had fantastic results and I routinely use 2/3 less fertilizer than if I had conventionally incorporated and side dressed. Cost is only marginally lower due to the need to buy greenhouse grade water soluble fertilizer. Champion and Peters are two good brands. Check your local hort supply store. 50lbs of Potassium Nitrate can most likely be had for $17-$20. Peters 20-20-20 all purpose in 25lb bags can usually be had for around $30. Compare that to 5lbs of MG at the local big box for $10.
This year was the wettest year in my neck of Wisconsin for over 10 years. Most of the corn looks very sick due to nitrogen leaching past the roots. My melons however did very well. Since only small amounts of Nitrogen were leeched during any one particular rain I avoided ground water contamination AND I was able to keep supplying my veggies with nutrients very close to the rates they needed for optimum production.
I know of no other cheap system that works as well as the EZ-FLO for the price. Set on the fast selection my fertilizer tank is empty after around 6.5 days or around 12,000 gallons of water. I use a bypass with a valve so I can control how much concentrate goes out. This is an optional purchase which was a must for me.
I would love to use organics but the cost makes no sense. Even the liquid fishy crap would require typically 5 times the amount of material as the chemical stuff. If the cost was only marginally more then I would use it. Organic veggies without having 400 head of cattle just is not commercially viable for the smaller grower. Maybe someday.
i recently purchased the ez flo 3/4 gallon, and intend to use it on a drip line for 1 line of trees/shrubs.There are approximately 20 trees.The line goes on via a timer for 1hour each night.Ive got the drips set between 5 and 10 gallons per tree for the hour.I have miracle gro water soluble fertilizer….My question is, how much should i put in the ez flo container?