Roses

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Coming up Roses

By Evelyn Alemanni

January is the perfect month to create your own bit of “rose heaven”. This month, Sunshine Gardens has the largest number of varieties to choose from (248!) and the weather is perfect for getting your new plants off to a good start.  

Dollar for dollar, roses offer the best return on your landscape investment in terms of flower production, visual enjoyment, fragrance and flexibility in the landscape. There are forms for every purpose – climbers to go up walls and across fences, ground cover roses to spread onto hillsides, mini roses for those short on space, shrub roses, ramblers, pillars. There’s a type of rose for nearly every landscape application except shade, and every color except blue.

Did you know that roses are drought tolerant? The key is good root development which is enhanced by great soil and regular applications of organic mulch.

Roses should be planted in a location where they’ll receive at least six hours of sun each day. Remember, they are also thirsty and need at least one inch of water each week. They like soil rich in organic material, so when backfilling the planting hole, be sure to include compost. Roses also like a generous application of mulch. I use composted stable shavings, but any organic mulch is great.

Many complete rose fertilizers are on the market, but here’s the recipe for the “secret sauce” I use: 2 cups Milorganite, 1 cup cottonseed meal, 1 cup alfalfa meal, 1 tablespoon humate, ½ teaspoon mychorhizzae, 1 teaspoon soil polymer (the water-absorbing crystals), 1 tablespoon Epsom salt. Mix these ingredients, then apply one cup per plant, distributing it in a circle about 5” from the canes. Water well. You can also add some bone meal or blood meal, but if you share your garden with dogs, they will do whatever they can to get to the bone and blood meal, even if it means digging up your new rose. Speaking of dogs, caring for your roses is a similar process. Keep them fed and watered! Cut the flowers and enjoy them indoors because cutting them promotes more flower growth.

If fragrance is important to you, remember that in general, lavendar/purple-hued roses have the best fragrance. Try Angel Face, Neptune, Sterling Silver, Fragrant Plum, Blue Girl, and Blue Nile. English garden roses hybridized by David Austin are characterized by wonderful fragrance, particularly Gertrude Jekyll and Evelyn.

To help you decide which roses to add to your garden, it’s helpful to make a list of what’s there now, including color and growth habit, then think about the colors and forms you want to add.

Remember that your existing roses need some work at this time of year. Pruning is important, as most roses bloom on new wood. Besides that, they need a rest. I always prune my roses in that quiet week between Christmas and New Year, but as long as you do it before mid-February, you’ll be just fine. Pruning is simple. For bushes, cut the canes back to about 14 to 18 inches high. Do this even if there are blooms. Remove all branches less than ¼” thick. Remove all crossing branches. Remove dead, diseased, or damaged wood. Cut at a 45 degree angle, just above an outward-facing bud. Remove all the leaves and put them on the compost pile. Spray what’s left with dormant spray and you’re done.

To prune climbing roses, do the same as above, but cut the laterals back to 3 to 6 inches to stimulate flower production. If necessary, tie the canes horizontally to a support.

Rose favorites:

Some wonderful, classic roses that have proved their garden-worthiness over the years include Double Delight, Peace, Abraham Lincoln, New Day, New Zealand, The Fairy, Iceberg, Flutterbye, and Bonica. These plants are strong, disease-resistant, and produce flowers all summer long.

Other roses to try – these are specially selected for their performance in hot and dry climates: Any of the Knockout series of shrub roses, any of the Meidiland series, Altissimo, Barbara Streissand, Bewitched, Flowergirl, Moonstone, Red Fairy, Just Joey, Marilyn Monroe, Valentine’s Day, Berries ‘n’ Cream, Hot Cocoa, Pearly Gates, Graham Thomas, Sally Holmes, Polka, Fourth of July, William Baffin.

All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so. Joseph Joubert
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