Garden

[Rosehill_1]

Good to know, JJM, about the own root stock being better, and that the graft should be 2" below the soil line. My fragrant red roses which just died, are still in the ground and I can see the graft. Lots I need to learn.

If you cut your roses, it must be heavenly in your home with fragrance and beauty. One thing I need to do is learn how to prune roses, if I plant these new ones. You see, I don't have the faintest idea what I am doing. I have 3 double knockout pink roses near my lamp post, and I just get in there and chop them up when they get too tall. (I really don't care for these at all-I bought them because a nursery suggested them for ease of maintenance).

I bought about 6 old rose varieties about 15 years ago because I wanted to dry the petals and make potpourri. They became a real mess, (overgrown) and my husband would go to that area and try to make some rhyme or reason out of them. I had my business then, and my hubby was still working as a golf professional, so we had lots less time for yard work than we do now. He eventually tore them all out, along with 'New Dawn" Climbers which were on the arches around the fishpond. Those New Dawn could have impaled someone with huge thorns. And I mean huge. So our track record with roses has not been good. What I am looking for, are mannerly, easy care, not unruly bushes that I can cut flowers from, yet still have lots on the bush so that it looks good in the landscape.

I googled 'Easy Does It' rose and came up with an interesting thread from GardenWeb. Garden Web Here. One poster mentions that Easy Does It is a NYBG choice and they are a no spray rose garden. Another person said they found Easy Does It at Lowes. I may go and look there tomorrow. It wouldn't be an own root rose, but if I planted it correctly this time, I might have luck with it.

I seem to remember rugosas being large, unruly, huge roses bushes. Will have to check into that. I may not be remembering correctly. Do you like Chinas? I don't think I care for single petal roses. Thanks for the bunny photo. So, so sweet.

[JustJazzmom]

Here is what we give to homeowners who ask about care of roses and their problems.

Care of roses

Problems of roses

I mentioned the China rose or the rugosa because some folks want 'different' instead of all hybrid tea looking roses.

'New Dawn' are a vigorous disease resistant climber and can get out of bounds on arches or trellises. The secret to training any rose to an arch or trellis is to remove any stems that aren't going in the direction of the way the arch or trellis is. I had a 'Zephirine Drouhin', thornless raspberry pink rose trained to a rectangular shaped wooden trellis in the center of my rose garden until Superstorm Sandy decided to knock it over despite there being metal stakes embedded into 4 1 Qt. plastic pots with mortar inside to keep that trellis from blowing over. The stakes were not enough, I needed some ballast to keep that trellis from falling over. Sandy was too much for the trellis. I ended up cutting down both roses to about 18" and keeping them in the ground for the winter and in the spring I ended up donating them to Old Bethpage Village Restoration for a house that was having its landscape redone to the era the house was built. Last I hear the roses were being trained to grow on a split rail fence there.

One more thing-- bare root is not the same as own root. Bare root can be grafted or own root (without a graft).

I just did the same thing-- wrote a long post, hit the back button by mistake and 'poof' it went!

[Rosehill_1]

JJM, Queen of Sweden is beautiful. Thank you for the selection. I can see that there are many roses to consider. And, thank you for the 'care of roses' and 'problems of roses' links. They will be useful information for me to study. Your 'Zephirine Drouhin' rose color just makes me drool if it truly is a raspberry pink. I bet it was beautiful. Unbelievable, the power that Sandy had. So sad for all of the animals, plants, and homes that people lost. Luckily, there were not that many fatalities. How far from the water are you? I think it is great that you were able to donate the rose to the Bethpage Restoration. Perfect for them, as this is an antique rose, right? That is the proper thing to do…. to find a home for plants that are removed. We never did it with the roses we tore out here and I always have felt guilty about that.

[JustJazzmom]

On 5/4/2014 Rosehill said:

JJM, Queen of Sweden is beautiful. Thank you for the selection. I can see that there are many roses to consider. And, thank you for the 'care of roses' and 'problems of roses' links. They will be useful information for me to study. Your 'Zephirine Drouhin' rose color just makes me drool if it truly is a raspberry pink. I bet it was beautiful. Unbelievable, the power that Sandy had. So sad for all of the animals, plants, and homes that people lost. Luckily, there were not that many fatalities. How far from the water are you? I think it is great that you were able to donate the rose to the Bethpage Restoration. Perfect for them, as this is an antique rose, right? That is the proper thing to do…. to find a home for plants that are removed. We never did it with the roses we tore out here and I always have felt guilty about that.

I'm pretty much inland, I had a few friends who live in Long Beach and some of their front landscape was wiped out or had a lot of salt water damage,; fortunately for them due to the sandy soils that are along our south shores thanks to that Ice Age glacier, the salt percolated down and the damage was not as bad as expected to plants. Buildings were another story. Old Bethpage Village Restoration is a place in our County where historical residences were moved and preserved. Its not that the actual homes were there previously on the land. 'Zephrine Drouhin' is what is termed an old garden rose (a Bourbon rose according to the rose classification). I am grateful for my many resources so that no plant will go to the compost bin if possible.

We were without power at our house for 14 days and we stayed at my brother in law's (now sadly deceased last year) and at my Dad's house for that time frame (sadly deceased at the 1st of this month!) We knew that we could not rely on the 'kindness of relatives' in the future due to some of DH's health issues and we had installed last year a whole house natural gas generator installed here. We have only lost power for about 8 hours over last summer due to a transformer blowing in the neighborhood since then.

