Many of you are seeing this pest on your Rose petals as the weather cools or you may just be seeing the damage caused by this voracious little bug. The damage manifest itself as  ragged holes all over your petals. In many cases they get deep into the bloom and destroy the blooms ability to open completely.  If they are not controlled they will make an attractive bouquet very hard to come by.

The good news is that the beetle is quite easy to control.

It is difficult to find an insecticide labeled specifically for the control of Spotted Cucumber Beetles but there are several low impact controls that will do the job.  Please call or stop by Roses inc Tulsa to determine the correct product for you.

Here in North East Oklahoma the first of October is the deadline for deadheading and fertilizing our Roses.

Letting the Roses naturally go dormant is one of the best practices you can do to impact their ability to overwinter.  Some of you may ask what it means to let the Roses go dormant.  Roses spend their growing season with the goal that all living things have and that is to reproduce themselves.  When we dead head our Roses we remove the possibility of the Rose setting a seed pod (hip) so they continue to try, so we keep getting new blooms.  They will do this right up to the first killing freeze if we do not give them the opportunity to set seed pods.  Now this doesn't mean that you have to stop cutting flowers to bring into the house or give to your neighbors, it just means that the bushes should be allowed to set some hips so the shorter days and cooler temperatures along with the ripening Hips (seed pods) will allow the bush to start its normal transformation into dormancy.  I recommend that you do not cut off any of the dead heads that you have now.  Harvest the new blooms but leave all of the current spent flowers alone.  Many of them will have this last 6 weeks before freeze to finish the process of growing Hips.  At the same time the bush will 
make physiological changes in the canes that will prevent Winter damage.

 

 

 

Hi Mark -

 

I've meant to send you these pictures for a year or so.

 

I've grown roses in various parts of the country since about 1959, mostly in the Chicago area.  I was one of the early adopters of spray fertilizing, which I learned from the late Ralph Perkins.  Ralph used to come to the house now and then and critique my rose gardens and, believe it or not, prune my evergreens.  Nice guy.

 

I first came across Rose Eutin in Salina Kansas.  The motel owner had a hedge of Eutin across the front of his property.  The roses were literally covered with hummingbirds, attracted by the strong scent.  I have grown them ever since, with varying degrees of success.

 

In Indiana, they struggled, as did most of my roses.  I don't know what was wrong; the soil tested OK.  I tried every kind of fertilizer, but the roses never were vigorous and hardy.

 

A few years ago I found your store when I was visiting my daughter in Broken Arrow.  We talked, and you sold me your fertilizer.  Oh, my.  Suddenly my roses looked like roses.

 

Eutin is supposed to be about three feet.  You can tell by the picture that it is uniformly four feet.  It has filled in nicely and is a dense hedge.

 

The other rose I planted as a hedge was Gruss an Aachen.  It is listed as 18 inches to 3 feet.  It, too, is closer to 4 feet.

 

I chose both roses because the are somewhat tolerant of shade.  Eutin is in shade all morning (I have a lot of trees)and Gruss an Aachen is on a north facing in front of evergreens.

 

This was a tough year for roses in Indiana.  Record rainfall in July and record heat in August.  I've fallen behind in the battle with black spot, but, because of your fertilizer, the roses are blooming well and will go into winter in good shape. 

 

See you in a week or so on my next trip to BA.  Thanks for telling me about you special fertilizer.  I'll restock when I'm there.

 

George Allison

 

Thanks George for the letter!

   Many of you know Lyuba from her helping you here at the nursery. Not only does she excell in her knowledge she is a very good fisherwoman. Next time you are in, ask her to tell you the story of the one that didn't get away.