Garden

[JustJazzmom]

@shosh

Thank you for the compliments on the roses. I do not spray with anything-- no fungicides or insecticides. I do mulch around my roses so that helps prevent fungal spores from spraying upward (for the most part). Most of the roses I've now chosen are highly disease resistant. I also feed monthly during the growing season with Espoma Rose Tone. Epsom salts are due this month for me too.

For those who like ground cover roses-- the Drift and Flower Carpet ones are pretty good for disease resistance. At the extension, we 'peg' the canes to the ground so we get more blooms rather than let them look like unruly hair on your head with the canes going skyward. Many hybridizers now are breeding for disease resistance and now are looking into adding fragrance into many new hybrids coming onto the marketplace.

The Kordes roses are some of the best roses on the market for disease resistance and ease of care. If you go to Newflora.com or Roses Unlimited or Chamblees Roses, they have many Kordes roses available for sale. Best time to order is in January! for spring planting. The more popular ones sell out fast so during the winter, look at those companies for choices available. I have to say that all of the companies I deal with via mailorder, know what they are doing in terms of viability and packaging of their plants to the homeowner. I have 'Grande Amore' a red hybrid tea that is just lovely. 'Mandarin Ice' is anothe Kordes rose, a floribunda that has a lovely reverse color on its petals. My favorite-- which is tough to choose is 'Easy Does It', an apricot/coral floribunda with frilly petals and again highly disease resistant.

ETA: Newflora.com is the sole agent in the USA for Kordes roses (I think wholesalers use this site)-- extension used them for the Earth Kind trial garden several years ago (4 yrs ago) to purchase.

But if you see something on Newflora, you can find it elsewhere on the other 2 sites I mentioned (own root roses vs. grafted).

Failures for disease resistance in my garden-- 'Abbaye de Cluny' a Romantica rose,

'Autumn Sunblaze' a miniature orange red rose --severe leaf loss, 'Molineaux', a golden yellow English rose-- some leaf loss and 'Rainbow's End', a miniature rose-- severe leaf loss.

Most miniatures get fungal disease because of their proximity to the ground.

I used to have a regular purple Rose of Sharon that my father gave me-- I had to remove it because of the hundreds of seedlings it set everywhere!! I didn't want to spray 'Weed B Gon' all over the place!

I did have 'Aphrodite' Rose of Sharon (pink flowering with deeper pink throat) which was supposed to not set live seedlings in the amounts that regular purple Rose of Sharon did; but again, I had to abandon this shrub/tree because it did set live seedlings and I didn't want to keep weeding.

I replaced both hibiscuses with perennial hibiscuses (rose mallows) called 'Lord Baltimore' a strikingly tall red flowered perennial which is staked with green PVC stakes for the summer. Later on this month is should start blooming. I will take photos of it and post when it happens.

I also bought from a company in Va - mailorder, its companion--'Lady Baltimore' -- a deep pink hibiscus flower' and that currently is 2nd year in ground with one stalk that is staked! I hope it blooms this year!!I think I see a bud on it.

I do keep an eye out for Jap beetles on these two perennials too because Jap beetles do not discriminate between 'hibiscuses' be they perennials or shrubs.

We are in zone 7 here. I think most of NJ is zone 6 but its not that much of a temperature swing.

[mousiegirl]

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@JustJazzmom wrote:

This is what they look like mousiegirl:

and the type of damage they do: they skeletonize the leaves.

on a soybean leaf:

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We don't have these, Jazzmom, but we have the snails, which have skeletonized some of my hostas, the hostas that I didn't put diatamateous earth around.  I actually found a tiny snail on the underside of a Dahlia leaf yesterday, and this is five feet off the ground . I didn't realize that they would travel so high up.

[JustJazzmom]

This was the first year in so many years, I didn't see aphids on my roses. Usually the first warm day brings them out but this year there were none and I kept checking the buds for them. I think the prolonged snow cover on the landscape might have killed them (I like to think that) and I didn't have to buy ladybugs which I have used on them in the past.

I'm only dealing with rose sawfly damage on two roses which are not in my general rose garden-- 'Strike It Rich' and 'About Face' both grandiflora's have severe rose slug damage at their bottoms.

I hate that I couldn't find the culprits!! I usually squeeze them dead! This year I did not use a combination insecticide/fertilizer (Bayer 2 in 1 in NYS) initially as the first feeding in late April. Other states carry Bayer 3 in 1 but NYS doesn't carry it-- certain laws restricting that combination.

[mousiegirl]

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@JustJazzmom wrote:

This was the first year in so many years, I didn't see aphids on my roses. Usually the first warm day brings them out but this year there were none and I kept checking the buds for them. I think the prolonged snow cover on the landscape might have killed them (I like to think that) and I didn't have to buy ladybugs which I have used on them in the past.

I'm only dealing with rose sawfly damage on two roses which are not in my general rose garden-- 'Strike It Rich' and 'About Face' both grandiflora's have severe rose slug damage at their bottoms.

I hate that I couldn't find the culprits!! I usually squeeze them dead! This year I did not use a combination insecticide/fertilizer (Bayer 2 in 1 in NYS) initially as the first feeding in late April. Other states carry Bayer 3 in 1 but NYS doesn't carry it-- certain laws restricting that combination.

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Aside from blackspot, I am having a mildew issue this year with the roses, this crazy weather is taking it's tole, so I will use my organic fungicide today.  I usually just pick or cut the infected leaves off, but now that several roses have it, out comes the sprayer.

You may be right about the prolonged snow cover, though wouldn't know about that from experience.  

There were aphids here early on, but I either rinse them off with the hose, or run my fingers along the stems and then rinse off.  

Yesterday, I discovered the new growth on a shrub was covered with black bugs, so will look this up as I havn't seen this before.

[JustJazzmom]

Take a picture if you can mousiegirl. Maybe some of us can ID it.

Aphids are also black in color too besides that lime green color.

My Dad's mock orange used to get the black ones all the time. They probably still do-- the stems get covered with them--not a pretty picture to see.

[mousiegirl]

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@JustJazzmom wrote:

Take a picture if you can mousiegirl. Maybe some of us can ID it.

Aphids are also black in color too besides that lime green color.

My Dad's mock orange used to get the black ones all the time. They probably still do-- the stems get covered with them--not a pretty picture to see.

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The black specks didn't look like aphids to me, they were flat.  I removed them, Jazzmom, but if they return, I will take a picture.  I couldn't find them on google.  I looked up leaf damage by sawfly, and the holes are oblong like mine, and I think snails make round holes, so I will take a picture of my most damaged Hosta, and maybe you can tell me.

[JustJazzmom]

Slugs also make holes in hosta leaves too.-- I call slugs 'homeless snails'.

[mousiegirl]

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@JustJazzmom wrote:

Slugs also make holes in hosta leaves too.-- I call slugs 'homeless snails'.

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I havn't see a slug here for years, nor their trails, though we used to get banana slugs, enormous, which were tossed into an area with no plants.

[lulu2]

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@lucymo wrote:

@mousiegirl@JustJazzmom

Hi, I'm looking at your roses and have a question for you both.  Do you have Japanese Beetles eating your roses?  Here in southern Missouri they are eating everything in sight, especially roses.  They are even on our Pin Oaks.  we spray and spray and more come in.

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At the Jersey shore we have a lot of Japanese beetles this year.  They are doing a number on marigolds as well as the roses.

Years ago we hung these bag traps.  They were awful.  They attracted every beetle within miles.  They'd fall into the bag then rot.

I've tried soapy water, but nothing works as well as Sevin. (which I hate to use)

[mousiegirl]

Ambridge Rose