Depending on where you live-- Epsom salts are applied twice during the growing season - 1st application when the roses leaf out completely (towards end of April where I am) and again 2nd application in mid to late July. The granular rose food is done monthly during the growing season so in our area (April, May, June, July & August). No food is given in September or thereafter to start giving the signal to the roses to start storing food for the winter.

[Rosehill_1]

JustJazzmom {{ }} Hugs to you. Loosing two loved ones that close together is such a terribly sad thing. I know the feeling. My brother in law died almost 10 year ago due to a medical mistake, and then his wife, my sister died 6 months to the day after him. I will never forget the feeling of desperation.

I will be religious about applying the epsom salts.

Now I just need to get some roses. I went to my Lowes today and they had NOTHING. I don't elect to find any roses locally. I did buy some Lemom Thread False Cypress. I may not keep them if I research them and then decide against them. But they only had a few left and I was afraid to leave them and then find they were gone when I went back. Not sure if this is what I want at either end of the backside of the plot. Will have to think about it.

We have 3 iron arches that you walk under into 3 entrances to our fishpond. We used to have the 'New Dawn' roses there. Now there are clematis that are not doing well at all at all. Boxwood hedges are right next to the arches and maybe they are stealing the food, but I don't think so. I have never been able to grow clematis there. With all of this talk about roses, do you have a favorite climber that is a repeat bloomer with not so many thorns? We hang mini white lights on the arches in December, and my husband likes not having roses to deal with now, but if I could find something nice, I might be able to talk him into it. Also, the arches are a side to side U, which is somewhat three dimensional, if that makes sense. When you do a climbing rose on an arch like this-do you plant one on each side, or just train one to completely go over it?

[JustJazzmom]

When its a trellis that is U or rectangular shaped, you usually plant the rose on either side (the outer side) so that they grow up and join together at the top or bypass each other.

Clematises usually are grown along side the rose so that the clematis uses the canes of the rose as their support upward.

In my case I was different and planted the clematis on the interior of the arch since the arch was surrounded by soil without a pathway below it.

Recommended disease resistant roses: Amadeus, Golden Gate & Jasmina-- all are Kordes roses. New Dawn is another which you are familiar with. Earth Kind rose Sea Foam is another rose for climbing.

[sarpy]

When we moved into this house, the previous owners had school age children. The yard slopes slightly to the side. They leveled off an area and covered it with small rocks. That's where they put a swing set. Well, when we bought it, it was going to be such a big job to get rid of all that rock, we left it there. We call it our rock garden and have decorated it with grasses and sun plants. Looks really nice. So if anyone has a problem like this, you can do wonders with a problem.

[Rosehill_1]

I priced out the roses you recommended, JJM, and at Chamblees, the shipping was as much as the roses, so I didn't buy them. I know you are going to cringe when I tell you what I did. . I was in Tractor Supply buying fish food, and they had all their rose bushes marked down to a dollar. They are packaged in those compressed peat pots, the interior material is a coarse, bark like material. The canes are covered with wax and they look lifeless. I decided to take a chance. The worse that could happen is that I am out $10. I feel really guilty asking you, JJM, for advice when I didn't take your original advice. Not because I didn't agree with you, I am just on a tight budget with what I am doing here.

Should I pull the roses out of these pots and soak them in water overnight? If yes, what should the water level be? I have a large plastic container that is around 18" deep that they will all fit in. I seem to remember the bare root rose instructions from years ago saying to do this. I am going outside right now to dig out the lilies, and tomorrow morning, our son is coming over to help plant these. I bought a 3 cu ft bale of peat moss, 5 bags of composted manure, a bag of rose tone (3 lb size) and a similar size of blood meal. I thought I could mix all of the above with the soil that is in the garden. I also have lots of osmocote if you think this would be needed too. Am I on the right track, or in left field?

I am still going to order Amadeus climber/

[JustJazzmom]

Rosehill said: Should I pull the roses out of these pots and soak them in water overnight? If yes, what should the water level be? I have a large plastic container that is around 18" deep that they will all fit in. I seem to remember the bare root rose instructions from years ago saying to do this.

Yes, take them out of the peat pots and soak them in tepid water overnight. If you have some liquid fertilizer you can add it to the water.

Rosehill said:I bought a 3 cu ft bale of peat moss, 5 bags of composted manure, a bag of rose tone (3 lb size) and a similar size of blood meal. I also have lots of osmocote if you think this would be needed too.

Your soil is probably fine to NOT USE the peat moss. Hold off on using the Rose Tone until next month-- use about a half cup of this around each planted rose. I would use the composted manure first and mix it into the soil. It will give anything you plant a healthy start plus it also adds microbes to the soil that work on breaking down organic fertilizers. Synthetic fertilizers just feed the plants and not the microbes in the soil.

I've planted those kinds of roses in the past, the wax eventually disintegrates. Just make sure that the peat pots they are in are removed.You want the roses roots to get in contact with the soil as soon as possible.

[JustJazzmom]

Mix the composted manure into the soil before doing any digging. Amend the bed first then dig the holes. Make sure the planting hole is as deep as the root systems and twice as wide so you can really mix that soil well. I believe there are planting instructions on that rose culture info sheet I posted.