Nothing signals the coming of Spring more than when the chickens start laying more eggs. I’m going to miss that.
Seeing the sun and not a snow shower again this morning I decided to let the girls out. Not that they would’ve minded romping around in the snow, just that I didn’t feel like being in it any more than I had to be. Anyway, so I carried the egg basket up to haul back the bounty they have laid for us and was shocked to see 23 eggs in the nest boxes. Of course I haven’t been out there in three days so it wasn’t completely unexpected to see a lot of eggs, just not that many.
Alas, it means Spring is almost here, and sadly we will not be here to enjoy another year of roses, lilacs, and a plethora of bulbs from daffodils to irises bloom. Okay, so we will see the daffodils and the tulips before we move, mostly because they are already pushing themselves up, or budding in the case of the daffodils. I just hope our friends all enjoy the irises I’ll be pulling up from the North side of the yard because I’ll be damned if I leave them here for the bank.
Showing posts with label roses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label roses. Show all posts
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Roses
With so many conflicting views on how best to care for your roses during the blooming season, how should one choose? Try them all.
We’ve had roses at our home practically since we moved in. We’ve also had issues with roses for the same amount of time. You see, some roses like to be fussed with, others like to be left alone, and others still require some attention at certain times and are good to go. Knowing your roses, and which types you have can save you some heartache, but something most rose owners fear is harming their prized plants… even if they aren’t so special and should’ve been pulled out and discarded years ago. Yes, we have a couple of those.
How should I put it? When we planted the roses we originally got seven. We knew where they were going to go and figured that would be the perfect amount for the area. And we were right. However, it became painfully obvious after the first year that two of these hybrid teas were, well, underperforming. Actually, one looked like it reverted back to its original species, as if the hybridization didn’t work and the “superior” graft died. The other just, well, looked sad and diseased. Twelve years later they are still in the rose garden. Why? We just haven’t replaced them yet. That and I really don’t like killing live plants unless they are invasive weeds that must be stopped before they take over the world.
Anyway, so caring for your roses during the growing season has a few options with it. There is the old rule of cutting spent flowers down to the first 5-leaf section, which sometimes means massive pruning depending on the variety of rose you are growing. Personally I don’t really think it matters where you cut and in fact usually just deadhead the wilted flower by hand pulling or just cut it off. It is generally accepted now that the important part of deadheading is to just do it if you want more blooms. If the stalk is too tall and unable to support the blooms at the top, cut down up to half of it while deadheading, unless, of course, it is a carpet rose and supposed to be like that!
More vigorously blooming plants may not require deadheading as they simply grow and produce so quickly. Deadheading a carpet rose for instance is a matter of appearance if the plant is well established and will probably only produce a minimal difference in the amount of blooms. Of course, pruning your carpet rose may be a matter of controlling their whereabouts as they can quickly take over not only their space but any neighbors too! Don’t be afraid to attack it with gusto if need be otherwise you’ll be overrun with them.
I’ve noticed that ours do not require the same amount of water they used to, probably because they are so well established, but you may want to keep watering yours as needed. About an inch a week, either done as daily watering or as a hefty gulp once a week is what they require. Fertilizing is another thing to help them stay healthy, whether that is a simple scoop of compost every couple weeks or a slow release fertilizer. Also important is mulch. Trying to weed beneath a rose bush is, well, damn near impossible as can be seen by the grass growing directly underneath a majority of ours where even the chickens won’t tread. Two to three inches of mulch will help control weeds and also retain moisture in the ground, and yes, you can use grass clippings as mulch, as well as pine needles or bark chips. Another option is to plant chives under and next to your roses as a living mulch, which will not only help protect it from diseases, but bring forth beneficial insects and create sweeter scented flowers on your roses. Plus you can use the chives in your culinary endeavors and they have pretty purple flowers twice a year too. I was going to do this but for some reason never did. Hmmm… I should look into seeing if it is too late to do so now.
We’ve had roses at our home practically since we moved in. We’ve also had issues with roses for the same amount of time. You see, some roses like to be fussed with, others like to be left alone, and others still require some attention at certain times and are good to go. Knowing your roses, and which types you have can save you some heartache, but something most rose owners fear is harming their prized plants… even if they aren’t so special and should’ve been pulled out and discarded years ago. Yes, we have a couple of those.
