ROSE RAMBLER 01.06.2017 …

It’s officially winter but that doesn’t mean you get out and start pruning your roses unless you absolutely cannot tolerate the look of roses doing their winter ‘thing’!

GRA’S GARBLE …

I like this article about pruning and want to share the simple wisdom:

PRUNING RULES …

10 points for Pruning by Paul Zimmerman, USA

1. If you can, spend extra money for good tools. They are easier to work with and will last a lot longer; making them cheaper in the long run.
2. Let the way your rose grows determine how you prune. Some roses annually put out new canes from the base. You can prune these harder. Some, like the old Tea roses, take time to build a structure and reach their size. These need a lighter hand.”
3. Always start by pruning out dead wood. Why? Because it’s dead and you can’t make a mistake. Gets you warmed up!
4. Take out weak or damaged growth. Just trust your gardener’s instincts to recognize branches that aren’t full of vigour. This also better helps you see the plants structure.
5. Never worry about making a mistake. It’ll grow back.
6. With Garden Roses (MODERN SHRUB ROSES … Graham here!) don’t worry about outward facing bud-eyes and five leaflet leaf sets. Just prune to strong, healthy growth at your desired height. And if you don’t know what a five leaflet leaf set or a bud-eye is don’t worry about it. You don’t need it.
7. Don’t try to keep a tall rose short. It won’t be happy. If you want a rose in a particular spot to be short then plant a short one! As a rule of thumb don’t reduce the height of most garden roses by more than 1/3.
8. Every now and then you will take out an old cane that no longer produces growth and blooms. We label that kind of cane “bloomed-out”. Take it out at the ground level and you’ll be amazed at the new growth you’ll see in spring. Fresh growth equals more blooms!
9. Pruning isn’t just for “pruning season”. Feel free to shape your roses all season long like you would any other plant in your garden. While you are deadheading is a great time.

In the end trust your gardener’s “instincts”. You know what you are doing – so do it.

If you have any issues with pruning please feel free to email enquiries to me as I consider myself a pruning expert after more than 30 years of ‘doing it’ and you should come along to one of my pruning demonstrations in coming weeks!

Don’t be afraid to take the secateurs and prune your roses when and if you feel inclined to any time now – especially if they have lost their foliage and look a bit untidy – you make the garden look how you want it to look and if tidy/pruned is your desired look for early winter, then prune your roses as soon as you have time.

Spray the ORGANIC ROSE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM when you’re done –
To 10 litres of water add:

• ¼ cup ECO ROSE FUNGICIDE
• ¼ CUP ECO OIL INSECTICIDE – also acts as wetting agent!
• SEAWEED POWDER OR SOLUTION as per directions on the pack of your preferred brand of seaweed product!

THOROUGHLY MIX ALL PRODUCTS TOGETHER AND SPRAY OR POUR OVER NEWLY PRUNED/PLANTED ROSES AND SURROUNDING MULCHED SOIL AREA FORTNIGHTLY / MONTHLY TO ENJOY HEALTHY, FREE-FLOWERING ROSES ALL SEASON!

Q. Why is my computer screen all wet?  A. I was trying to send e-mail, but the stamps kept sliding off!

PRUNING EQUIPMENT TO MAKE IT SOOOO EASY …

There is not ONE SINGLE PERSON who, on our advice, purchased LOWE 5 secateurs and hasn’t raved about what a ‘bloody good investment’ they are!

When you purchase really good quality garden tools, please take care of them!  Place your rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows and other equipment out of the weather – same applies to your secateurs – put them in a safe place DURING and AFTER use … in past weeks, I’ve had several disaster emails about Lowe secateurs … one pair landed in the mulcher but we were able to replace the handle covers and a new blade; Jenny left hers on the ground and a mower ran over them and mangled them – lucky for her, Jim who’s a bit of a ‘steel-man-guru’ came into the nursery at just the right time, took the secateurs along with a complete replacement blade kit and Jenny will have her secateurs back in perfect condition for pruning this season – her purse will be a bit lighter but this recovery fits with our SUSTAINABLE GARDENING POLICY of fix it rather than toss it out!

Thanks Jenny for sending the secateurs to our nursery for some hope of repair and thanks Jim for repairing them!

