ROSE RAMBLER 04.05.2017 …
Hello dear rose friends and welcome to the month of May when we start to see the last of our magnificent rose blooms until spring! I will indulge you with lots of beautiful pictures to incite you to purchase some of the beauties which are newly available this season …
Ooooh, gosh but was it gorgeous in the vase at Tesselaar’s Expo recently and it will be a delight in your garden as a lovely healthy rounded shrub which is bound to produce masses to flowering stems throughout the season … I’ll be sure to plant at least one in my new garden …
EARTH ANGEL Luscious palest pink heavily petalled and deeply cupped, highly fragrant blooms are the outstanding glory of this magnificent new rose …
ELYSIUM FIELD
Salmon pink blooms with masses of petals which reflex to flat open blooms on an extremely healthy shrub rose – the flowers were glorious after a very humid five days in a vase which is another reason to grow this beauty in your garden …
GRA’S GARBLE …
I love it when I get this kind of testimonial for the beautiful rose I created from seed which then received awards including a GOLD MEDAL as the most highly fragrant rose at the Australian Rose Trial Grounds.
Q. What’s orange and sounds like a parrot? A. A carrot.
PREPARING THE ROSE BED FOR WINTER PLANTING
The most successful and rewarding rose gardens are those where the soil was well prepared prior to planting and autumn is the ideal season to prepare your new garden beds for winter planting of bare-rooted roses.
Remove the grass/weeds to a depth of say, 50mm – 100mm. This ‘turf’ can be laid in another area to create a lawn or place it on the compost heap where it will break down and provide compost for another garden bed once the weeds are ‘cooked’.
Do not dig the cleared area because it is back-breaking work and there is no need for you to do it. There is an army of workers waiting underground for you to proceed to the next step of creating this new rose bed and they will happily do all the necessary digging and aerating which is essential to create a well-drained site suitable for bare-rooted roses.
Apply gypsum and liquid seaweed over the area then pile on any combination of animal manures or whatever composted material available. Take some litter from under a range of shrubs and trees in other areas of your garden and spread them over the compost. This will supply mycorrhiza (fungi) from your own garden environment and is an integral component in the soil life when preparing a new garden bed. Lightly mulch with lucerne or pea straw and water weekly if there is no rain.
Sprinkle rock dust and liquid sea minerals to ensure a balanced range of earth and sea minerals are incorporated into the soil.
Liquid seaweed applied weekly will act as a soil conditioner as well as feed the worms, your army of workers, without whom your garden will not flourish at all. They will rapidly come to the surface and begin aerating the soil for you. As they chew their way through all the manure, straw, leaf litter and goodness you’ve been adding to the site, they will generously add their castings to the soil. If the pile of manure you have applied rots down to become humus and the bed needs to be raised, keep adding more manure and straw layers up to four weeks prior to planting.
When you are ready to plant the roses, the only area to dig will be at the planting hole. By doing this, you reduce weed activation because you are not disturbing the soil structure of the entire garden bed.
ORDER YOUR WINTER ROSES … NOW!
It’s time now to put your winter order together … it’s easy to procrastinate but we would like to ensure that you get EXACTLY WHICH ROSES YOU WANT and some varieties are already close to selling out!
WE OFFER A 100% GUARANTEE ON OUR ROSES … Yes, we do offer this guarantee but it can be tricky when things don’t quite go as planned like in this case with Gayle
Hi… last year I ordered a bare rooted rose from you my order no. #2857. I planted the rose…like I do all my roses properly…it is very weak and sick looking lost all its leaves and is now looking very sorry for itself.. Do you have any ideas what I can do..I would love to save it. I planted it in memory of my deceased 18 year old cat Duchess. Any help would be appreciated – Gayle
Perhaps if you send some pics I might be able to assist you? I’m thinking you might have planted DUCHESSE DE BRABANT which is a magnificently strong Tea Rose of immense beauty.
Hello Gayle … oooh, I can see lots and lots of new growth/foliage on this plant … perhaps it has been sulking for a while but it’s definitely ok in the location where it is planted so LEAVE IT ALONE! Give it regular seaweed solution – weekly perhaps because of the intense heat stress it might be incurring and it will be beautiful in no time! Hope this is helpful and keep me posted please … best wishes
Hi Diana….thanks for the advice…yes it is looking a lot better, thanks again – Gayle.
Early this week, I received this email from Gayle:
Hi Diana…thought I would give you an update on my DUCHESSE rose….the rose is healthy…I realise it was being nibbled at by rabbits!! Have a wire protection on it now. LOL..live and learn!
Yes, we offer a 100% guarantee on all our roses, a replacement rose is offered where necessary but not before thoroughly exploring EVERY possible reason for why a particular rose isn’t flourishing and we urge you to do the same!
Q. What kind of pets do teachers at beauty school like? A. Hares!
Have a great week in your autumn garden – get out the winter woollies because winter is just around the corner now. Enjoy sniffing the last rose blooms …