How should I put it? When we planted the roses we originally got seven. We knew where they were going to go and figured that would be the perfect amount for the area. And we were right. However, it became painfully obvious after the first year that two of these hybrid teas were, well, underperforming. Actually, one looked like it reverted back to its original species, as if the hybridization didn’t work and the “superior” graft died. The other just, well, looked sad and diseased. Twelve years later they are still in the rose garden. Why? We just haven’t replaced them yet. That and I really don’t like killing live plants unless they are invasive weeds that must be stopped before they take over the world.
Anyway, so caring for your roses during the growing season has a few options with it. There is the old rule of cutting spent flowers down to the first 5-leaf section, which sometimes means massive pruning depending on the variety of rose you are growing. Personally I don’t really think it matters where you cut and in fact usually just deadhead the wilted flower by hand pulling or just cut it off. It is generally accepted now that the important part of deadheading is to just do it if you want more blooms. If the stalk is too tall and unable to support the blooms at the top, cut down up to half of it while deadheading, unless, of course, it is a carpet rose and supposed to be like that!
More vigorously blooming plants may not require deadheading as they simply grow and produce so quickly. Deadheading a carpet rose for instance is a matter of appearance if the plant is well established and will probably only produce a minimal difference in the amount of blooms. Of course, pruning your carpet rose may be a matter of controlling their whereabouts as they can quickly take over not only their space but any neighbors too! Don’t be afraid to attack it with gusto if need be otherwise you’ll be overrun with them.
I’ve noticed that ours do not require the same amount of water they used to, probably because they are so well established, but you may want to keep watering yours as needed. About an inch a week, either done as daily watering or as a hefty gulp once a week is what they require. Fertilizing is another thing to help them stay healthy, whether that is a simple scoop of compost every couple weeks or a slow release fertilizer. Also important is mulch. Trying to weed beneath a rose bush is, well, damn near impossible as can be seen by the grass growing directly underneath a majority of ours where even the chickens won’t tread. Two to three inches of mulch will help control weeds and also retain moisture in the ground, and yes, you can use grass clippings as mulch, as well as pine needles or bark chips. Another option is to plant chives under and next to your roses as a living mulch, which will not only help protect it from diseases, but bring forth beneficial insects and create sweeter scented flowers on your roses. Plus you can use the chives in your culinary endeavors and they have pretty purple flowers twice a year too. I was going to do this but for some reason never did. Hmmm… I should look into seeing if it is too late to do so now.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Pruning Your Rose Bush, Part 2
Some people have a tendency to like flowers, but can’t really grow them. Or, they don’t like to spend a lot of time or precision, and they’re looking for something that will grow big, not require a lot of work, and will look spectacular. For this, there is no rose better than the carpet rose.
Carpet roses, while not officially recognized as a separate class, grow slightly different than a Modern, like the hybrid teas, or an Old Garden, or even a Wild, but share traits of all three. They were developed by Werner Noack, who was passionate about roses, but felt that with all the diseases that plagued them they wouldn’t appeal to most gardeners. So, after years of breeding to create this disease resistant rose, he finally introduced the world to the Flower Carpet Rose, the first color being Flower Carpet Pink, which we have in our rock garden.
Here’s the thing, I don’t mind creating a nice looking garden, but sometimes maintaining it during the heat of summer can be a little much. A majority of the plants in the rock garden fit the bill as being extremely low maintenance, and two carpet roses in this 6x25 foot space on a gently sloping hill are part of that collage. Of course, I did what most gardeners should avoid, which is buy a brand new variety. Not that this is a bad thing when it comes to annuals, but for a perennial shrub like roses, this is untested ground and will last much longer. And, of course, my naiveté that it would perform like the carpet roses at my partner’s mother’s house, where the summers are hot and dry and they get watered twice a day. However, I decided to get both the pink and yellow, the latter being the newest, and planted them in the rock garden, where it quickly became apparent the yellow was going to cause some problems.
