By
Angela Brightwell
Okay, here it is. Everything you need to know about making a rose garden. You asked for it! If you don’t want to read this rather long statement about rose gardening, hit the delete button now…
First: location, location, location!!! Most gardening failures in general are because the gardener has not selected the proper location for the amount of sun or shade that plants like. Roses require 8 to 10 hours of unbroken sunlight. Period. No exceptions. I used our north-facing front yard for my garden, as there are no trees to block sun from morning ‘til evening each day. DO NOT plant a rose where your house or any other house will provide shade…..no trees either.
Next decide how big you want it to be. I have about 30 bushes in my rose garden proper, and then another 15 or 20 planted elsewhere, but the real show happens when they are grouped together in a formal arrangement. You can make a square garden like the Biltmore House rose garden or a round one like the Brightwell House rose garden. Allow about 5 feet of space for each bush you plan to plant, as you will need to get in and around them to spray and dead head. I come out of my garden looking like I just came from a war zone sometimes broken and bleeding…roses seem to attack and defend their space. I don’t know how much space you are going to allot for your garden so you will have to stake out your space to determine how many bushes you will need.
There are several types of roses to consider. Size does matter!!! Don’t let anyone tell you differently!! You will notice that all roses are tagged by species. The tag will say: grandiflora, floribunda, hybrid tea or climbing.
Grandifloras-the tallest and most stately of all bushes. Mine are at least 8 feet tall by June (I prune in December or January to about waist height, so it takes them until then to get back to their full size). If you are going to make a large garden in a square or rectangle, the grandifloras are a good choice for the back, as they tower over all other types of roses. They are prolific bloomers, usually three per stem, and will bloom all season provided they are fertilized properly and dead headed. They are well resistant to disease as well.
Hybrid Tea roses-for a second tier in a rose garden these are excellent choices as they never get as tall as a grandiflora. They come in a multitude of different colors (and bi-colors) and some have wonderful scent. These are the roses most often used in a floral arrangement as you will have a single rose on a single stem. Most other roses have more than one per stem. These are great for cut flowers, although I can’t bring myself to cut a single rose in my garden, even if there are thousands blooming. They are not disease resistant, although the tag will say that they are. It doesn’t really matter how resistant any of them say that they are…you will still have to spray them all anyway.
Florabundas-are usually not more than 4 feet tall and are very bushy, and have hundreds of smaller blooms, multiples on each fragile stem. One thing to consider though, some are single (that means only one layer of petals on the flower) and some are “doubles” which means there are multiple layers of petals. They bloom in waves…you will have hundreds on each bush, then just a few, then hundreds again. They tend not to get black spot as badly as other roses…more on (dastardly) black spot later.
Climbing roses do not climb-they just get real tall and need to be tied up to something. Some are ever blooming and some only bloom once in the spring and that’s it for the year (BOOOO!) I do not recommend climbing roses unless you have a trellis to tie them too because they need all the sunshine that the others do and what ever you tie them too, has to allow for the sun. I have several of them, and not especially ecstatic about any of them.
A new rose on the scene the past couple of years is called the “knock out” rose. It looks like a floribunda and is absolutely the ONLY rose that will not get diseases!!! My own objection to this is that the flowers are usually single and only come in red. I am sure that within the next few years they will breed them in other colors and I have heard that they now have doubles, but I haven’t seen them yet. When they come in other colors I will probably get some…as it is, I have enough red ones, and not especially crazy about single petals, either.
You can buy bare root roses (they come with the roots wrapped in plastic) or container roses that come in a pot of dirt. I have bought them both ways. I always buy my roses at WALMART! I have ordered expensive Jackson and Perkins roses from Oregon, and have been so disappointed with their performance. Most roses come from Tyler Texas and are cheaper and heartier than the ones from the Pacific Northwest!!! Also, Wal-Mart and Home Depot get them from local growers. Just make sure whatever roses you pick have at least 3 hearty canes and are leafing out (esp. this time of year).
Now that I have this out of the way, you decide on the color, size and scent. Pick out how many of them you need.
