Many of my roses are in beds prepared nearly 30 years ago, and although there have been some replacements, most of the bushes are those planted then.
With little opportunity to rework the soil, it became extremely acidic over the years, down to pH 4 to 4.5.
Last year, I removed the mulch and worked in some ground limestone in a couple of doses, six months apart, but the soil is still far more acid than is recommended for growing roses. And yet these rose bushes are growing and producing reasonably well.
One of the original beds serves as a check for spray treatments. Unfortunately, it has had no chemical protection against diseases and insects for 12 years. Yet even here, the roses are still living and giving some bloom.
One of the roses I tend at the Montclair (New Jersey) Garden Center had wet feet during the winter and heaved more than 6” inches out of the ground.
By the time I got around to replanting it, it was growing so lustily that I decided to let well enough alone. Nevertheless, it keeps blooming, with its roots showing like legs.
During spring pruning in my garden, I removed one rose as dead and threw it on the storage pile of peat moss. It promptly came back to life and is blooming in pure peat.
A few new roses I picked this spring remained dormant for weeks. I finally whacked them back to practically ground level, and now they are extra-sturdy bushes.
Winter Protection Is Still Unnecessary In New Jersey
And in most states with a similar climate. I have said for years that the time, energy, and expense of hauling in the soil to hilt up roses for winter and cart it off again in the spring was wasted in my area.
Some have asked, “But suppose you get a really bad winter?”
Well, we had one last year, the worst in the history of our weather bureau. But, none of the 600 roses in my garden or the 250 at the Montclair Garden Center succumbed.
True, I had to prune most bushes much lower than usual last spring but probably no lower than if there had been an 8” inch of soil mound. And if I had had to lug in and out all that soil personally, I’d have died instead of the rose canes.
An occasional severe winter may be a blessing in disguise. I am not an advocate of hard pruning by man each season, but when nature forces a rose to renew itself, this may add years to the life of a bush.
And when nature does it, the results are quite different from our deliberate whacking back of a healthy sound cane.
Roses in Dormancy
Roses have apical dominance. That is, the bud nearest the top of the cane is ready to come out of dormancy and grow; the buds further down the cane are more and more dormant.
If a good cane is cut to one of these low buds, first flowering is delayed at least a week, often longer.
But when a cane is killed back by winter, the top sound bud near the base is ready to start, and blooming occurs during the normal period after pruning. So there was magnificent June bloom on the bushes that had to be pruned drastically in spring.
Strong new canes have replaced much of the old wood. Nature permitting, these replacement canes will have moderate to high pruning another season; hard pruning would mean only the loss of carbohydrates manufactured by the foliage and stored in the canes during the summer.
Summer Pruning Is Continuous
Removal of spent blooms is a pruning operation and should be performed with the same care as spring pruning. Each cut is made just above a leaf with a viable bud in its axil.
With established roses, this goes back to the first five-leaflet leaf or even several below that if the bush is getting too tall for its location.
With new roses, the cut may have to be made at a three-leaflet leaf if there is a visible bud. Some roses, especially new roses, produce blind shoots with no terminal bud.
In such cases, the sooner the stem is cut back to a leaf with a bud, the better; otherwise, it may be a long time before you get a bloom.
Keeping your eyes open during the almost daily removal of spent blooms means that suckers can be detected before they seriously sap the strength of the budded rose.
Some bushes continue to sucker year after year no matter how carefully this understock growth is cut out, so they need a continuous inspection.
Winter Injury
It is an axiom among arborists that winter injury of trees and shrubs is always worse than it initially seems. Evidence of cold injury may show up for months and even years afterward.
Roses are no exception, although they come out better than most shrubs because of their ability to start over from the ground up.
Many canes normally start in spring but die back during the summer, requiring a lot of supplementary pruning.
Yellowing leaves often indicate a gradually dying cane that can usually be cut out without permanent harm. Some of this happens every summer; after a severe winter, there is much more of it, but there is still no cause for alarm.
Pruning Climbing Roses
The pruning manuals say that some older canes of climbing roses should be removed, each slimmer and new canes tied up in their place.
My climbers, which continue to give masses of bloom, are in too much of a tangle to separate new from old, and such an operation would be most disconcerting to the catbirds nesting there. So I content myself shortening the laterals growing out from the older canes.
Removing Raded Flowers
I do not remove fading flowers from varieties that bloom only once because I want the joy of their scarlet seed hips in autumn. Instead, I cut off such dead flowers as I can reach on repeat-blooming climbers.
Floribundas are often suggested as an easy answer to rose lovers who want to avoid hard work. Floribundas are highly desirable. They are hardy; they grow in all kinds of situations; they provide masses of cheer but do not save time.
During the blooming season, hybrid teas can be kept looking respectable in a fraction of the time required for floribundas.
The flowers on the spray fade at different times; the center flower usually needs to be removed first, some side flowers a day or two later, and then, on the third or fourth trip, you can cut back the full spray to a bud that will grow.
Some floribundas look more disreputable than others if they are not groomed properly. ‘Spartan’ is one of my favorites. I glory in its orange-red color, attractive reddish new foliage, and large double blooms.
And yet this variety, more than any other, keeps me scurrying to the Garden Center every day during June to keep it slicked up; its fading flowers are too conspicuous in a bed planted along a driveway in continuous use.
When July comes, and I can reduce the number of visits, I am thankful that ‘Spartan’ blooms in waves and that there is a breathing spell of mostly green foliage in between.
On the other hand, the low floribunda ‘Pinkie’ blooms almost continuously and bountifully, but it is quite innocuous in its fading state; little harm is done if I cannot keep up with it.
