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                                                                       can see your roses.

 New Dawn and Don   Lyuba Teakell's Polka

Juan from the Garden

of Charlotte Hensley            

                                                Rosie O'donnell 

 

Wayne Bishops Tropicanna

 Building a Rose Garden is one of my favorite things to do. The labor can be intensive if you rush the job but if you take your time and enjoy the experience it can be fun and very rewarding. In the fallowing article I will give you some insights into building a formal Rose bed.  In this instance the word "formal" just means that the bed will be dedicated to roses.  This is my favorite type of rose bed because the roses are much easier to keep free from disease and pest when an area in the yard can be designated for them alone. 

In the distant (ha ha) past I have just jumped in and started throwing the garden together.  The outcome though sometimes ok was never assured and it wasn't the way I did it for my customers.  Doing a little bit of planning up front will make the results and finished product much better.There are several things you need to consider before starting your bed. 

What kind of roses do you want to grow? 

A bed of Mini Roses (2 foot separation)can have a large number of roses in a relative small area where many shrubs require 5' of serration to grow to their full potential. The rule of thumb I follow is to take what the book says about size and add at least a foot to it for growing in Oklahoma. 

 Does the chosen location have enough sun to grow rose?

 

Roses growing in the shade is a myth perpetuated by people trying to sell you what you want rather than what is available.  Roses require 6 hours of sun a day to thrive.  If you can choose between morning or afternoon sun in Oklahoma, choose morning.  The afternoon sun in July and August is very stiffening and even the hardest roses will show signs of stress.  To determine how much sun an area gets you may choose to take a light meter out to the location every hour throughout the day and check it to see if you are getting optimal light for at least 6 hours.  Another option is to use a new product on the market called a Sun Stick.  You stick it in the ground early in the morning and check it in the evening and a color change on the color strip will indicate how much sun the location received.  It must get at least 6 hours of sun to indicate full sun.  The Sun Sticks and refills are available here at Roses inc for a minimal price.   

 

Don't build your bed in an area where water pools or the ground does not perk well. 

 

Rose roots must breath and they, like us, can not breath under water.  Plan your garden in a location that sheds water or allows it to soak in.(perk) To test your soil for proper drainage dig a hole in the ground about the size of a 3 gallon pail.  Pour the hole full of water and check the time it requires it to drain completely.  If the time required exceeds 30 minutes you should consider conditioning the soil to a depth of two feet or the easier choice is to build a raised bed. 

 Trees, ivy, and many shrubs have roots that are too invasive to have roses planted close to them.  The only way to assure yourself that the roots will not be a problem is to dig up the roots and kill the source plant.  Once again if that is not practical you can build a raised bed with 2 layers of landscape cloth(weed barrier) on the ground prior to adding the soil to the bed.  Two layers will stop the unwanted roots from invading the roses space for several years. 

 Roses grown in areas that are completely protected from air flow will fail.  Thick hedges or any type of planting that stops air circulation must be avoided.

 Many areas of Oklahoma have resident populations of voles and gophers and they do not have to be in your yard to be a problem for your roses.  A single gopher can dig 40 foot of tunnel in a single night so the fact that he is in your neighbors yard today has little bearing as to his location tomorrow.  The voles and gophers can be killed but the job must be done by someone who understands their feeding habits and if the neighbor doesn't kill his it will only be a matter of time before they are also yours.  Trapping the critters is totaling ineffective and mole bait will not kill or deter voles or gophers.  If you are in an area where the rodents are a problem and save the entire neighborhood taking action against them your only out is to poison their tunnels on a monthly basis or build a gopher cage around your roses.  To build a gopher cage you will need several feet of chicken wire with 1 inch or smaller openings.  Dig a hole at least the size of a 5 gallon bucket and line the hole with the wire leaving enough wire protruding from the hole to fold down next to the roses trunk.  Plant the rose inside the cage and fold the wire over on top of the ground to a point where it touches the roses trunk.  At the trunk be sure to fold the wire back on itself to stop the sharp ends of the wire from damaging the rose. 

 Many of the pest control and lawn care companies use a post emergent herbicide on lawns.  If they use it on yours or the neighbors and the wind is putting your roses down wind from the application they will be adversely affected.  So when planning your garden take into consideration not only your lawn care requirements and practices but those of your neighbors.

 

Next month I will give you some of my thoughts on what to use in your raised beds for growing medium.

 

Yes I know you are thinking that

I must be crazy, "For the fun of it" .

 Pruning roses ranks right up there with going to the dentist for a lot of gardeners.  "Will I cut them wrong?" "What if I cut off to much?"  "What if I don't cut off enough." Now I will grant you that that last one is not often a problem.  I believe that a large percent of rose growers fail to cut off enough. Let me break up the pruning into individual parts.

The first thing we must do when pruning roses is remember the 4 D's of pruning.  Dead:  Nothing dead is left behind. Diseased: we take off any canes or leaves that show signs of disease.   Damaged: Damage can be the result of canes rubbing together or a bit too much Ice or the careless use of a string trimmer or, well you get the message.  Then there is the famous # 4.  Dinkie: Any cane that is less than pencil size.  After removing the 4 D's you have come a long way on the pruning job.  Next you should remove the old wood.  It is a myth that roses grow old and must be replaced.  If you remove the 4 year old wood from the bush each year than the rose will flourish for many, many years.  You can tell the 4 year old wood because it has bark on it.  And yes on a lot of your roses it will require a saw to remove it because you have been reluctant to remove such big nice canes.  If all you have left just above the bud union is old canes you should not take them all off but only leave a couple this year and than next year you can remove the others as new canes will have been produced to take their place.  After that you can remove the 4 year old canes each year and the rose will reward you with lush rapid growth with leaves all the way to the ground. I know it can be a real tooth clincher to cut off such big canes but trust me you will be glad you did.

 

What about climbers?  Everything above applies to climbers as well.  The difference in pruning climbers is that you leave about 4 to 6 pencil or larger size canes long enough to reach the top of the fence or arbor that the rose is supported by.  You should also leave some side branching canes depending on how you want the rose to grow.  I will talk about training more next month.

 

I will close with the most important things I want you to remember about pruning your roses.  Relax and see yourself as an "AR-tist".  Roses are very resilient and will recover and grow better from a hard prune then they will if you leave to much.  Lastly, do not prune them yet.  It will get cold again and since pruning spurs growth the new growth will be killed by the cold weather that is still going to come.  Remember to prune when the forsythia blooms.  And is you need a forsythia bush to go by we have them here at Roses inc. for you to plant is your garden.