Cultivating Roses
Roses need plenty of nutrients and regular watering to grow vigorously and flower profusely. You don't need synthetic chemical rose fertilizers, though; many organic options are available.
Fertilizing
Organic fertilizers — such as fish emulsion, compost, and aged manure — not only contribute nutrients to soils but also provide organic matter that has positive, long-term benefits on soil health. Compared with chemical fertilizers, organic fertilizers also release their nutrients more slowly over a longer period and feed the beneficial soil microorganisms. Therefore, don't expect fast results when you first apply the fertilizer.
My favorite organic fertilizer for roses is a half-and-half mix of alfalfa and cottonseed meals. Use about ten cups per plant every ten weeks through the growing season, mixing it lightly into the top inch or two of soil.
You can save a lot of money if you shop for organic fertilizers like alfalfa and cottonseed meal at feed stores rather than at garden centers. Animal-feed dealers sell much greater quantities of these materials compared with garden centers, so they can offer them at a much lower price per pound. If you can't find the selection of organic fertilizers you like, check with Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply at www.groworganic.com or Gardener's Supply Company at www.gardeners.com.
Apply fertilizer when new spring growth is well established and all danger of frost has passed. Make a second application four to six weeks after the first application, or monthly at lower rates if plants show evidence of mineral deficiencies, such as yellowing of leaves from lack of nitrogen.
Don't apply any type of nitrogen fertilizer within six weeks of the expected first frost in fall. When applied late in the season, nitrogen may stimulate fresh growth and delay hardening of the wood before winter.
Watering
How much and how often you need to water roses depends on several conditions, including the type and age of the rose, the soil, where you live, and the weather. But if you're looking for a rule to remember, figure that a mature rosebush needs about 1 inch of water per week applied over its root zone. Water enough to soak the entire root zone; then wait until the soil is dry 2 or 3 inches down to water again. You can check the water penetration in the soil by digging out a shovel-length wedge of soil, but try not to damage the plant roots in the process.
Drip irrigation is particularly useful for organic and conservation-minded gardeners because it delivers the water to the root zone under the rosebush without waste. Additional benefits include fewer weeds to contend with and dry foliage, which reduces the incidence of many diseases. See Chapter 11 for more ways to prevent and control weeds.
Pruning Roses
Although some kinds of roses don't absolutely require pruning to remain in good health, most do. Pruning improves the plant's health by letting more air and light reach all the leaves and stems, which discourages some insects and diseases. Left unpruned, some roses become a tangled mess of barbed, disease-prone canes. Reaching into such a thorny thicket to weed and prune takes nerves of steel and heavy leather gloves! Some vigorous roses just don't know where to stop, and you need to prune them to keep their stems within bounds.
Well-pruned roses give you more bang for your buck because you remove the weak and unproductive shoots and the spent flowers that divert the plant's energy from making new flowers. Show roses — the kind with the long stems and big, luscious blooms — respond especially well to pruning by growing even bigger flowers with longer stems. Garden roses that produce clusters of flowers bloom more prolifically when you keep them groomed. (For more information about show and garden roses, refer to "Making the Right Choice," earlier in this chapter.)
Making the cut
Use only sharp, clean tools to prune roses. Dull blades crush stems and tear or fray the edges of the cut, making it easier for diseases to gain a foothold. Also, disinfect your tools between plants to prevent the accidental spread of disease. Just give the blades a wipe with a cloth dampened in isopropyl rubbing alcohol.
Bypass hand pruners are the tools I use most frequently, because they snip everything from dead flowers to canes up to >2-inch thick. Loppers take care of canes up to 1-inch thick, and the long handles allow me to reach into a prickly tangle without endangering my arms. If you're dealing with a big old rosebush with large dead canes, use a fine-toothed pruning saw.
Your three primary pruning goals are
- To remove weak, dead, and undesirable canes
- To open the center of the bush to air and light
- To remove old flowers
If you don't know where to start, remove the dead wood first, cutting back to healthy tissue. Living wood is beige or white. If you see dark brown tissue in the stem, cut back a little farther.
Most people start getting cold feet when cutting into living wood. Following a few simple rules and keeping your goals in mind should alleviate your fears:
- Prune most roses right after they bloom. Cut the flowers off just above a healthy five-leaflet leaf, as shown in Figure 18-4. Cut farther down the stem to encourage stockier growth or to shorten overlong canes.
- Make cuts at a 45- to 60-degree angle about "/i inch above a bud. The angle and proximity to a bud are important because the cut heals more quickly and sheds water away from the bud (see Figure 18-5).
Figure 18-4:
Remove dead flowers by cutting just above a healthy five-leaflet leaf.
