22,153 Garden Web Discussions | Roses
Hi Josh: Fifteen years ago, I grew Peace ... always perfect blooms in my last garden of acidic clay. The neighbors complimented on that rose. In the Antique Roses forum, in the thread on OGRs for high heat, I traced French Romanticas and Meilland roses to their need for high calcium in the soil. Peace is the parent of many Meilland and French roses.
Comte de Chambord is known for malforming of its bloom. When I grew Comte in a pot, I put gypsum (calcium citrate), and every bloom was perfect. Same with planted in the ground, my soil is limestone clay, high in calcium.
If your Peace is grafted, it's possible that the bud-union is damaged in some way, which interferes with maximum water & nutrients uptake. If your Peace is own-root, shortage of calcium will interfere with normal bloom-development.
I had an own-root Jacques that was healthy but stingy ... I also found a big-fat slug in its root ball from the nursery. Slugs like calcium, and snails get their calcium for their shell from the soil. I would check the root ball to see if there's an infestation of slugs or snails, which result in your Peace not getting enough calcium for proper bloom formation.
I also wrote on the role of Calcium in preventing Balling and Botrytis in the English Roses Forum, see link below.
Here is a link that might be useful: Calcium for Balling and Botrytis
I got my Peace from Edmunds 4 yrs ago. Big healthy bush that pumps out beautiful blooms. If your rose has been performing "ugly" for more then a year, I'd give it a toss and try a new one. Every once in a while you can get a dud, even from the best nurseries.
I am trying to fight an unknown bulb weed by removing soil, spreading it out on a plastic tarp and covering it with mulch. I water and when the things sprout, I can easily get them out by sifting. They cant get into the soil below. I am trying to grow any left in the soil and then I will put that clean soil in a different place. The place with the tarp is keeping the bulbs in that part of the soil from getting light so maybe some will die by the time I get there. What about pouring boiling water in a hole to kill off some of them? That worked for me when I had most of the big ones out and just little ones were left. I'm sorry you have to spend precious time on this.
I live in Philadelphia. When I moved into this house, I saw a few "interesting" plants in the former garden beds and didn't think anything about them. Two years later, I was overrun to the point where the plants I wanted were being crowded out.
mericat, you are a hero! Wow. I hope your determination pays off the way you want it to.
This year I decided to dig out all those little corms one section of my garden at a time. I spent hours on my hands and knees, and for nothing. In just a few weeks, new sprouts from seeds that had been sitting in the soil sprouted.
I have moved big rocks in my garden only to find the pinellas I hoped to suffocate still there and growing vigorously after two years! The only difference is lack of color, which they quickly regain.
I spoke with a professional gardener friend of mine. He told me the only thing that will keep it under control (not eradicate) is an over the counter spray designed to kill poison ivy.
Even using the spray, there are problems: 1/ there are literally hundreds of tiny seeds and corms in the soil that have yet to sprout so one good spray wonâÂÂt get rid of the future generations 2/ these plants are so hardy that often one application wonâÂÂt do it. You need to go back after a couple weeks to reapply.
I intend to keep after them with the spray. for me, digging them out was thankless and futile. IâÂÂve thrown my organic principles to the wind and will use the spray if thatâÂÂs what takes to save my garden.
I think mine came from Pickering. It has been a prolific bloomer with sweet smelling blossoms and good repeat and healthy plant for me. I had to move and have successfully rooted cuttings from it, can't yet report on how it fares on its own roots.
Here is a link that might be useful: Viking Queen at Pickering
In my Pacific Northwest climate zone, despite days of peek-a-boo sunshine (even during the middle of "summer"), variations in temperature, rain (we like to call it "a light drizzle of raindrops"), my KO roses thrive. No BS, no disease...they are hardy! :) I have a KO rose planted in my front yard along with spring through fall-flowering bulbs. I am adding a few more KO roses to the front yard.