Carpet roses spread, like a carpet, hence the name. The pink did this beautifully, rising a couple feet off the ground in the middle while the outer canes bent nearly straight out along the bottom, unfolding not unlike a rose bud itself. The yellow, on the other hand, did not. It went straight up, just like a tea or old garden would. I contemplated moving it to the hybrid tea section of the yard between the vegetable garden and the rock wall, but decided maybe it just needed some selective pruning. And so, after a few years of cutting the central stalk that was causing me so much misery, I decided it just wasn’t worth it. I’ll just have an upright rose in the rock garden and leave it at that. And then last year I did something completely uncharacteristic of me… I didn’t prune the roses, none of them. The pink grew so huge, it was trampling on neighbor plants space and at one point was over nine feet across, which, if you’ve never seen a carpet rose, they are completely covered in flowers the entire growing season, which for our climate is from May through December. And guess what the yellow decided to do? Yep, it carpeted… albeit with a center that went straight up. Now, I could have just cut those center canes out, but there was nothing directly behind it that was going to be impacted by leaving it, so I left them on. Of course, our lavender I planted next to it also doubled in size last year, so I may have to train the stems in the opposite direction for this season. We’ll see.
Okay, so now that you’ve been inundated with a massive amount of useless information about our roses, it’s time to focus on pruning them. A carpet rose is probably the easiest rose to prune, since it doesn’t seem to care whether you trim a little off the top or take it all the way down to the ground. Garden shears, like you would use for upright garden roses, would work, but so will clippers that you’d use on any other bush. This last option is probably the best and fastest for early spring pruning, as well as the electric variety. Of course, if you want to keep your carpet rose growing ever larger, just cut off any dead growths and rose hips that haven’t been eaten by the birds or you. What? People eat rose hips, those funny looking fruits that form on roses at the end of the growing season? Yes, people do… just not me… yet. I think this year I will try some, either as a tea or to make rose oil and/or water for cooking.
Crap. I’ve gone off topic again. At least this time it somewhat coincides with the subject. Okay, so to summarize, carpet roses are easy maintenance. They are also the most disease resistant roses on the market. This isn’t to say that you won’t get any blackspot, which is ever so common here in the Northwest, just that carpet roses can handle the harsh cutting required to contain this disease, and will bounce back faster than you can show someone where the affected area was.
Old Garden Roses, which are woodier shrubs that only bloom on second-year canes or older, only bloom once during the growing season, and as such, require a good eye when it comes to pruning, as a harsh prune you would do on your Modern or Carpet rose would leave you with a nice green bush with no flowers. Why, then, would anyone want to grow Old Garden Roses? Because, quite simply, they have been around for a very long time, and because of that, have become quite disease-resistant, and their fragrance cannot be beat. The China rose is the only Old Garden variety that is everblooming, the trait found in most hybrids we see today as they’ve been bred with this rose, but that seems to make it less fragrant, also a trait seen in most hybrids, although our Double Delight could probably give those Old Gardens a run for their money. Pruning an Old Garden requires somewhat minimal effort. Treat an Old Garden Rose like you would a lilac: Don’t prune the first year canes; do prune any old spindly ones; and of course, prune any diseased ones as well.
Climbing roses require a little different approach, as you don’t want to over prune and have to retrain it over the trellis or up a wall again. What you will first want to do is take a look at it from a distance and take note as to where it may be going out of bounds, and where any of the canes look funny, whether they are crossed or growing in the wrong direction. The pruning of a climber is kind of like that of a Modern, in which you prune off much of the thin stems, and leave the thick canes. The main difference is that you want those thick canes to be tied down or trained through whatever they are climbing, without overwhelming it. A good rule is to look at your hand with the fingers spread out… your climbing rose should somewhat resemble this if it is on a wall or wide trellis. Pole climbers should form a spiral, while narrow trellis climbers can go against the rules and be zig-zagged to form a tighter, more compact form, both with a minimum of canes.
All of this information from both today’s and yesterday’s posts are for late-winter and early-spring pruning done at the beginning of the growing season. I will be blogging about how to deadhead and prune all of these roses during and after the growing season when it is time to do so, so please don’t fret!
Carpet roses, while not officially recognized as a separate class, grow slightly different than a Modern, like the hybrid teas, or an Old Garden, or even a Wild, but share traits of all three. They were developed by Werner Noack, who was passionate about roses, but felt that with all the diseases that plagued them they wouldn’t appeal to most gardeners. So, after years of breeding to create this disease resistant rose, he finally introduced the world to the Flower Carpet Rose, the first color being Flower Carpet Pink, which we have in our rock garden.
