21,401 Garden Web Discussions | Roses

I use the Houston Rose Society Rose Fertilizer. It is a concentrate, like a 29-#-#, sorry can't recall the P and K. Heavy on Nitrogen, works great here. Apply it once a month to the soil around the plant, not on the plant. They suggest watering the day before Feeding. Works great.
HRS Fert guide link: http://www.houstonrose.org/mo041207.htm

I don't mess around with granules any more, it's too much work. I liquid feed. All food has to be turned in a solution anyway
To start the year I use Miracle Gro 24 -8-16. That is at bud break.I also spray for disease then.
My next application is Monty's Joy Juice and I apply that weekly up to September 1. I use the Monty's feeder. I can feed my 470 roses in 20 minutes!




In your zone container roses shouldn't need any type of protection. IF the temps are going to go WAY below freezing, like the teens, you might want to put them in a garage for that time. Otherwise just leave them alone except for the occasional watering if there is no rain. Watering is the most important thing. Roses will die from dehydration more than from cold really.


If you want to keep the humidity up around them without rotting them get some trays (I use old cake pans) and put gravel in the bottom. Put water in the gravel but NOT up to the top of the stones and then place the cups/pots on top of the gravel. You do not want the water to touch the bottom of the pot. That will create a humid zone around them with out over watering them.

Hey Pembroke, if you have any luck with these, then you can go find specific ones and try rooting them too. Do you guys have Safeway markets in your area? Ours order from some outfit in South America and they sell named roses for $9.99 a dozen all yr, except at Valentine's and Mother's Day, then they raise them up to $19.99. Our Safeway gets them in Mon-Wed-Fri and I go check at least twice a week to see what comes in. I'm just playing and experimenting to see what I can get to root. Once I get it down, I'm going to go to the local (actual) florist shops to see if they will special order specific roses. It'll cost alot more tho. Usually $60 per dozen in the off season. It's just a fun thing to keep me going til bloom season starts up again!! But if I can get some of the ones I really am looking for, that would be cool!

All around the country this has been an odd winter, and roses are doing things they haven't done in other years. As far as leaves, if you're in zone 5, you've undoubtedly had some of the wicked cold that has been hitting the nation, and your Knockout roses are as dormant as they're going to get. Sometimes the dead leaves fall off on their own, and sometimes they need to get pushed out of the way by new leaves in the spring. Our huge oak tree does the same thing of hanging onto dead leaves well into the spring, so we have the lovely chore of raking in the spring when everything starts growing.
Either way, the leaves aren't not doing any harm where they are and they'll fall off at least by the point the rose starts growing. They're also not doing anything particularly useful for the rose, so if you wanted to neaten them up you're free to pull them off. For me, that's way too much like work and not at all needed. Just let 'em be and consider them "winter interest". Sure a lot more interesting than miles of ice and snow, eh?
Cynthia

Some of them will blow off by spring. When you prune you'll probably take off a lot more. What ever is left you should remove. Some of my roses drop all their leaves nicely for me but others hold on to them for dear life. I've found though that after I have to prune off the winter damage there usually isn't a whole lot left to pull.

I'm asking for recommendations for a shrub rose to plant in a new sun bed in my Chicago backyard. I've stayed away from roses after some failures but gardener's hope springs eternal so I'm trying again, after having good luck last year with two Austin roses, Munstead Wood and Wisley.
I'm looking for a 4-5 foot repeat blooming fragrant rose, pink or red. Our worst issue here is powdery mildew and we have a lesser problem with black spot.
The protected fenced-in yard probably qualifies as zone 6 but we just had temps down to -15 F, the lowest in many years.
I'd appreciate the benefit of your experience.

Just so you know, Pickering Nurseries in Ontario has Munstead Wood, Quadra, and The Dark Lady. I've also been considering Bakarole, which is a dark red hybrid tea, but I haven't grown it before so can't comment further. Pickering sells grafted roses, not own root.
My sympathies for your loss. I think your living memorial is a lovely gesture, and will hopefully provide you some comfort as well as good memories of your friend.
Here is a link that might be useful: Pickering

I hate the skunks!!!!
Palms are fairly easy to dig up, surprisingly, but the wrong palm in the wrong place can do some serious damage.
Off to work on the old garage....that used to have a palm right in front and now has a cracked wall and other foundation/wall damages from the palm tree (different kind of palm)


So sorry you are having trouble. I'm near Disneyland and have one on Dr. Huey and another own root. The own root one is the prettiest plant by far. But..........it took forever to get large. It stayed small with a few slender canes and I feared it would never be a good plant. Then the large shoots from the base sprang up. It gets plenty of water and sun. I cut it as little as possible until it flops over and gets in the way. Repeat is fast and the fall flush is very nice. Nicer than spring I think.
You are giving it the best food and so I think what you might try is a good mulch layer and plenty of water through the summer. Don't let it dry out in the LA heat. Shade the roots with flagstone or something over the mulch. Be sure to replace the soil if another rose was there.
I had some roses not do well because I think they were weak copies. Look around for a big sturdy one with good fat canes and you might try San Gabriel nursery. They will help you have success.

Beth: If you've had your PJP2 since it came out, you got it from J&P and it is NOT grafted. From the get-go, J&P offered PJP only as one of its "New Generation" (own-root) roses, so it's not surprising that your plant has been such a lackluster performer. Trash the one you have, try it on Dr Huey, and I think you'll have a more positive experience.
As a grafted plant, PJP was first available on Fortuniana rootstock , via an agreement J&P made with a Florida grower that subsequently went out of business. Grafted PJP plants are now available on Dr Huey from various sources -- Regan, S&W. Witherspoon . . .


Dragon's Blood is actually more red than brown, so plan accordingly. Also, it blooms in great big flushes where no one will notice what is "next" to it when it's blooming. And then it takes a long sleep. So I don't think it matters what you put in the bed with it. Just put something -- anything -- that blooms when Dragon's Blood is in "rest" mode.

As is often the case, plans changed when the bed getting a face lift was actually dug out. We ended up putting a Correa Pulchella out front, with various salvias, lavender and Sydonie in the intervening space. A pink, blue, purple, white, and yellow (Tagetes Lemonii) scheme up front with cream and white accents was a bit more harmonious it seemed.
I think the likelihood that the mystery rose from Rogue Valley she has is pink is high enough that it will probably end up in the pink bed which made it easy to put Sydonie out front. It also seemed most logical to simply situate Dragon's Blood near Hot Cocoa and Cinco de Mayo. Aggressively self-sowing Borage is the only thing stopping that as of now, but I'll be fixing that tomorrow.
Jay





Thank you for the info everyone, helps me have a better understanding, I appreciate it.
The water table is as high as the depth you dig down to find it. Roses should not sit in water. The roots cannot get enough oxygen. That is why raised beds are built. I have a lower corner in my yard that the water runs to. I put in a raise bed and the roses are doing great.
We live over a giant underground river called the Mahomet River Aquifer. It comes out of Canada.It is a larger river than the Mississippi! My Boyhood home used to be on it. The well was over 150 feet down. I remember my Dad had a leak in a pipe. They started pulling hose and went across the street and still was pulling hose!