I have my (arthritic) hands full tending to our small landscaped rose garden in our backyard. I love my OGRs and other non-KO roses. This is my little haven, a place of peace and undulated promise of hope.
KO roses are not particularly liked by one and all. I respect others' opinions regarding the same. I am foraying in a path that seems to work for my life.
Enjoy your KO roses!
As mentioned above the same antivirus defense: "RNA silencing functions as an antiviral mechanism in plants, insects and mammals..."
This 2013 published scientific paper: " Cooler Temperatures Destabilize RNA Interference and Increase Susceptibility of Disease Vector Mosquitoes to Viral Infection"
From author's summary: " Specifically, we demonstrate that RNAi, a critical antiviral immune pathway in mosquito vectors of human disease, is impaired in insects reared at cooler temperatures."
H.Kuska comment. This 2013 paper is additional evidence that Nature has chosen the same immune system antiviral pathway (with the same tmperature dependence) that is postulated in roses, and found in other plants, insects, and mammals.
Here is a link that might be useful: Cooler Temperatures Destabilize RNA Interference and Increase Susceptibility of Disease Vector Mosquitoes to Viral Infection
Kippy - I think I'll give Neptune another chance, used to have it. I think there are some great recommendations here and I am so grateful. There are a couple of Austins I've wondered about I don't think were mentioned here, Abraham Darby and Pat Austin. Does anyone have either of these?
Agree with 'kentucky_rose' as a preliminary diagnosis based on photo (I'd much rather be doing it in person)
Curling of the leaf edges is one of the early signs of powdery mildew infection.
What variety is this? Some varieties are more resistant than others.
Are you using a fungicide? Which one? Also some information on your cultural practices like watering and mulching would be helpful
If you are already using a fungicide labeled for PM, it may be that you have encountered a resistant strain of the fungus. PMs are notorious for developing strains that are resistant to certain fungicides.
I know I raised more issues for you than I settled, but I'd be hesitant to go further without knowing these.
I wonder if that's why my bands are doing so well. I never heard of this approach before, but my potting mix was equal parts peat moss, dehydrated cow manure ("Bovung" at Home Depot), and shredded hardwood mulch, all mixed together in a wheelbarrow. I layered Jobe's Organic Knockout Rose Food into the pots as I filled them, and this fertilizer contains active "bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi plus a unique species of Archaea" which I'm guessing helped activate the composting process. And everything got a soaking with diluted fish/seaweed emulsion. The mulch must be working much like the buried "woody debris" and the manure, rose food and fish/seaweed emulsion must be working like the high-nitrogen "green material" added to compensate for all the high-carbon "brown material" of the mulch. I'll have to look into this "hugelkultur" more....
:-)
~Christopher
Jeri:
A good water spray - best with a water wand so you don't get soaked yourself - is the preferred control for aphids even for a small infestation. It's important to cover the top and bottom surfaces on the plant, hence the water wand.
The water spray will knock the aphids off the plant but still make live prey available as a meal for their predators, so the predator population can continue to build without having your roses subject to damage.
Not only do insecticides reduce the predator population directly, but they leave no live prey, so the prey-predator cycle has to start all over again.
And here comes a big negative on waiting. I'm pulling out a hedge of about 30 KOs a section at a time and replacing them with hollies. I KNEW BETTER than to create a monoculture like that, but i inherited more than half of them with the house, polka-dotted around the yard. I added to them to finish out the hedge when i lined up the ones we transplanted. Here's what i know for certain:
1. KOs are the most susceptible roses, but they do infect close neighbors.
2. If you think it's infected, it almost certainly IS. Several that i pulled out just to be cautious had unmistakable horrid growth concealed at the bottom.
3. Since the bigboxes are still selling KOs by the truckload, your neighbors will be stunned and horrified when they stop to ask you why
I did read somewhere that some beekeepers were feeding their bees HFCS. What the heck were they thinking?
They're going to charge us for each bee that comes to our property to visit our flowers. You watch!
Only semi joking here.