Here’s the thing, I don’t mind creating a nice looking garden, but sometimes maintaining it during the heat of summer can be a little much. A majority of the plants in the rock garden fit the bill as being extremely low maintenance, and two carpet roses in this 6x25 foot space on a gently sloping hill are part of that collage. Of course, I did what most gardeners should avoid, which is buy a brand new variety. Not that this is a bad thing when it comes to annuals, but for a perennial shrub like roses, this is untested ground and will last much longer. And, of course, my naiveté that it would perform like the carpet roses at my partner’s mother’s house, where the summers are hot and dry and they get watered twice a day. However, I decided to get both the pink and yellow, the latter being the newest, and planted them in the rock garden, where it quickly became apparent the yellow was going to cause some problems.
Carpet roses spread, like a carpet, hence the name. The pink did this beautifully, rising a couple feet off the ground in the middle while the outer canes bent nearly straight out along the bottom, unfolding not unlike a rose bud itself. The yellow, on the other hand, did not. It went straight up, just like a tea or old garden would. I contemplated moving it to the hybrid tea section of the yard between the vegetable garden and the rock wall, but decided maybe it just needed some selective pruning. And so, after a few years of cutting the central stalk that was causing me so much misery, I decided it just wasn’t worth it. I’ll just have an upright rose in the rock garden and leave it at that. And then last year I did something completely uncharacteristic of me… I didn’t prune the roses, none of them. The pink grew so huge, it was trampling on neighbor plants space and at one point was over nine feet across, which, if you’ve never seen a carpet rose, they are completely covered in flowers the entire growing season, which for our climate is from May through December. And guess what the yellow decided to do? Yep, it carpeted… albeit with a center that went straight up. Now, I could have just cut those center canes out, but there was nothing directly behind it that was going to be impacted by leaving it, so I left them on. Of course, our lavender I planted next to it also doubled in size last year, so I may have to train the stems in the opposite direction for this season. We’ll see.
Okay, so now that you’ve been inundated with a massive amount of useless information about our roses, it’s time to focus on pruning them. A carpet rose is probably the easiest rose to prune, since it doesn’t seem to care whether you trim a little off the top or take it all the way down to the ground. Garden shears, like you would use for upright garden roses, would work, but so will clippers that you’d use on any other bush. This last option is probably the best and fastest for early spring pruning, as well as the electric variety. Of course, if you want to keep your carpet rose growing ever larger, just cut off any dead growths and rose hips that haven’t been eaten by the birds or you. What? People eat rose hips, those funny looking fruits that form on roses at the end of the growing season? Yes, people do… just not me… yet. I think this year I will try some, either as a tea or to make rose oil and/or water for cooking.
Crap. I’ve gone off topic again. At least this time it somewhat coincides with the subject. Okay, so to summarize, carpet roses are easy maintenance. They are also the most disease resistant roses on the market. This isn’t to say that you won’t get any blackspot, which is ever so common here in the Northwest, just that carpet roses can handle the harsh cutting required to contain this disease, and will bounce back faster than you can show someone where the affected area was.
Old Garden Roses, which are woodier shrubs that only bloom on second-year canes or older, only bloom once during the growing season, and as such, require a good eye when it comes to pruning, as a harsh prune you would do on your Modern or Carpet rose would leave you with a nice green bush with no flowers. Why, then, would anyone want to grow Old Garden Roses? Because, quite simply, they have been around for a very long time, and because of that, have become quite disease-resistant, and their fragrance cannot be beat. The China rose is the only Old Garden variety that is everblooming, the trait found in most hybrids we see today as they’ve been bred with this rose, but that seems to make it less fragrant, also a trait seen in most hybrids, although our Double Delight could probably give those Old Gardens a run for their money. Pruning an Old Garden requires somewhat minimal effort. Treat an Old Garden Rose like you would a lilac: Don’t prune the first year canes; do prune any old spindly ones; and of course, prune any diseased ones as well.
