Hello dear rose friends … We’re gearing up for the State Rose and Garden Show at Werribee this weekend – so hope you make it ‘high priority’ to come for a visit – the Victorian State Rose Gardens are a sight to behold; a hidden treasure so very close to home for lots of us and a MUST SEE!
QUESTION ABOUT CLIMBING ROSES …
Thank you so much for your newsletters they are not only helpful hints but a good read also;
Q1: My question to you is l have a weeping rose (crepuscule) do l have to behead the dead flowers on it or do they just fall off
Q2: l bought 2 climbing roses from you,(jeanne la joie) neither of them are flowering, yes l have fertilized, mulched, watered well and good drainage , all of my other roses in the area are doing very good, what could l be doing wrong?
Many Thanks … Bernadette
My response which is relative to those who grow and love climbing roses:
Thank you Bernadette … you can trim finished flowers from ALL roses and they will re-grow and re-flower more quickly!
About JEANNE LA JOIE… is she growing lovely strong canes? Sometimes, climbing roses will set all their energy into GROWTH in the first year of planting rather than flowering … if they flower along the way it can be at the expense of massive growth canes! My JEANNE LA JOIE here produced lovely growth canes last season with very few flowers – this year she’s going to flower and flower – also, there are wonderful NEW water shoots happening too … that’s what climbing roses do!!! Patience is a virtue with them but they ALL reward in the long term and then you be THE BOSS about how much growth you want where the rose is planted.
You’re doing absolutely NOTHING wrong! Hope this is helpful … cheers – Diana
Whilst in Adelaide recently, we had the pleasure of visiting Melanie & Kelvin (President, World Federation of Rose Societies) Trimper’s garden – this is Melanie’s photo of 6 x JEANNE LA JOIE plants espaliered on 6 metres of wall – breathtaking!!!
GRA’S GARBLE …
Q. When is a car not a car? A. When it turns into a parking lot!
CLIMBING ROSES FOR IMPACT
You might only have a tidy garden space but still want to grow roses … grow CLIMBING ROSES on walls, in tubs and up posts! These are two of my favourite climbing roses:
DORTMUND
A great healthy rose, crimson red with a white eye it flowers freely in clusters throughout the season and you will see it from kilometers away – if you stop dead-heading in late autumn, this rose has the most amazing hips of any rose!
It makes a lovely vase specimen and attracts the bees …
and, DUBLIN BAY …
bright red fragrant blooms continually throughout nine months of flowering season. Blooms are produced from low down on the canes which reach a height up to 3 metres and fan out beautifully against a wall/fence – one of the best!
A SOLUTION TO THRIPS …
Good afternoon. I notice you mentioned something about thrips in your latest newsletter. I was taught to get a WHITE piece of material and tie it stretched out between two bean poles, close to the affected roses. I used to use torn up white bedsheets. The material needs to be about the size of a pillowcase and stretched out. Thrips are attracted to white. Don’t know why. They will often leave the rose and jump onto the material. Then you can either roll it up and put in a snaplock bag and put in freezer to kill them or dunk in a bucket for a while. Meanwhile replace the material. You need to do this several times a day until the population diminishes.
My gran taught me this as she noticed that every time she hung out her white sheets when we had a hot humid spring, they got covered in thrips! So she devised this method of attracting them when her flower and veg were under attack! This has often lessened the damage to my roses. Try it!
Diana’s response: I’m an ‘old timer’ Mum … I used to LOVE hanging nappies out on the washing line and would get peeved when the northerly winds brought in thrips – took me a while to work out what went ‘wrong’ with my beautiful white wash!!! Never thought to suggest to rose gardeners that they should span white cloth to attract thrips to the white cloth rather than the roses … thanks for sharing! Cheers – Diana
Q. What do you call an insect on the moon? A. A luna-tick
IS THIS HAPPENING ON ANY ROSE IN YOUR GARDEN?
Take a look at the plant label which reads:
oh, oh, it’s producing CRIMSON ROSES which are DR. HUEY UNDERSTOCK which may, if left to grow, take over the whole rose – NEVER prune this growth at ground level!!! Here’s what you MUST DO if you see understock growing on any roses in your garden – quoted from my book, ALL ABOUT ROSES (always handy to have a copy of my book when things don’t quite go as you anticipate!) …
“Put your garden gloves on. Once you’ve revealed the source of the understock branch, grab hold of it and yank it really hard and fast – I liken it to when the kids had a loose tooth and I would ask them if I could take a look and wobble it maybe. Quick yank, tooth gone and kid wondering what the heck happened but excited about the tooth fairy coming that night. When you’ve yanked the sucker away from the understock it is very important to check if there is a nice rounded end on what you pulled away. If you can see an ‘eye’ which could be compared to a corn on your toe then you have been successful in removing the sucker.”
The story goes on in further detail but you MUST remove those suckers as soon as you see them or they will in fact grow very rapidly and potentially take-over and the budded rose variety will lose vigour and die!
Enjoy all the glory of your rose garden in this magnificent season … see you at one of our events or come and take a walk with us in the garden here at Clonbinane any Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday when we are sure to be here … Diana, Graham and Mooi