In my garden, I can’t sit contentedly with fading sprays of ‘Else Poulsen’ in my vision, but ‘Betty Prior’ sheds her petals quickly and cleanly and can be neglected a bit.
Of course, it is all to the good that a disheveled appearance forces a fast cutting back, for this is the quickest and best way to keep roses blooming through the summer, the other requirement being lots of water.
It Pays To Know Rose Habits
Roses are meant to be lived with, and we should know them in all stages of development before they become a permanent part of the family.
Some people are annoyed by certain varietal habits; others overlook them. Some of the dazzling orange-reds do unusual things in hot weather.
Given a couple of days with temperatures in the high nineties and many blooms of ‘Independence’ turn pink, clashing with the true scarlet of the normal flowers.
The petals of ‘Margo Koster’ and ‘Cocorico’ turn nearly white in hot weather, those of ‘Geranium Red’ almost black, and ‘Embers’ becomes most assuredly burnt embers.
Some roses, such as ‘Pinocchio,’ are spotted in their old age; others, like red `Mirandy,’ turn bluish.
Succession Of Blooms
Roses may be chosen for a succession of blooms. People who know about the early-flowering species roses, such as Rosa hugonis and R. primula, and the intermediate rugosa hybrids, such as ‘Agnes’ and ‘Vanguard’ may need to realize that some hybrid teas may be depended upon for early bloom.
‘Etoile de Hollande’ starts the season in my garden a week or more before most other red hybrid teas and continues in this order in successive bloom periods through the summer.
Low polyanthas ‘Pinkie’ and ‘Margo Koster’ bloom relatively early, but shrub polyanthas ‘The Fairy’ and ‘Orange Triumph’ come into first bloom when most of the hybrid teas are finishing their first cycle. Such difference in timing adds interest to the garden and helps to keep it continually colorful.
Weeds Are Still A Problem
I have stated, in print, that a good mulch reduces weeding by about 90% percent. Unfortunately, I can’t entirely agree with that statement this year.
I’ve been experimenting with mulches and have had to do a lot of hand weeding. If a mulch is too thin, the weeds come through; if it is too thick, the roses may react adversely.
Grass clippings were a complete washout for me. The weeds grew like crazy, and it was harder to get them out by hand than it would have been to keep bare soil cultivated.
Leaves were quite an improvement, but I needed more of them. Bagasse, sugar cane pulp, is now popular in this area and may be obtained from poultry supply houses.
Its appearance needed to be neater for me to use it in the rose living room near the house, but it was an inexpensive solution for the beds back of the garage.
I put it on moderately thick, but there were still some weeds. I saw it applied deeper in another garden, and some of the rose foliage reacted to such a deep mulch.
The mail brought a sample of a rose leaf with bright yellow veins and a request for control measures. I replied that it was a physiological effect, a nutrient deficiency enhanced by the breaking down of a mulch.
Later, I found a picture of a rose leaf in The Care and Feeding of Garden Plants, exactly like the specimen received.
It was shown as a sample of oxygen deficiency. That could come from water-logged soil; it could also come from a too-deep mulch. A coarse vermiculite was also tested as a mulch.
It proved to be an excellent soil conditioner, but it worked itself into the soil too rapidly to deter weeds.
A by-product of broom making was sent for trial, said to last five years. It may not break down, but the weeds push through the bristles.
I have ended up with buckwheat hulls still my favorite mulch, but even this has problems—too thin, the weeds come through, more than an inch thick, the rose may protest.
Spraying Is No Longer A Chore
Until I was reduced to caring for roses without help and with insufficient energy to pump a compressed air sprayer or vigor to carry a knapsack on my back, I looked askance at a hose sprayer.
Two seasons’ trial proved me wrong, but I still believed that a hose attachment would not work for the back garden where the roses are more than 200′ feet from the faucet on the house. So I bought another length of hose last year and again proved myself wrong.
Despite poor water pressure, the hose sprayer with an extension tube and deflector is doing a speedy job in that back garden.
In testing various pesticide mixtures, I have learned that practically everything, including foliar fertilizers, can be mixed and applied via a hose, provided I make the mixture in a separate jar and strain it into the hose jar through a wire tea strainer.
The New Roses Are Wonderful
Last spring, I received more new roses for testing than usual, and a greater percentage of these seem outstanding.
The new roses have fine foliage, sturdy bushes, and beautiful flowers. There is every conceivable shade of red and near-red. Some blend well together; some will require buffers in between.
I should not have planted the glowing red of War Dance’ next to the dark red of ‘John S. Armstrong,’ which looks like an improved ‘Roundelay’ and yet has none in its parentage, being a cross of ‘Charlotte Armstrong’ with an unnamed seedling.
War Dance’ has ‘Roundelay’ as a parent, married to ‘Crimson Glory,’ and yet has little resemblance to it in color or form. There is a dusky red in the garden, with the outside of the bud nearly black but opening to some hint of orange.
There are a couple of colors, with the outer edges of the petals crimson and the inner part white or cream, but both are quite different from `Kordes Perfecta.’ A very clear orange has been under test number for three years; it is well worthy of a name.
Subdued enough to blend with almost anything but charming in a somewhat old-fashioned way are `Newsace’ and ‘Lucky Piece.’ The latter, a pale peach-salmon pink with many petals, has excellent form in its open bloom.
Not at all subdued, but my favorite of this year’s testing is that huge shocking pink affair known to me only as C5-503A.*
It is reminiscent of a pink Oriental poppy in size, color, and somewhat wavy petals. It lasts a long time and remains attractive even as it ages. I have heard rumors that this will be called by its introducers the “rose of the year” for 1962. It has my vote!
44659 by Cynthia Westcott