22,153 Garden Web Discussions | Roses
well, Sally, I would happily use (uncontaminated) manure from an animal which was essentially vegetarian but fresh faeces from a carnivore is just not going to happen (cos I do root around continually)......or I could just poo on them myself -and when my composting toilet is up and running in the woods, I will be using 'nightsoil'- but you can bet it will have composted down for half a year (and not used on edibles either). Perhaps the cat-litter does something to 'enhance' or remove the terrible whiffiness.....or perhaps our cats are just naturally stinky when crapping, (my old collie sure is) but I honestly admire your fortitude and can-do attitude.
Yes, thonotorose, they are both Papa Gontier as it turns out. I have had the top one about a year, and it has never balled. Yesterday it put out the most gorgeous DARK red bloom. I think it is because i put about an inch of pine bark in the top of the pot a couple weeks ago. that combined with all the rain we've been having might account for the improvement in its' appearance. The lighter bloom is from plant number 2 (the one I bought as Papa gontier).
I think I'll put pine bark on that one also.
Cecily,
I have a genuine Beaute Inconstante on the way, so I hope the flowers grow to a decent size in Florida. I'm beginning to understand how a single variable can noticeably impact a plant.
As far as Charles de Gaulle goes, I gave up on it own root after 3 years. Very weak and not a good recovery from winter. I still grow this variety, but from Palatine, and is a much better plant grafted than own root. How about Purple Beauty? I have that own root and it does really well. Not sure about the fragrance.......
Dearest Patrick (how goes?). Own root HTs are pooches here, and I don't recommend them. I much prefer grafted on R. multiflora. That said, I would think Neptune would be a good grower own root. It does well for me on Dr. Huey. Very fragrant, larger blooms than my Lagerfeld. Bon chance!
Seil, I checked the description of Crimson Bouquet and some pictures. Yes it looks very much like one! Wow! Thank you so much. Since you got yours from Costco as a two-pack thing, chances are even better! The other rose in the pack didn't make it for me either.
Again, thank you for giving my rose a name.
I don't disagree with what Seil says. I fertilize until Oct. 1, so that fertilizer is available until local roses wind down sometime in November.
If you fertilize with slow organic sources of nitrogen, you have little control over the amount of nitrogen in the soil moisture at a particular time. However, some N will continue to be released in the fall from spring and summer fertilizing. The rate of release will slow down as the temperature drops, which is fine because the plants will be using less nutrients anyway. I wouldn't apply slow organic fertilizer in the fall unless I expected roses to continue to grow through most of the winter.
Ants don't "eat" rose petals. As Michael said, something else chewed up the petals, releasing sap which is sugary. The ants eat that sugar, just as they eat the honey dew from aphids and other sucking insects. Figure out what chewed up the bloom, deal with it and you should prevent the ants from being attracted to the blooms.
I always had that issue with the green roses (Greensleeves, Mint Julep, Sheila MacQueen, etc.) as the petals were heaven for aphids. They would provide their honey dew after sucking out the sap from the petals and the flowers would be full of ants. I dealt with the aphids and the flowers were ant free. Kim
I better try to get a better photo. I keep on thinking thrips. I used to have absolutely TONS of aphids on my roses,but the blooms seemed fine. Then,these nasty Oxythyrea funesta beetles invaded. In hopes to get rid of them, I started spraying a systemic insecticide,Confidor.It did nothing to stop the beetles(if anything, made them stronger!) but got rid of the aphids completely. Now, I have all these crummy looking blooms on some of my light coloured roses. I've completely stopped spraying insecticide; I've gotten the impression that my roses began to look worse once I started spraying. But I could see using a systemic via irrigation on specific plants,if it would be effective against the specific scoundrel that's doing the damage.
I will try for a better photo,but it may have to wait for next year at this point; my rose season is basically over. regards and thanks, bart
My Goodness!
