Wow….I guess it’s time to play catch up! It has been raining steadily for the past four days straight…..I can’t tell you how happy I am about this! You can already see an improvement in the color and texture of the lawn and the vibrancy of the shrubs and flowers. Everything is looking great! Of course, the grass is growing exponentially, so I will have to trudge the riding lawn mower out sometime next weekend to address that little problem.
This week is the start of our show at work, so I am unable to do any maintenance in the yard, but I will recap what I’ve done since my last entry….which has been eventful to say the least. When all was said and done, I bought a total of 16 roses!! The seven that I bought from Jackson and Perkins were bare root and scared me the most. The four that I bought from Ashdown Roses were potted as were the three that I got on clearance from Lowe’s for 50% off and the two from Park’s Landscapes.
I am learning so much about the care of roses….you can’t dispute the eternal beauty of such a delicate creation…..but you will embark on quite a challenge to keep them looking that way. But one day at a time as they say…..Rome wasn’t built in a day, so it will take a minute for me to gain the experience necessary to transform my existing yard into an English cottage paradise.
Going back to bare root roses, I was none too excited to deal with these, but the roses in it’s fully developed glory, convinced me otherwise. I learned from the gardenweb.com forums to soak the bare roots for a week (there were some opposing opinions about this, but I opted to soak them for a week), then pot them in large nursery pots using a blend of Scott’s garden soil, sand, peat moss and one cup of Epsom salts. I knew the roots would probably be large, but nothing prepared me for HOW large! At the least, you needed a five gallon for the smallest root. The ideal container would be the pots that nurseries used for trees. I had trouble finding both, so I decided to hit the dollar store and buy a ‘small’ laundry basket. I lined the basket with garbage bags that I punctured with holes at the bottom. I dumped the amended soil in it and planted each bare root rose where they sat in a mostly shaded area with dappled sun.
Next, you have to make sure that you water the roses for two weeks every day. During this time, you can work to prepare your beds for the eventual placement of the roses. Unfortunately, we were really affected by a long-term drought and the clay was unmanageable. However, with the recent rains, I decided to pull out my trusty tiller and get busy. Amazingly, the earth opened up with barely a protest. I was so thrilled because I had resigned myself to planting the roses in the fall when we usually get good rainfall. Carisa and I worked overtime to get the bare roots as well as the potted plants in the ground and we continued to water constantly, but as I said, in the past four days, we’ve been getting steady rainfall.
The potted roses have already bloomed at least once; the bare roots are all leafing up nicely and getting really large. I’m amazed at their progress, but there is a lot to be said for tilling and amending the soil. Additionally, the garden soil/Epsom/peat/ sand mixture was thrown in the planting hole too….so that all adds up to a well amended flower bed! I decided to put two peonies in the rose bed by the fence leading to the pond. I want to add companion plants to that bed, I don’t want it to look naked at the bottom….plus that will be a great way to add more color in that area. There is also something else that I’ve learned in my sojourn….there is no such thing as having too many rose bushes!!! So many people have a hundred or more! I realize that my yard may (not) accommodate such a number, but I’m going to do my level best to get close. This leads me to why I had no choice in the matter when I stopped by Lowe’s last night. They’ve marked their roses (primarily Jackson and Perkins) to 75% off. Can you guess what happened next? lol
Ok, so the roses are looking great…..how do I control the inevitable black spot and powdery mildew among other various and sundry fungi? Well, I’ve learned that the ticket to success is Bayer Advance Disease Control concentrate. I’ll be busy spraying that tonight so that I can head those diseases off at the path. I’m still learning about whether or not to disbud, how to prune correctly, etc., etc. Stay tuned…………my yard WILL become an English Cottage garden masterpiece one day!
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…The wild roses includes the species listed above and some of their hybrids…