Roses inc Tulsa. Newsletter

In This Issue

Roses inc Tulsa.

June 2009

918-455-7673
rosesinctulsa@cox.net

With hot weather comes Spider Mites. The most common one to infect our roses here in Oklahoma is the 2 spotted spider mite named for the two brownish spots on its back. Spider Mites are very small, small enough in fact that my aging eyes are unable to see them without the help of a 30X microscope. Because they are so small it is not the mite that you look for but the damage it causes. Roses that have spider mites feeding on them will have leaves that, for the lack of a better term, look dirty. If you look to the underside of the leaf it will look as if it has grayish dirt covering it. If your eyes are very good or the infestation is bad you will probably be able to make out some very small webs on the leaves around the leaf ribs. Spider mites left to run amuck will kill a rose bush in many cases so we must react quickly when they are suspected.

Spider mites as individuals are not hard to kill. Hy-Yield 38 which is a Pyrethrum or Malathion will kill them quickly upon contact. A lot of Rosarians even use a water wand with a high pressure spray of water directed at the bottoms of the leaves to wash the mites from the leaves. The hope is that once washed off they can not get back to the leaves but the facts of the spider mites mode of movement do not substantiate that idea. However, there is no doubt that if you use the water wand enough the mites will be controlled. i.e. If you wash them off enough they will move on. Furthermore the frequent spray of water will interrupt there reproduction cycle and that is the secret to controlling them.

Spider mites reproduce very quickly in hot weather and because the above mentioned insecticides only kill the adult mites the eggs are left to hatch and reinvest the bush. Spider mites can reproduce themselves in three days during summer heat so the method that will work to control them is to spray with one of the above insecticides making sure to completely cover the foliage, wait three days and spray again to kill those mites that have hatched during the 3 days since your first spray before they have the chance to mature to lay more eggs.

Though the above methods are effective in controlling the spider mites they can be very time consuming for those who have many rose bushes. For those of you who have ten or more bushes the miticide Tetra San may be a better choice.. It is one of only a few mitaicides that is an ovicide. (kills the eggs). If the eggs are dead the reproduction cycle is broken and the mite problem will disappear over time. The important thing to remember when using Tetra San is that it does not kill the adult mites. It makes them unable to feed and hence they die after a few days but if you look at the leaves a day after you apply it you will see adult mites walking around but the normally clear green eggs will be turning brown before drying into very small black dots in appearance. If you want a total kill just add the Hy-Yield 38 or the Malathion to the Tetra San before spraying.

Of course we carry all of the above products at Roses inc. Tulsa along with some others that are used by people who want total annihilation of the mites. As always I am available to help you determine what pest are affecting your roses. Bring a few leaves in a plastic bag and I will use my new toy and project the pest on the computer screen for you to see magnified 120 times. If you are not interested in looking at it I will be happy to look at the leaves and send you home with the proper pesticide to meet your needs. It is just so much fun to see them running around the computer screen!

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Greetings!

It is June and what a strange spring we have had thus far. Out of the 31 days in May we had 22 that at least some precipitation fell from the sky. Here at Roses inc. we only have room inside the green house for our new Rose plants so the more established rose bushes must be outside and therefore subjected to whatever mother nature has in store. The positive side of this is that we barely had to water during 3 weeks of May. The down side was that I could not spray and when I took the chance it was washed off by a shower that came before the spray could dry and 30 gallons of spray was lost. Well now, the positive side of that was that we got to see which varieties of roses were truly resistant to black spot. If they didn't have spots after that they were no doubt resistant varieties. Of course the down side of that was that several of the rose bushes here at Roses inc. can't handle that much moisture without spray. Some of the rose bushes including the Knock outs began to show black spot and though I was able to spray toward the end of May the damage was done and the way the bushes looked was not what I wanted or you our friends and customers have come to expect. For that I am sorry.

Growing rose bushes in pots in the quantity that we do presents it own set of problems and I was trying to address one of those with the change in growing medium this year. In past years the growing medium was able to hold moisture very well. That was a good thing except that it meant some of the bushes held to much water and rotted the roots of those roses that were less mature. When watering 3000 bushes it is difficult to give each pot just the water it needs. I tried to alleviate that problem by changing to a different growing medium ,one that would drain more freely. That was my big mistake of the year. The new medium was so porous that it would not hold nutrients and the roses grew leggy and the color was poor. To fix that problem we had to repot many of the roses and prune them back at a time when they should have been ready for your garden. We will never use that mix again. It seems that no matter how many decades that I raise roses I stumble and fall now and then.

I want to thank all of our loyal customers who purchased roses from us this spring. Though the roses had the scars of disease past there were few if any that left our nursery with active disease present but sill they were not up to my standards. In an effort to reward those of you who purchased roses from us this spring I am planning a special offering in July. I will announce it in the July news letter. It isn't a special price on roses or a big sale but I think it is unprecedented to say the least and all you have to do is keep your receipt from any roses you have purchased from Roses inc. this year from May 1 until July 1 to qualify. And by the way, our roses are really looking good now and we are adding new varieties to the shelves every day. Drop by and see the selection and have a cool water or soft drink on us while kids of any age can have a frozen push up pop.

Thanks so much for your continued support of Roses inc. Tulsa
Mark

Can I still prune?

I know you must be asking yourself if this guy is just hug up on pruning or what???
Well the answer to that is a resounding yes! Proper pruning well set you apart from the neighbors who do not prune at all or prune wrong. Rose bushes must be pruned to reach their full potential. So when someone ask me if they can prune their buses now I will always say yes with the qualifier: "Here is the kind of pruning that is necessary at this time". There is never a wrong time to prune. One of the perfect opportunities to prune is presenting itself to many of us right now with some of our hybrid teas and a lot of the David Austin roses as well as the Knock Outs, Old Garden Roses and Minis.

All of that rain and cool weather during the first of May has caused many of the rose bushes to send out many long twiggy (dinky) canes. This plethora of canes are turning the bushes into shrubs that can not breath or get sun to the interior of the bush which causes the leaves deep inside the bush to turn yellow for lack of sun and may even spawn some black spot by holding moisture on those leaves long after watering or a rain. Further, you must ask yourself: "Do I want a lot of spindly canes that will not hold up the flowers or do I want fewer canes with the girth to support large blooms. I hope the later is the answer you arrived at and to get that result we must prune.

Start by picking out any canes that are rubbing other canes and remove them below the point that they are touching if the cane is the size of a #2 pencil or larger. If the cane in question is smaller than a # 2 pencil you should remove it at the bud union. In the case of some of the micro minis most of the canes will be small so you must just decide which of the canes is the best and remove the lesser of the two. When you finish removing the crossing canes it is time to do the 4 D's. When you are finished the bush should not be so dense that you can not see the other side. After you finish the rose bushes will use the extra energy that was going to feed all of the twiggy growth to put out some larger more desirable canes. As always a pruning lesson is as close as our store.

Pest to look for this month

Thrips

Black spot Spider Mite

Aphids

The pest pictured above are common to Oklahoma this time of year. At Roses inc. Tulsa we have the products you need to rid your garden of these pest whether you go the organic route or prefer to use conventional pesticides. Just come by with a sample of your rose leaves or blossom and I will diagnose it and send you home with the right products to cure your problems.