Tips for growing the perfect roses
Tips for growing the perfect roses
Published Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 12:01 am / Updated at 5:09 pm
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Tips for growing the perfect roses
By Rhonda Stansberry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
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Roses: tips to get started
Omaha rose grower Don Swanson said that potential rose gardeners should mind a few basic rules:
>> Pick the rose you want for its size and color. Shrub and floribunda roses are less trouble typically. Pick the right rose for your site. Does the rose spread? Is it a climber? Is it vigorous? Does it need a lot of attention?
>> Prepare the soil well. Use an organic mulch, such as OmaGro, perlite (to keep the soil loose) and sphagnum peat moss (to help hold moisture).
>> Provide six or more hours of sunlight a day.
>> Provide 1 to 2 inches of water per week, at the base of the plant. Getting the leaves wet, especially if watering too late in the day, can set the stage for black spot.
>> If a potted rose is kept well watered, you can plant it from spring into the end of September. Bare-root roses, those that are not potted when they arrive by mail-order, need to be potted in April, not later.
Kathleen Cue, a horticulturist for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension for Douglas and Sarpy Counties, had this to add about the current weather and rose-planting:
"As long as we're cycling with periods of cool temperatures, it's OK to plant roses. Also, since our nights have been cool, it gives plants relief from the higher daytime temperatures. The big thing is to maintain even soil moisture — not bone dry, not soggy wet. So as we cycle to hotter temperatures, check the soil moisture daily. Also, hot dry winds are hard on all plant tissues, so erecting a temporary windbreak (a bit of latticework mounted between two sturdy stakes) is a good idea.
Night-time temperatures can be as high as 76 degrees to be considered cool enough to plant roses."
Don't let the labels confuse you
>> Bush roses include hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas, patio roses and miniatures. Except for hybrid teas, all of these roses are full and bushy. Use them as you would any flowering shrub.
>> Are you planting things next to the roses? Make sure they have the same water, sun and air-circulation needs.
>> Pay attention to height. Many rose varieties can grow up to 20 feet high when mature.
>> Hybrid tea roses feature desirable characteristics such as fragrance and color, created by crossing the tea rose with certain hybrid roses. Hybrid teas produce large, long-stemmed roses and should be planted in groups rather than rows.
>> Floribunda roses have clusters of small to medium-size flowers, created by crossing polyantha (which have clusters of small flowers) and hybrid tea roses.
>> Grandifloras, which produce large to medium-size flower clusters on long stems, are created by crossing floribunda and hybrid tea roses. Grandifloras and floribundas are used as foundation plantings, hedges, accents and background plants.
>> Miniature roses have small blooms and tend to be grown in pots; they can be grown in good light indoors. Miniature and patio roses make excellent edging plants and also work well in groups in mixed borders or massed in beds.
>> Many Midlands rose growers value Buck roses because of their beauty and hardiness. Iowa State plant breeder Dr. Griffith Buck started breeding roses around 1950 using strains of cold-hardy roses combined with modern hybrid teas and others. His test was to plant them in a field and those that survived temperatures of 20-30 degrees below zero without any protection would be the seedlings he would choose to introduce. These disease-resistant roses also have been tested in Iowa's hot, humid summers. While other roses need protection in Zone 5, the Buck roses do not. Some protection in Zone 4 is advisable.
The rose is the ultimate flower, a symbol of love, beauty, friendship and fragrance. It's also the national flower, just as the eagle is the national bird. Roses even have their own month: June.
But the rose also has a reputation as a needy diva that will only grow for the gifted gardener.
Over the past two decades, rose breeders have quashed that stigma. The've introduced roses that bloom nearly continuously, requiring little care other than watering during a dry spell and pruning in early spring. Now, even the novice gardener can grow roses.
The rose varieties making brown thumbs green are known as landscape roses. Perhaps the best known landscape roses — carpet roses, introduced in the early 1990s, and Knock Out roses, introduced in 2000 — have become as common as yews and arborvitae in new neighborhoods.
Landscape roses are typically one-dimensional. They have few petals, like a wild rose. But they produce a mass of blooms and are available in a range of colors.
If they have a problem, it's that they look good from the street but they're not the iconic American beauties with long stems and many layers of petals.
But long-stem roses are where beginning rose gardeners often start. That's where Omahan Jerry Wegiel began a little over 10 years ago.
He started with four long-stemmed hybrid tea roses, ‘Mr. Lincoln,' and when three of the four plants died after one winter, he started over.
“He's brand new at this,” said Don Swanson, a master rose gardener and officer in the Omaha Rose Society. “But he's one of our most enthusiastic members.”
“That's totally correct. I'm a novice and I'm draggin' along a couple of newbies,” Wegiel said of his children, Julia, 8, and Jeremy, almost 10.
Wegiel's rose garden started as a gift to his wife after they bought their new house in 2001. Their home in the Cinnamon Creek subdivision near 180th and Q Streets had no landscaping. They planted one tree, as most bare-canvas homeowners do, but they were essentially looking at a sun-drenched landscape with no trees and no shade.
That's perfect for roses. They require six to eight hours of sun a day.
Before getting started, Wegiel researched roses online. He wasn't sure which he might like, but he wanted them to look like the long-stem beauties florists sell for Valentine's Day — and they should be fragrant.
“I've got three or four Knock Outs for the back yard, but I really don't like them,” Wegiel said, noting that he removed two of them recently. “A hybrid (tea rose) is more robust, more attractive. It has lush, green leaves and a long stem. It looks like a rose should.”
Ultimately, he bought the four ‘Mr. Lincoln' roses and several Knock Out roses to fill the gaps as he extended the front-yard rose bed to the back yard.
Relying on advice from friends, family and books, Wegiel and other beginners said they learned the importance of preparing the rose plant's bed, keeping up with watering, fertilizing and spraying for bugs and diseases, and removing dead blooms so that more will appear.
Wegiel also learned that mulch can lead to mold in a rainy season. Mold can take months to overcome and will suffocate roses. He also learned about Japanese beetles that can move in and quickly chew through leaves, buds and blooms. Now he knows to hand-pluck the pests and exterminate them in a bucket of soapy water.
While learning more about rose gardening, he met hard-core rose experts Mike and Anita Eckley of Bellevue. Mike Eckley is president of the Omaha Rose Society and the couple volunteer in various community rose gardens. They also have a garden that has been on past rose society tours.
Wegiel sees that kind of garden in his future. The count so far: 22 rose bushes, including three Knock Outs.
The 44-year-old business development manager for defense contractor Raytheon has already produced some winners. He and his children entered a recent rose show competition at Lauritzen Gardens and placed with 10 of 11 entries. And he's determined to have a show-worthy rose garden by this time next year.
He said he sees rose-growing as a way for young families to be outdoors together.
As for the evolution of his rose garden, he said he has a trip planned to a rose distributor in St. Joseph, Mo. There, he'll pick up a few hybrid tea roses that he's had trouble finding here.
“It's infectious. When they say you catch the bug, you really do.”
Tips for growing the perfect roses
Tips for growing the perfect roses
