Roses: Care and Maintenance

Roses can be high maintenance or they can be low maintenance. It just depends on what kind of roses you have and how many.
Late February and early March is when serious pruning is done. The general rule of thumb is about the time that Forsythia starts to bloom or Presidents Day.
I prune my hybrid teas back to about two feet high and make my cut just about an inch above an outward facing bud eye. I cut at an angle away from the bud eye so that water will run away from the bud eye instead of over it. Cut all dead canes back to the base of the bush. All canes that are smaller than a pencil in diameter should be removed from the center of the bush for better air circulation. This will help with control of black spot.
Climbing, running, and old garden roses should only have the dead wood cut out at this time. These roses bloom on last year’s growth, so any pruning to these bushes should be done within a two week period after they finish blooming. Even then I don’t recommend heavy pruning unless it is to contain a bush that has overgrown its spot.
Shrub, miniature, and carpet roses can be pruned at this time also. I like to cut the shrub back to about waist high or in the three foot range. Miniature and carpet roses usually get pruned no more than one third.
Now, you will need to gather all dead, diseased foliage and canes and dispose of it from your garden area help get rid of as much of the black spot fungi as possible. This is a good time to spray with lime sulfur to help control fungi that are hiding in the old mulch and top layer of soil. Be sure and spray all parts of the rose plant as well as the surrounding area. Do not put the pruned canes or the foliage from the roses in your compost pile. The fungi will infect your compost pile and render it useless to put back around your roses.
I spray my hybrid teas once a week with a good fungicide and all the others every two weeks with exception of the Knockout variety. Knockout roses for the most part do not need to be sprayed at all. I spray them about once a month just for good measure. The fungicides that I use are Daconil, Mancozeb, and Banner Maxx. I also like to rotate these chemicals to keep fungi from building up an immunity to them. If you only have a few roses that are susceptible to disease, you can use a product named “Once and Done” by Bayer. You mix it up and pour it around the base of the bush and you are done for about 45 to 60 days. If you have a lot of roses you need to break out the spray rig and get busy.
I like to give all my rose bushes a good dose of organic fertilizer this time of year. I use composted leaves, alfalfa meal, bone meal, cottonseed meal, fish emulsion, blood meal, and my favorite, worm castings. The organics are slow release and will better condition the soil for uptake by the plant.
This should get you through till April, when I plan to give you your next installment in rose care.

Roses (The Queen of Flowers)

Some of the most beautiful flowers grown in the landscape today are roses. There are some 25,000 to 30,000 different rose cultivars grown around the world today and are grown for a variety of reasons. Roses make gorgeous cut flowers that you can show off in your home, give to your sweetheart or friends, make arrangements, or even exhibit in a show. You can use them to anchor your landscape or compliment your pool, deck, or patio. Some roses can even be successfully grown in containers.
Roses are fun, but can also be serious work. Some require little care and others demand a lot of time and money. If you have very little time that you can spend in your garden, I would suggest that you plant shrub or Earth-kind roses. The most popular of these roses would be the knockout roses. Others would be some of the David Austin and Buck roses. These roses require only a few hours a month maintenance and are very disease and pest resistant. If you have two to five hours a week to spend in your garden for rose maintenance, then I would suggest the old garden and old tea roses. Old tea roses are the ones that have been around since the pre- 1900’s. These would be the roses that your Grandmother grew and could also be found in an old cemetery. These roses are also fairly disease and pest resistant, but do require deadheading and some pruning. If you have five to eight hours a week to spend on maintenance, then you can go for the hybrid teas. They are known as the “Queen of the Flower Garden” and will be the most fragrant of all roses. They produce long stems and large showy blooms. These are the flowers that will take the big prizes at exhibitions. They are great to cut and take in the house. When placed in an arrangement in the house their fragrance will fill a room for days. These roses also demand a lot of care – pruning, deadheading, fertilizing, and spraying for pests and diseases.
Roses are amazing flowers and I can go on and on about them. Ms. Janet and I have two hundred plus roses in our garden and we love them. They are a lot of hard work, but the rewards are great. I love to go out and cut several stems from different roses, sneak in the house, and watch Ms. Janet’s face light up when I hand them to her.
I think roses should be a part of every garden. If you are serious about growing roses, I recommend that you join a local rose society and learn all you can from them. Ms. Janet and I belong to two rose societies and we learn something new at every meeting. It is a good place to ask questions, because there are usually at least three to five Consulting Rosarians there and can give good solid answers to your questions. They usually have made most of the mistakes already and can guide you through most anything. There are several good reference books that you can purchase also. Take the time to go to a rose show, observe and ask plenty of questions. Rose people love for you to ask questions about their roses. When you buy roses, always purchase from a reputable source.
If you have any questions, email me at colorsbytim@hotmail.com