21,401 Garden Web Discussions | Roses


Wood chips over compost is as good as anything and is the most durable organic mulch. Pine fines, with or without larger bark chunks, act more quickly to improve the soil if that is needed. When I shifted from pine needles to bark with fines, I was surprised at the effect on the upper topsoil after only a year or two. But in recent years I have just been using hardwood leaves because I have plenty. Any uncontaminated organic material is good. For environmental reasons, it is best to use local waste materials.

I read earlier this year about an invisible trellis where you screw eyes into the surface 12 or 18" apart and then tie your rose to it. This can also be used for clematis except in that case since the stems are more fragile, fine wire can be attached to run from eye to eye for the clematis to attach to.

The garage has wood board and batton siding.
I wasn't sure about tying a rose, I didn't know if the ties would cut into the canes with the weight of the plant on it as it grew.
Could I tie it as it grows up, then build a trellis for once it reaches above the door?


Just a suggestion (but it works for our smaller, local, slugs, and for snails).
Buy a cantalope. Slice it in half, and eat the good part. Take the empty rind out into the garden at nightfall, and put it on the ground, upside-down. Slugs and snails love it, so they will all rush under there. In the morning, they're easy to find and trash.
We really don't have many slugs or snails now. Lizards are WONDERFUL.
Jeri

Very old leaves on a rose plant will just get cruddy and die. That's what it looks like to me, perhaps exacerbated by transplant shock.. Some of them may have spots of cercospora disease. Just pick them off.
The other possibility--when lower leaves go limp with yellow veins, that can be a sign of overwatering.

Yes Laura, several are going to be planted this week before the real heat hits. The lovely thing about wrapping cuttings is, you use hard wood instead of the new, soft flowering wood. The only soft growth you have to "protect" is what is generated after the cutting roots. Since that is accomplished in the open instead of under cover, it's already hardened off, conditioned for whatever the weather throws at it. The ones to be planted definitely have sufficient roots to go in to the ground now, and should continue thriving even when the high heat hits. Ones like the illustrated Lamarque will continue being held in pots until their root systems are as well developed.
The two factors you have to be concerned about when planting newly propagated plants are whether their root development is enough to support them on their own; and whether the new growth is too soft, too tender to handle direct sun, heat and any wind without frying. If the plants have been grown under cover, whether that cover is a green house, bags or plastic bottles, they may be very soft, requiring hardening off, acclimating them to the hotter, drier, brighter conditions being out in the open require. Propagating out in the open eliminates the second issue. Growing them in increasingly larger pots, in a warm, sunny spot, in good soil with consistent nutrition and preventing them from flowering, helps accomplish the first more quickly. There really is no difference between these plants and "bands", except none of these have been held for months (or longer) in pots which are too small to prevent them from continuing to mature. A nursery can't do that. They must maintain them in a size economically suitable for shipping, and which also permits them to maintain a large number of plants in a relatively smaller area. Bands permit all of that. Gallons can at least triple that room and shipping. I use gallons as I'm not raising as many plants and none of them are to be shipped anywhere.
Amerique, "winter protection" where I am consists of pruning any plant mass which will act as a "sail" in the higher winds we can get with any winter storms. If we are to receive any rain, it will come in "winter". It doesn't freeze sufficiently here to damage any roses. If any roses (and most other plants) are to be transplanted, moved, "winter" is when it's best here to do it. I can't give you dates for your climate when separating them would be safest, but you should be able to safely accomplish that any time the weather isn't so hot that any root disturbance will cause them to collapse.
If you still have periods of rain expected, particularly a period when you should expect it to last several days, I'd think separating them just before the rain starts and putting the pots where they will benefit from being rained on and receive primarily morning sun (if there is any) would be most suitable. Otherwise, separating them when the weather is suitable for transplanting established plants or planting bare roots would be best. I hope it helps. Kim

I have been diligent regarding application of liquid fence, despite some comments here. I'm going to drown the bush in repellant to see if it stops the diabolical deer. I believe they are not effected by the repellant. Portland from Glendora is already four feet tall and will easily go over six feet. I'll try the four foot cage and see if the deer can eat over it.



