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From my Garden, May 2004 I wrote my last column on St. Patrick’s Day but I think St. Patrick’s Day should be moved to sometime in May because everything is so green. My lawn has already been mowed a couple of times, my roses are leafed out and growing, and spring flowers are blooming. Spring gives us hope of thing to come. I’m looking forward to my first rose bloom. After two years of trying to overcome my stroke, I’ve finally regained enough mobility to do what needs to be done in my rose garden. Pruning was finished by mid-April and I was able to fertilize the roses as I pruned. With materials obtained locally, I mixed my own organic fertilizer applying two cups at the drip line of each rose as I pruned. My fertilizer consists of equal parts of cotton seed meal, alfalfa meal, fish meal, blood meal, activated sewage sludge ( Mil-Organite ) and 0-46-0 (triple super phosphate). It should be bone meal but I find that too dusty so I use the 0-46-0 as that’s why we add the bone meal, for the phosphate. I use this for my first application of fertilizer. To the 2nd application, applied in early June I also add urea and Epsom salts. Horse manure is also a great fertilizer. I hope to be able to acquire a couple of trailer loads this year. It’s great for the roses and the soil. I’ll apply it 4-6 inches deep in the beds and work it into the soil. If you want to have clean disease free roses with no blackspot, now is the time to start your fungicide spray. Fungus diseases are preventable. After you’ve got a fungus disease, it’s next to impossible to get rid of. I’ll spray the first time after I finish pruning while the roses are still leafing out. I’ll then follow a regular schedule spraying every 7-10 days through the first hard frost in the fall. The last two years I was not able to spray as needed and my roses showed the neglect. Most any fungicide labeled for roses will be effective if one follows the label instructions for mixing and applying. It’s also important to follow the safety instructions on the label. Change clothes and wash up good after applying the spray. I cannot emphasize this enough. This year I hope to reward my neighbors with a great show of rose blooms. They have been so patient waiting for the promised rose garden. We’ve had a very dry spring and I noticed all the soil in the rose beds was powdery dry. I got my sprinkling system up and running in mid-April so, God willing, they should have plenty of moisture. In my well drained sandy soil, I cannot water the roses too much. Roses should have lots of sun and water. They need at least 5-6 hours of sun daily, more if possible and one inch of water a week in clay type soils, more in well drained sandy soil. A light sprinkling with a garden house is not watering. All that does is wet the very top surface of the ground. This causes plant roots to grow shallow leaving them open to damage from anydry spells. I leave my sprinklers run an hour in each location to make sure the water gets deep into the soil. Watering deeply causes roots to grow deep, enabling the plants to better withstand a dry spell. A few tuna fish cans placed around your watering area will indicate an inch of water when the last can is full. The time of day that you water makes a difference also. Early morning is best as the excess water on plant leaves can dry off in the morning sun. Water sitting on leaves allows fungus spores to germinate. This sets up your plants for diseases. My sprinklers come on at 4:30 in the morning meaning that the last zone will be done at 11:30. By noon the plants are dry and the water has soaked into the soil where it will do the most good. Watering at in the evening means wet lawns and plants all night. On hot humid nights you can almost see the blackspot growing on the rose leaves. Wet lawns all night can lead to mold in the yard. All plants have one job in life. That is to propagate, make seeds. Once they’ve done that they have done their job and can rest. You can prolong the blooming cycle and fool Mother Nature by removing spent blooms before they go to seed. As you walk through your garden just snap or cut off fading flowers or you can achieve the same results by cutting flowers for inside the house. When cutting flowers from a rose bush always cut down to just above an outward facing leaf on a part of the cane that will produce another cane sturdy enough to support a new bloom. A cane growing from another cane will never be any larger than the cane it’s growing from. Cutting from thin canes will result in flowers that droop. If you’re still buying roses, I advise buying potted roses. Those bagged and boxed roses have been in those packages since January so the odds they will survive are pretty slim. Plant potted roses the same as you’d plant bagged or boxed roses. Prepare a hole 18 to 24 inches wide and deep. Mix manure or compost in the bottom half of the hole and place the rose on this making sure the bud union will be 4-6 inches below the soil surface when finished. This may be contrary to instructions on many packages but is necessary in our climate to protect the bud union during our cold winters and guarantee winter survival. The bud union is the point where the rose pictured on the package is budded (grafted) onto a hardy, vigorous root stock. This is the week point on a rose bush. Moisture between the two slightly dissimilar tissues can freeze during sudden and hard fall freezes causing them to separate and kill the top part of the rose bush. This different root stock may grow (sucker) and produce canes that will not give you that pretty rose you purchased. Flowers produced from this root stock bloom only on 2nd year wood and in our winters we seldom have 2nd year wood except on the hardiest roses. This means the bush will never produce flowers. An easy way to get that bush out of the pot without harming the roots is to cut the bottom from the pot, then cut the pot up each side leaving just a little bit so it doesn’t fall away from the root ball. Tie a couple of strings around the pot to hold it together then cut the remaining bit of pot. Sit the pot in the hole on top of the well amended soil. Pull the soil in around the pot cutting the strings as you fill the hole. When you are finished you can pull up the two sides without disturbing the root ball. As with any newly planted bush, water well and often. If done properly your new rose bush will not be aware it was transplanted. Do not fertilize until it’s growing well. Regarding fertilizers; Roses can’t read so check the NPK of any good rose fertilizer then buy a generic with the same NPK. A little fertilizer applied often is better and will give more even growth that a lot applied all at once. Happy rose growing I’m available to answer rose growing questions via the internet at rosenut@rosenut.com or visit my website at www.rosenut.com , or you can come by my home most anytime for hands on rose growing tips and advice. Have Questions? Write to: rosenut@rosenut.com |