What you will need:
Wheel barrow or large bucket
Post hole diggers
1 bag of organic compost for every three roses ***you said that your soil is heavy clay. If you dig a hole, can you poke your little finger into the side of the hole? If you can’t make a dent in it, you are going to need to compost, and probably should at any rate.
Boxes of PENNINGTON ROSE FOOD!!!! Do not use Miracle Grow!!! You will have beautiful leaves and NO blooms. Pennington comes in a 4 pound box and you will need about a handful per rose, per month. I have tried many other kinds of fertilizer and NOTHING produces massive amounts of blooms like Pennington.
Mulch-I have tried every kind of mulch on the market except the rubber stuff that they sell now that is hideously expensive, but will last forever and look like shit forever. DO NOT USE ANY PINE PRODUCTS!!!!NOT PINE STRAW OR PINE BARK!!! Pine carries a white fungus that will ruin your roses and the rose sprays won’t save them, even though they say they will. Use hardwood mulch. I gave up the whole organic mulching stuff and laid down landscape fabric and covered that with pea gravel. It is much neater and never needs replacing and does not have any hidden disease causing organisms. I will send you a picture.
Dig holes 5 feet apart, about 2 and ½ feet deep, and at least 2 feet across. Don’t skimp on the size and depth of the holes. After removing the sod, mix the remaining soil with the compost. This will loosen up the soil and keep it that way. Packing hard clay around a new rose is like wrapping a newborn baby in duct tape!!!!. They simply can’t move and put down their tender root systems in hard packed clay.
Now!! If you bought bare root roses (the ones in plastic wrap), unwrap them and put them in a bucket full of water for at least an hour prior to planting. Put the dirt compost mixture in a mound in the center of the hole and spread the roots around the mound then fill in with dirt/.compost mixture.
If they are already in a pot, Gently Gently Gently pull the rose out of the pot (I just turn it upside down and let it fall out…I catch it of course) and run water over the root ball to separate the roots a bit. Measure the root ball by the depth of the hole…you do not want to cover the “knees”of the rose with dirt. Better to have it too shallow than too deep, so fill in the hole with compost/dirt mixture until the root ball is level with the rest of the ground. Fill around the root ball with dirt/compost mixture until it is level with the ground. Water. The dirt/compost will sink somewhat, so add dirt a little at a time until it no longer sinks after the water soaks in. So far so good. Repeat for all roses.
Now that you are drop dead exhausted, you need to consider mulch. Hopefully you will have brought the mulch home with you when you bought the roses. Weeds and grass will grow up around your roses and ruin the look of your garden. My pea gravel works so well and until I finally gave up and did it that way I was spending probably a hundred dollars a year just on hard wood mulch (I have a big garden). It becomes part of the dirt after just one year, and you have to re-do it. Also, if you have Bermuda grass or any grass that is particularly invasive, the landscape fabric below the mulch will keep maintenance down.
So now you think are finished?
You will need:
2 gallon sprayer
Ortho rose disease control liquid concentrate
SEVIN liquid insect killer
They make a 2-in-one liquid concentrate too, but it doesn’t work as well as mixing your own. Roses get aphids (little white insects that eat the buds and ruin the blooms). Roses get Japanese Beetles, usually not until July, but will ruin a crop of roses like locust in a wheat field. Roses get the dastardly BLACK SPOT, which kills off the leaves and is contagious like the flu…one gets it they all do. Roses get powdery mildew. So be prepared to run outside after it rains, and once a week otherwise, to re-spray the roses.
You must dead head the spent blooms or your roses won’t re- bloom properly. I go out into my garden with a Wal-Mart bag on my arm and my nippers. I cut the stem at the first 5 leaf junction. This will encourage re-growth and re-bloom. I do this about 2 times a week. Also, even if you spray and spray you will occasionally have a leaf that gets a (dastardly) black spot on it, which, if not removed, will then turn yellow, then fall off. Pull off any leaf that has a black spot on it. No, it won’t go away and it will infect other leaves on the same plant and the other rose bushes in your garden. Put any infected leaves in the Wal-Mart bag along with the dead blooms.
So there!! If this hasn’t ruined all desire to make a rose garden nothing will ever stop you!! SO GO FOR IT!!!
That’s all I have to say about roses.
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