22,796 Garden Web Discussions | Roses
Beth ...
We have had three days of steady drizzling rain. I am on the other side of the valley and north of you, so it should be coming your way. The good news is that we got snow at the higher elevations.
Yes, my garden is finally soaked. The fir trees and all the things I haven't watered are looking soooooo good.
I cannot believe I have been out several times this winter watering roses while wearing snow boots and multiple layers of clothing. Now, I get to take some time off from that and stay inside. Ahhhhh bliss.
Smiles,
Lyn
Pam - that is fabulous news! I hope your pond gets 100% full.
Here it has been raining either very hard or just a steady real rain, not drizzle, for 48 hours without stopping and it is still continuing. Accd to the paper we've gotten over 4 inches since Friday as of yesterday, and the total when this stops may be as much as 6-7 inches from just this one storm! Yay! And there is another storm coming on Wed...
Jackie
My two grafted Firefighters did zip-nada-nothing for the first two years. Sat there. Then year three the large basals started shooting up and they both turned into bloom machines.
My impression is that it is slow to establish, however my climate is much different than yours.
I planted a Francis Meilland at my mom's house last year and it was never covered in blooms at any one time but it always had at least one lovely bloom and buds just about to bloom.
They are beautiful blooms with a nice fragrance and they seemed to do well as cut flowers for her. She really likes it so far. I would hold out hope! No disease issues here in Coastal So cal.
I don't have any experience with Firefighter.
Jay
Wow Pat! That garden of yours is absolutely magnificent! Thank you so much for sharing the picture and alsothis wonderful information. I am familiar with both Hannah's and Petals from the Past, and I was actually considering doing some antique roses in place of or in addition to the floribundas, so I will definitely check them out. I was not familiar with the Huntsville stores, but am glad to know about them. I love garden shop hopping. Thanks also to Floridarose for your suggestions! I am getting my bed prepared and ready now. I can't wait to go shopping.
If the roses are well established and in good condition (and those are big ifs), my experience is that roses will survive unprotected even the worst winters at least where we lived in Z6b Connecticut. It is not really the severity of the winter that matters. The damage is caused if either the onset of cold is so fast that the rose has not had sufficient time to prepare or if there is a warming spell that tricks the rose into thinking the cold is over and this is followed by a quick return to severe cold. Over the years I had quite a few that were tender like many of the yellows (Oregold, St. Patrick) that were killed to the ground but they almost always survived.
Voles tunnel only in soft humus or compost like the decomposing pine needle matting under pine trees. That's why they are called pine voles. Unless you have soil like that the problem isn't voles but you can easily find out. Dig a bit in your beds and look for tunnels. They'll be only one or two inches deep. I'm guessing that the main anchor roots are dead and the rose is getting by with hair roots close to the surface. And BTW, I found that the best weapon against voles was my cats. They can find them easily and dig them up and they love to eat them.
I've had this problem in heavy clay. as well. Maybe it has to do with soil compaction? I have a large Mme Alfred C annd she suddenly started dying back, getting funny growth. I was afraid she'd ben hit wih RRD (I had a big wave of it) but the growth wasn't quite right. Then this Oct I had the garage she was leaning against rebuilt and in pulling her away I discovered she was loose as could be. There just wasn't any soil in the hole, just a layer on top and big air pockets below. I packed good soil back in and I hope she will revive this spring.
I've had this problem of air pockets often on roses I have bought in nurseries. When they pot up bareroots, they don't pack the soil down. After it's been planted and the nursery soil starts to settle it leaves air pockets. With clay, the surrounding soil is so rigid it doesn't break down and "flow" together, so it's like planting in a pot.
Did you read the next post in that blog? When you stick to organics, you're feeding the soil for the long-term, which allows the plants to get long, slow feeds. When you use synthetics, you're feeding the plants more directly, yes, but that's essentially all you're doing. If your garden gets all the plant nutrients via synthetics, you're likely missing out on the other benefits of a good, active "live" soil -- beneficial fungi and nematodes, larger populations of earthworms which keep the soil turning, etc. While you do miss out on some of those benefits in a pot, by "seeding" your potting mix with active soil from the garden or compost pile, you can still get "good stuff" happening in there.
:-)
~Christopher
Here is a link that might be useful: GardenMyths: what is the real value of organic fertilizer
This post was edited by AquaEyes on Fri, Feb 7, 14 at 20:38
Hi all,
My roses are about 10 months old but they are more like 4 months old because they were in water logged soil and almost died. Right now they are recovering nicely and the roots were poking out of 1 gallon containers. Half of them now are in miracle gro moisture control mix and the other half are in self-made peat moss and compost mix. I suspect those in the miracle gro mix will need fertilizing soon as we are getting a lot of rain lately and the ones in peat moss mix will probably need fertilizing now. I will add plant tone and compost as per Christopher's suggestion. Hopefully it will kick in on time for those in miracle gro mix.
You might find the attached history interesting. I think it is accurate, at least as of October 2011, and I don't know that much of anything has changed since then. Zary was at Gardens Alive at that time, and still is.
Here is a link that might be useful: Financial History of J&P
It will wake up the roses so they smell better!
But putting the grounds into a compost pile as suggested is likely the best idea to neutralize whatever is in the grounds, caffeine or not.
I would think that any caffeine would have dissipated into your cup of Joe. So you can go out and smell the roses!
I'm appalled, Susan. The web site of my nursery has all sorts of angels, prayers, good will, sweetness and light. But the person who answered the phone, who was also the one who did the mailing, was outraged and hateful that I would complain about receiving a potted rose, fully leafed out, when temperatures were in the single digits.
Overhead irrigation does not, in itself, cause blackspot. It may go some way to create the conditions necessary for infection but, although I don't know the exact infection cycle of diplocarpon rosae(Blackspot), I do know that precise conditions need to be met for successful sporulation and infection of most fungal pathogens. Late blight (phytopthera infestans) in potatoes require a very precise set of temperature, humidity conditions, over a prescribed time for the fungal spores to germinate and penetrate the plants cellular system. These conditions are known as 'Smith Periods' and can be predicted since the cycle takes place over 2 consecutive days with minimum temperature of 10 ðC and 10 hours of relative humidity higher than 90% on the first day and 11 hours of relative humidity higher than 90% on the second day.
Presumably, blackspot fungus also requires particular conditions which are not likely to be met with a sprinkler system operating in normal daylight hours or for periods of time less than several hours. I would not let this situation be a reason for failing to enjoy growing roses....although there are roses with a higher resistance than others....and this can be both fun and exasperating, in discovering which roses do well for you.
The one main difference between my experience growing roses in CT where BS is a fact of life and here in SoCal where there is no BS, is humidity. Water on the foliage dries but humidity persists. Also, from experience, you don't need rain to get BS in CT. It will arrive right on schedule in the spring if you don't spray. It may even be that rain makes no difference at all or perhaps it is beneficial because it washes off the spores. I think if constant humidity is there at whatever level is necessary, there will be BS. I don't think watering practices have anything to do with it.
Unless Guelph is further west than I think it is (and I have been there - just not this century) the native ecosystem is forest. Keeping the trees out is going to be necessary for the roses, and is going to require a certain amount of old-fashioned weeding.
If trees grow in the field,you can train ramblers up them;I see no conflict,though of course you wouldn't want too many of them...bart