I am a newbie to rose growing, but my gosh some of those striped roses had me stopping in my tracks. Stranger, Simsalabim, Rembrandt Van Ryn, Rusty, and Red Intuition are amongst the loveliest stripes roses I've ever seen. Where on Earth did you find those? I've acquainted myself with many varieties through Rose Encyclopediae, but I can't recall anything quite like those.
That Isolde Hit is gorgeous as well.
Cheers,
Jay
Jay, as I mentioned above, SIMSALABIM and STRANGER are pretty much not available unless you can root a stem from the florist. REMBRANDT VAN RYN is from Hortico in Canada. RED INTUITION you can get either from Wisconsin Roses, or Palatine Roses (Canada). RUSTY may be available from Regan's. It comes from Certified Roses in Tyler Texas, so you might even find it at WalMart or Lowe's in bareroot season. Oops, I just checked Regan's and they do not list it for the 2014 season. Yikes, I also just looked at Certified Roses wholesale website, and they no longer list RUSTY! Bummer. It's a gorgeous rose.
Try growing fruit to really test your patience regarding pests and diseases. Roses are a walk in the park compared to my trials and tribulations with Big Bud mite, aphid blister, peach leaf curl, raspberry cane blight, leaf curling aphids on plums, redcore in strawbs, pear midge, scab, reversion, American gooseberry mildew, silverleaf...........the list goes on and always, there is at least one complete disaster (usually a couple) and several deathrisk moments during a season of fruit growing. Not to mention the endless netting to deter thieving and destructive urban bird life (feral flying rats, aka pigeons).
But we must have jams. jellies. cordials........
Well, while I will obviously defer to the experts in roses, I must jump in and say that this is a slightly simplified explanation and there are other factors to be considered, at least regarding woody growth generally. Although I am a dimwit regarding rose pruning (I admit, I only do it if a plant is falling over), I do know that loosely speaking , growth always follows the knife.....so while a prune, especially a hard prune, will keep a plant fairly compact, this is a short lived effect and the plant will almost certainly react by pushing out insanely vigorous (but functionally impaired) growth - ie.blind shoots, water stems and so on. I do a lot of tree pruning and it always feel utterly counter-intuitive that when attempting to rebalance a tree which has grown lopsided, it is necessary to actually cut even more from the diminished side. leaving it looking really iffy. Of course, there are many considerations such as innate vigour (genetics), climate conditions, timing of reduction and so on......but I have observed roses really ramp into growth after a sharp cutback - but not producing flowering canes.
That is true, Campanula, pruning usually always stimulates new growth. That is why dead heading deep or summer pruning helps to keep them in shape. If you just snip off to that first 5 leaf set that plant is going to start to grow and soon will be larger than life. By cutting deeper you can maintain a more manageable size. I hate it when I have to use a step ladder to see my blooms!
Personal experience: the massive amount of annual rust on large patches of a perniciously persistent Potentilla ground-cover has so far never translated to the roses growing near it here: Darlow's Enigma, Grandmother's Hat, Jacques Cartier, Secret Garden Musk Climber, etc. Same for hollyhock rust.
This just reiterates what I mentioned on the post about James Galway. Roses like lots of water. I'm not discounting the alfalfa tea but even that wouldn't have this sort of effect in my drought-stricken garden. All the watering I do doesn't seem to penetrate very far into the hard-baked soil underneath. It's almost enough to make me want to give up growing roses, with water becoming such a scarce and expensive commodity here.
Ingrid
To my eyes the bloom is pretty. This is a rose that my husband planted a long time ago. It has actually risen to above the roof of the shop and lives year after year without receiving summer water.
I am beginning to think that Kordes roses are very good here in my hot, dry garden in Tuscany, Italy.To me, Harlekin's flowers are beautiful,and the mass display it gives is fantastic. Laguna is another one that gets a high vote for the way it covers itself in blooms. Jasmina did, too, but it's in a difficult spot and just put out so much green growth this year that the blooms were kind of limp (I think it's still getting established). bart