22,795 Garden Web Discussions | Roses
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Leah I normally prune my Julia Childs right down to about two feet. Around August I start doing some severe deadheading instead of all over pruning. As flowers die instead of a normal short deadheading I take that particular cane down. i'm guessing no more than a foot. On some of my other roses that have canes like octopus arms I take them back by as much as three feet. This is just the way I've learned to keep my roses manageable without losing out on any blooms as the rest of the plant keeps giving me flowers.
I suggest you use pressure treated 1 x 4 or 1 x 6 inch boards. Cut the boards in 8 inch lengths then cut the corners off at one end of each board. Next dig a trench around the bed, inserts the boards vertically so that notched end and 5 inches or so are above ground. Back fill around the boards and you have a boarder that can easily be replaced, expanded, and/or relocated as needed.
We make our chicken runs from 2x4 treated boards and they even rot here in the humidity in about 2 years. Bricks and cement blocks seem to last. Rebar seems to last. I have had several metal trellises rust rot and break. I just pulled the last one down last week. It was a large arch and was so cute and had a gate too but alas they all rust.
I have one grafted on multiflor rootstock. I am in Z6b NJ. Extremely vigorous, about 6 feet tall 2 feet wide after 3 seassons, stiff, thorny cane, wonderful repeat and fragrance, wonderful blackspot resistance grown in a no-spary condition. One of the few HTs I have. All together a wonderful rose. Fairly winter hardy for a HB too, but it is probably a nonissue where you live.
Most "regular" fertilizers like Miracle Gro or any generic 10-10-10 pellets will add nitrogen and food for the rose. I go with about a 1/2 cup per well-established rose (don't feed new rose plantings), away from the base of the rose and under mulch or scratched into the soil, more if you have large or heavy feeding roses or highly porous/sandy soil (I think). You don't have to have anything specially formulated for roses, since roses can't read (smile), but you want to watch not overdosing the phosphorus in most garden soils. If I'm adding a standard fertilizer, I usually add a good handful or two of alfalfa hay (purchased from feed stores or pet stores in the small animal sections, if you only have a few roses). The alfalfa seems to add something extra in addition to the nitrogen that promotes healthy branching out. Special rose formulations of fertilizer usually have alfalfa already in them, but they're also a lot more expensive. None of the feeding is strictly speaking necessary if you have healthy soil and you're happy with the roses, but the food adds a little "zing" to the blooming. Just don't feed too often, as Diane mentioned, or you can get a lot of green growth at the expense of flowers. Once in the spring and maybe mid-summer if I feel like it is usually plenty for me. The liquid fertilizers like Ken mentions can be used more often, but at a weak dilution. Me, I'm too lazy for feeding that often as many roses as I have.
Cynthia
I know they're meant to be scented, but does anyone with knowledge of the old California roses think this could be Santa Rosa OR Burbank?? (Bit of a wild guess, but after all, it must be SOMETHING!) Are you in California, Emily, by any chance, or do you know where your SIL got her plant from? Is the deeper colour always there or does it develop only at certain times of year? And just another Q it might be as well to check - can you normally smell roses? Pardon my asking; it's just that it's not unusual for different people to not be able to detect certain rose scents (particularly teas, but others too) - and it might make our job a bit easier if this were a scented rose!
If and whenever you're able to post photos, clear pics of both mature leaf sets and new growth, canes, prickles, buds at different stages, stipules and a whole mature plant shot might all help get us there. I wonder whether those canes on the left are hoping to get to that fence and climb...
Comtesse :¬)
1st pic shows several stems starting to grow above the original shot of this rose. 2nd pic (I hope) shows new growth and old growth. 3rd pic shows 2 stages of opening and one old bloom. I did pay close attention to the fragrance and yes, there is a slight fragrance. Hope this helps, I do appreciate your in-depth remarks, this forum is wonderful! By the way, I am located in North Florida, zone 8.
In my cold zone I can manage most roses on an average of somewhere between 18" and 2' apart, particularly the HTs and floribundas, except for obvious ones that want to grow big or sprawl. Tradescant wants to be 2' tall and 8' wide in my zone, but in my world he's asking to weave around other roses, since he doesn't fill in that space closely enough to warrant that much real estate for himself. On the other had, hybrid musks like Heavenly Pink or sprawling heavy blooming shrubs like David Barber do need their own real estate or they'd choke out something else nearby unless it's equally thuggy. Heavenly Pink shares cane space with Petite de Terre de Franches and Gartendirektor Otto Linne, but they have 2-3 feet between the bases and the canes only intermingle when they're healthy and toward the end of the summer. I figure since virtually everything in my yard has been pruned to the ground again this year after the winter, I have a lot of growing time before even the roses at 18" apart get close to approaching each other. There is good air circulation for most of the year, and by the time mine are big, the summers are usually dry and I can get away with more crowding than I might otherwise. If they get too floppy at any point in the year, I'll contain them with a 6' circle of green wire fencing or drape them over a shepherd's hook, but that has only happened maybe 2 out of the last 10 years. And yes, there are also rose companions planted around most of the roses, but they're pretty tough plants in my zone and tend to be low growers that don't interfere much with the rose canes at the bloom level.
Cynthia
Reviews for Burlington Roses. You'll have to email Burling to request a catalog. I hope shipping to NY is not too bad for you noviceatgardening.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1706564/burlington-rose-nursery-california
kingcobbtx9b, please comment on my statement/suggestion that: "Look to see if you have mycorrhizal fungi attached to your roots. If so, fine, work on other aspects of rose gardening. If they are not there investigate why as their presence will benefit your roses.".
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Marlorena-z8 England- stated: " ...when you consider the millions of roses planted all down the centuries without it... and all over the world... yet all of a sudden, this is a must have...."
H.Kuska comment: Yes, and those growers were using what we now call "organic methods". i.e. for centuries rose growers did not use synthetic fungicides and synthetic fertilizers. One of my favorite comments is that many rose growers now are attempting to grow roses in what I describe as soil that resembles a chemical dump.
Tebuconazole appears to be the "IN" fungicide for many of the chemically orientated rose growers. Yet, tebuconazole is a known potent inhibitor of strigolactone biosynthesis https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jpestics/38/3/38_D13-011/_html
For further information about strigolactone biosynthesis see: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369526614000867
"Strigolactones (SLs) are plant hormones that regulate shoot branching as well as known as root-derived signals for parasitic and symbiotic interactions."
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Yes I agree with that completely. My comment about Placebo effect was merely meaning that most established gardens should have their own already unless of course there is an issue. If you don't have it naturally adding it without correcting the issue isn't going to do you any good.
In climates where roses carry leaves through the winter, there will be some natural shedding of senile leaves in spring. Usually when a leaf turns uniform bright yellow, or yellow mottled green, it's just because the rose has decided to kill it off. Crowded or heavily shaded leaves may be dropped in summer. I doubt you can have blackspot without black spots.
Livin easy is just as thorny