Climbing roses require a little different approach, as you don’t want to over prune and have to retrain it over the trellis or up a wall again. What you will first want to do is take a look at it from a distance and take note as to where it may be going out of bounds, and where any of the canes look funny, whether they are crossed or growing in the wrong direction. The pruning of a climber is kind of like that of a Modern, in which you prune off much of the thin stems, and leave the thick canes. The main difference is that you want those thick canes to be tied down or trained through whatever they are climbing, without overwhelming it. A good rule is to look at your hand with the fingers spread out… your climbing rose should somewhat resemble this if it is on a wall or wide trellis. Pole climbers should form a spiral, while narrow trellis climbers can go against the rules and be zig-zagged to form a tighter, more compact form, both with a minimum of canes.
All of this information from both today’s and yesterday’s posts are for late-winter and early-spring pruning done at the beginning of the growing season. I will be blogging about how to deadhead and prune all of these roses during and after the growing season when it is time to do so, so please don’t fret!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Pruning Your Rose Bush, Part 1
When I got back from church after setting up the prayer stations for our Ash Wednesday service, I realized it was too nice of a day to stay inside. So naturally I went grocery shopping first and then did the dishes when I got home. But right after that, I went outside to start pruning our rose bushes.
We have two types of roses, modern hybrid teas and carpet roses, and today’s blog will focus on the hybrid tea. In tomorrow’s blog, I will discuss the carpet rose, as well as tips for Old Garden Roses and climbing roses, both of which I do not have much experience with, but know a little about.
For as many ways as there are to prune roses, there is an equal and opposite reason not to do it that way. So what is a person to do with all this confusion? Personally, I take all sides, and do what works best for that particular growing season, or bush, or variety. This all takes a lot of experience, and unfortunately I’ve only got a little over twenty years of experience with roses. I will try to list the basics and their reasons, and I will also teach you what I’ve come to learn and hopefully, with all the knowledge you also may have with your roses, you will have a successful blooming season.
The following are the basics most new rose owners are taught, or at least learn after planting or inheriting roses. Mind you, these are still perfectly fine, but it is kind of like cooking… first time you follow the recipe, and thereafter you decide to play around with it. I’ve also included my tips or recommendations after.
Many books will tell you to prune just above a new growth node, a tiny bump that may or may not have started to leaf out, but I have found that my roses will make new shoots from just about wherever I cut them, so maybe for novices this is a good idea, especially for a newly planted specimen. It is a good idea to prune the shoots at an angle, say forty-five degrees, but any angle will work. This is to prevent moisture buildup on the newly cut stem, which in turn will cause that stem to rot, and also promotes the rose to callus over the cut more quickly. Now that you’ve pruned your bush down, be on the lookout for dead shoots and cut them off as close to the base as possible. Also, if you see any stems crossing each others paths too closely or if they are touching, cut one of them, usually the one growing somewhat sideways. Now comes the hard part… pruning out all of those little shoots and stems. Long thin stems are not strong enough to support a rose bud and will droop and look awful, so it is best to cut out any skinnies, leaving the thickies.
And lastly, prune the center. Your rose bush should have plenty of room for new growth, and since they require sun and plenty of airflow to remain healthy, it is best to prune out as much of the center as possible. If the bush is large enough, you can leave one to three center shoots, but for newer roses, just have the outside branches and cut out any center shoots. Yes, now it looks naked and frail, but this will guarantee good, healthy growth. I also find that now is a good time to fertilize, so I put out a small handful of Epsom salt and a shovelful of compost, slightly working it into the ground. Slow release fertilizers can be used too in addition to the Epsom salt.
Please note these tips are for your hybrid tea roses, and pretty much any modern rose that has been developed from the China rose, which possesses the everblooming trait we have become accustomed to seeing in our roses. The only non-China rose that is everblooming is the Portland rose, which was thought to be a cross with the China rose, but DNA testing has shown that it has no Asian ancestry and is the first European rose to have the everblooming trait. Sorry about getting all technical, I do that from time to time. Hybrids require hard pruning in early spring because of their growth patterns. If left unpruned, you will find that they will not only fall short in blooms, but could make them rather unsightly as older shoots die off, and some new ones don’t make it through the winter. And one more thing, roses don’t have thorns, they have prickles, and are just outgrowths of the stems, whereas true thorns are modified stems. But don’t worry, I still call them thorns as I pluck them out of my forearm while pruning.