Figure 18-4:
Remove dead flowers by cutting just above a healthy five-leaflet leaf.
Figure 18-5:
Prune 'A inch above a bud, and cut at a 45-to 60-degree angle.
Figure 18-5:
Prune 'A inch above a bud, and cut at a 45-to 60-degree angle.
✓ Cut to a bud that points away from the center of the bush. Imagine a V or vase shape with the center of the bush mostly free of stems and branches.
As you prune, keep in mind that buds grow in the direction in which they point.
✓ Remove suckers that grow from the rootstock. Most roses consist of a scion of a desirable flowering variety grafted onto a rootstock of a more vigorous type of rose. Suckers often arise from this rootstock, and because they are more vigorous than the scion variety on top, they eventually crowd out the flowering rose. It's easy to distinguish sucker growth, because the leaves and flowers look very different. Cut or pull them off below the soil line.
Pruning climbing roses
Roses with very long canes, called climbing roses (which I consider to be garden-type roses), offer a special challenge to rose growers because they have two different kinds of shoots: the main structural canes and the flowering shoots, called laterals, that grow from them. For the first two or three years after planting, allow the structural canes to grow with abandon, removing only dead or damaged canes. Tie them to a trellis or other support as desired.
Some climbing roses bloom just once, in the spring. The time to prune them is right after flowering, as you would for other garden roses.
Another kind of climbing rose, called everblooming, blooms throughout the summer, and these roses need a different pruning strategy. Tie their structural canes at a nearly horizontal angle to encourage them to sprout flowering lateral branches. In the winter or early spring, when the plant is dormant, prune these laterals back to about two to three buds above the structural canes. These buds will grow vigorously and produce flowers. After blooming, remove the flowers as you would for other roses.
Preparing Roses for Winter
If you live where winter temperatures rarely dip much below 15 degrees Fahrenheit — USDA Zones 9 through 11 — you can skip this section. Just about any rose can handle typical winters in these zones without any special attention.
Zones 6 through 8 are transition zones for winter-hardiness. If you live in one of these areas, you can grow most any kind of rose, but the more tender ones may be damaged by some winters. Often, it's not the absolute cold that does them in, but the wide temperature swings from cold to warm and back to cold again. That's why gardeners in these zones are likely to take measures to protect their favorite plants.
If you live in Zone 5 or colder, expect the harshest winter cold and winds, and protect all but the hardiest of roses.
The bud union is the most cold-sensitive part of most rose plants. Covering the bud union with soil protects it from the cold. To prepare the bud union for winter, follow these steps:
1. Tie all the canes together to keep them from being windblown and loosening the soil around the base of the bush, or shorten the canes to iBEff reduce the effect of winds.
Don't cut the canes to soil level, though, because you want the buds near the bottom of the canes to sprout into new canes in the spring.
2. Mound soil 8 to 10 inches high around the base of canes after the first hard frost but while you can still work the soil.
Bring soil from another part of the garden for mounding, because you may injure roots if you remove soil from around the rose plant or bed. Avoid using clay or heavy soils to build these mounds, because they hold too much moisture.
3. Pile hay, straw, horse manure, leaves, or similar loose material over the mounded canes.
To prevent invasion by mice, wait until after the ground has frozen in late fall — around Thanksgiving in northern areas. Hold the material in place by covering it with some soil. These materials help keep the soil temperature constant. For additional protection, place twiggy branches or evergreen boughs over the top of the bushes. (I use limbs from my Christmas tree.) These branches help accumulate snow between the bushes, which may help reduce injury to the roots while still allowing some air circulation.
You can also make or buy cylinders, such as styrofoam cones, to place around your rosebushes, but these devices work only for small plants. Set the cylinders in place after two hard frosts have occurred — usually, after Thanksgiving. If you use an open-top cylinder, tie the rose plant's canes together; put the cylinder in place; cut the canes even with the cylinder's top; and then fill the cylinder with dry organic matter, such as leaves or straw. (Don't use peat moss.) Cover the top with polyethylene film to keep the insulation material dry, and anchor it in place to keep it from blowing over. Check the plants occasionally in winter for rodent, wind, and other damage.
Remove protective materials in spring as soon as the danger of hard frost passes but before new growth appears. Carefully remove the soil mounded around the bases of plants to avoid breaking off any shoots that may have started to grow. Never uncover the bushes in spring before the ground has thawed, because the tops may start to grow before the roots can provide water.
The most important thing you can do to help prevent winter injury is to keep your roses healthy during the growing season. Roses that were free of disease and properly nourished during the summer are less likely to suffer damage come winter.
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