I think the idea of sanitation began with greenhouses, a controllable environment where it makes more sense; then somebody extrapolated to the garden. And once somebody writes some suggestion about garden practice, others will repeat it and say you have to do that. But you don't :)

Worth the wait, wasn't it Zyperiris!! Recently I've been giving advice to a new rose grower envious of my roses. I left this important note out! It takes time!
I also am very pleased with my gardens this year, like Buford I've gotten alot of rain. In digging new holes in my clay soil I noticed how much easier they are to dig this year than past years, and it has to be because of all the rain. Which in turn got me thinking obviously the roots of my roses have also been able to stretch out more easily given they don't have to work as hard when my soil is dry.
Sadly, can't stop spraying here, where blackspot is a big problem, even with keeping up with it I still get a bit of blackspot here and there.

mzstitch............
I am gardening in glacier slurry/subsoil and after several years of mulching, watering and feeding, the soil in my more mature garden truly is easier to work in than when I planted my first roses. I am adding 10 new roses and taking out 9 and moving a few around and have found that it is a LOT easier to work in the rose beds than it was when the garden was young.
Sidos-House ... I don't feel comfortable giving you any pruning advice as I have found that I prune very differently in this climate than I did in my older climate. I think it truly depends on the rose as to the best pruning method to use.
When it comes to dis-budding, I feel very comfortable sharing my experience because the results do not appear to be so climate-determined or class-determined. I dis-bud my roses every year to keep rose curculios from breeding in my garden and have had the opportunity to observe the impact of this practice in my garden.
I now use the technique for any stressed rose and any newly planted rose.
SAS .... I think every rose gardener deserves to experience the joy of a more mature rose garden. It's up to us to educate them. I was lucky to have a mentor who taught me that patience is the gardener's most effective tool for success.
Smiles,
Lyn

Wait until after the blooms die off, then trim. You don't want to miss the nice blooms from the first flush of the season.
Nothing specific with pruning Knock Out, just shape as you see fit. No fancy rose pruning stuff required. The town south of me takes an electric hedge clipper to theirs after each bloom cycle, and trims them into a box shape. Enjoy!


I was just thinking about this the other day. Last year, I hated taking photos of my roses with their poor hole filled leaves.
This year when one rose started with the holes I thought well here we go again. And then the wasps showed up.
I still have some holes, but nothing like last year. Knock on wood it stays that way, but it seems in my yard the best solution was waiting on the wasps to discover that I had planted a feast for them.

Amen here as well. I also sent a donation to Samaritan's Purse for disaster relief. The Red Cross and other organizations can use the help. Praying and $ are the only ways I know how to help. So sad. Gean
This post was edited by harborrose on Tue, May 21, 13 at 12:37

I have a body bag Love (from Wal Mart, 2009) that has been very pretty. I picked it up at a miserable time in my life when i didn't have time or energy to get roses from a better source or to take good care of them. Stuck it in a raised garden bed of sandy loam in full sun, planned to move it later if it survived.
It was such a wonderful bloomer with so little appreciation or care for its first years that I now have a soft spot for this healthy plant that throws so many striking flowers.
Yeah, it's a VERY thorny plant & the flowers aren't fragrant--but she's been a workhorse & the flowers are beautiful & abundant. (Gorgeous photo)

My mom grows Love, I grew Fire & Ice. I like Love much better. Love has larger, better formed blooms. The blooms on Fire & Ice have less petals and blew quickly (and is now gone).
Another red with white reverse is Brandenburg Gate. It is the only red rose that I grow.




To make a standard, you take a long whip of the trunk stock you intend to use and remove every growth bud from its length, except the top two or three. This is then rooted. Once sufficiently rooted, the rose you desire is budded below the remaining growth buds. Once these grow, the top growth from the trunk stock is cut off, leaving only the desired rose to grow. Ideally, there are no other growth buds on the plant, roots to the budded variety.
If the HT you want to train to be a standard is budded, you have that bud union which has many possible buds which may break into growth as new basals. Each one has to be removed, not just cut off, as it grows or it becomes a 'sucker' for the standard.
If your HT is own root, it still has the ability to produce new basals from its crown as well as new growth from the stem you try to train as the trunk. All of these growth buds have to be removed to the point where you want the head of the trunk to begin, or they will eventually grow and ruin the effect you desire.
Add the problem of HT wood just not being durable enough to be used as a standard trunk. It gets very old, very quickly and has to be continually replaced so the plant is rejuvenated and continues producing the growth and flowers you expect. IF you successfully eliminate all the basal and stem buds so there is no "suckering" of the original plant, the remaining standard would grow and flower for a few years and eventually begin to decline from age, like you see from "one cane wonders".
Standards generally don't experience this geriatric decline for many years because the types used for the roots and trunks are far more durable. Their wood is much longer-lived than the average HT. Doing what you describe for a pretty potted specimen you want to enjoy for a year or two, then discard, could be a fun experiment. But, not for a long term garden subject. Kim
Thanks for the answers.
Although the first just said don't, and the second told me how, they essentially said the same thing, NO!!!
Great info.
ak