Again, tomorrow I will be leaving tips for carpet roses, and a little info on Old Garden Roses and climbing roses, so please come back if you have these varieties, or plan on getting any this year.
We have two types of roses, modern hybrid teas and carpet roses, and today’s blog will focus on the hybrid tea. In tomorrow’s blog, I will discuss the carpet rose, as well as tips for Old Garden Roses and climbing roses, both of which I do not have much experience with, but know a little about.
For as many ways as there are to prune roses, there is an equal and opposite reason not to do it that way. So what is a person to do with all this confusion? Personally, I take all sides, and do what works best for that particular growing season, or bush, or variety. This all takes a lot of experience, and unfortunately I’ve only got a little over twenty years of experience with roses. I will try to list the basics and their reasons, and I will also teach you what I’ve come to learn and hopefully, with all the knowledge you also may have with your roses, you will have a successful blooming season.
The following are the basics most new rose owners are taught, or at least learn after planting or inheriting roses. Mind you, these are still perfectly fine, but it is kind of like cooking… first time you follow the recipe, and thereafter you decide to play around with it. I’ve also included my tips or recommendations after.
First, for those of us in seasonal climates, take note when new growth starts to form after a dormant winter. If you are still getting below freezing temperatures at night, you will want to hold off, but if you are in the mid-thirties or higher, any time between the middle of February until the first week or two of March is a good time to prune those bushes back. Any later than that and you could negatively impact when your roses will bloom, but that is highly unlikely to happen with most hybrid tea varieties, but you run the risk with any heirlooms. Colder climates may need to wait until April. How far? You will want to take it down to about twelve inches or so. It doesn’t have to be exact, so don’t worry about tagging along a tape measure, just eyeball it.
Many books will tell you to prune just above a new growth node, a tiny bump that may or may not have started to leaf out, but I have found that my roses will make new shoots from just about wherever I cut them, so maybe for novices this is a good idea, especially for a newly planted specimen. It is a good idea to prune the shoots at an angle, say forty-five degrees, but any angle will work. This is to prevent moisture buildup on the newly cut stem, which in turn will cause that stem to rot, and also promotes the rose to callus over the cut more quickly. Now that you’ve pruned your bush down, be on the lookout for dead shoots and cut them off as close to the base as possible. Also, if you see any stems crossing each others paths too closely or if they are touching, cut one of them, usually the one growing somewhat sideways. Now comes the hard part… pruning out all of those little shoots and stems. Long thin stems are not strong enough to support a rose bud and will droop and look awful, so it is best to cut out any skinnies, leaving the thickies.
And lastly, prune the center. Your rose bush should have plenty of room for new growth, and since they require sun and plenty of airflow to remain healthy, it is best to prune out as much of the center as possible. If the bush is large enough, you can leave one to three center shoots, but for newer roses, just have the outside branches and cut out any center shoots. Yes, now it looks naked and frail, but this will guarantee good, healthy growth. I also find that now is a good time to fertilize, so I put out a small handful of Epsom salt and a shovelful of compost, slightly working it into the ground. Slow release fertilizers can be used too in addition to the Epsom salt.
Please note these tips are for your hybrid tea roses, and pretty much any modern rose that has been developed from the China rose, which possesses the everblooming trait we have become accustomed to seeing in our roses. The only non-China rose that is everblooming is the Portland rose, which was thought to be a cross with the China rose, but DNA testing has shown that it has no Asian ancestry and is the first European rose to have the everblooming trait. Sorry about getting all technical, I do that from time to time. Hybrids require hard pruning in early spring because of their growth patterns. If left unpruned, you will find that they will not only fall short in blooms, but could make them rather unsightly as older shoots die off, and some new ones don’t make it through the winter. And one more thing, roses don’t have thorns, they have prickles, and are just outgrowths of the stems, whereas true thorns are modified stems. But don’t worry, I still call them thorns as I pluck them out of my forearm while pruning.
Again, tomorrow I will be leaving tips for carpet roses, and a little info on Old Garden Roses and climbing roses, so please come back if you have these varieties, or plan on getting any this year.
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