Kate’s secateurs remain ??? yes, a mystery and here’s her email when I responded to her order:

PLANTING NEW ROSES THIS SEASON …

Seems we might have caught a few customers off guard by sending roses as promptly as we receive their orders …

Hi Diana, I ordered a standard and a bush rose from you and they arrived yesterday in great shape – thankyou. I have ordered roses before and they took about a month so I haven’t prepared the soil for one of them.  How long have I got before I have to plant them and what should I do in the meantime. Thanks, love your roses and your weekly emails.  Regards, Deborah

My response:  What you can do is simply pot up the one you haven’t organised the bed for!  Use only QUALITY potting mix and put the pot in a sunny location … actually, quite honestly, that’s what I like to do with ALL MY ROSES PRIOR TO PLANTING … the black plastic pot acts like a humid-crib and the roots gallop … hope this is helpful.  Diana

 

And another … Hi Diana – I’m so sorry to be a pain, but I was after a later delivery. I actually don’t even have the garden bed ready yet! Normally I order my roses about now for a Winter delivery – July.  Just let me know if that’s not possible.  Thanks, LatishaMy response:  Oh… your roses are on the way but hey, no issue at all … just dig a hole and put them all in the one hole – perhaps a big pot with some potting mix … leave them HEELED IN until you’re ready to plant them in their permanent location.  Sorry, I am too quick sometimes … works for most customers but I tripped up this time.  Best wishes – Diana

And another … Hi Diana – The roses arrived today thanks. Just checking should they be planted asap or are they ok to stay as is for up to a few weeks? If so are there any care instructions!? Thanks. LeanneMy response:  Hi Leanne … for a couple of days they should be ok to stay in my wrapping … yes, they would live if you left them like that for weeks but please DON’T … get them out of there and put them as  they are, bunched together, into a pot of soil or out in the open garden in a hole – we call it HEELED IN … they’re much safer that way … here are some pics of how to heel-in roses while you get the holes ready:

As we settle with the fire stoked in the evening and under our doona at night, we look forward to this winter – it’s a season of renewal for roses – they’re dug from the soil where they are created, they’re trimmed and collated, shipped around the place, labelled for identification, potted or perhaps posted to another destination before they finally arrive at their new home to be loved and nurtured – enjoyed when they bloom again!

ROSE RAMBLER 25.05.2017 …

Hello dear rose friends as the days get shorter and we’re seeing the last of our beautiful roses for this rose season … aaaw, how we will miss the fragrant beauty on the kitchen island bench but oh, how I will enjoy having a clear space for the next few months – as the garden changes, so does the interior of our snugly home!

In glorious sunshine we’ve been madly labeling all the roses which we collected last week and lots of orders are being processed for posting/collection – don’t despair if we haven’t called or emailed you about your order – this first consignment of nearly 5,000 roses is only the beginning of a HUGE season!

It is sooooo important that you practice PATIENCE at this time … if your order contains the very new 2017 release roses or standard roses, there will be a delay in dispatch as these varieties are allowed to have a bit of cool weather to ‘harden up’ before they are dug!

We are committed to processing your order as soon as it becomes available for posting or collection and WE WILL CALL OR SMS TEXT YOU AS SOON AS THE ROSES ARE READY!!!

Here are a couple of my absolute favourite roses which, if you want to create a hedge or simply wish to fill spaces around the garden with the most free-flowering, easy-care, delightfully awesome roses, these are the ones I highly recommend:

LIONS ROSE
Modern Shrub/Floribunda rose of immense beauty,
resistance to disease and ability to grow
and flower in any sunny location.

MAGGIE
Modern Shrub rose named for our very own
Maggie Tabberer who is the patron of the Melanoma Foundation
who receive the royalty payments from sales of this rose in Australia.

LINKED HEARTS
Beautifully fragrant Hybrid Tea rose produces masses of
perfectly shaped blooms with the clearest pale pink centres
fading to almost white at the edge of the petals.

Of course, there are lots of others in all colours and categories – why not email me your specifications and together we’ll create the garden of your dreams!

GRA’S GARBLE …

Let’s start this week with a bit of a puzzle …

Q.  What travels around the world but stays in the corner?  A.  A stamp!

Diana will be speaking at the following destination … suggest you book a place for this event which is really just around the corner now and sure to be a brilliant day out at a most pleasant location –

Garden Seminar

Thursday 15th June 2017
Garden Room, Buda Historic Home & Garden
42 Hunter Street, Castlemaine
10.30am for 11.00am start – 3.00pm

Hot buffet-style lunch – BYO drink –
Cost: $15 members   $25 non-members
RSVP Thursday, June 9

Organizer:  Tom Comerford –
tomchris@mmnet.com.au  –  5470 6230

Format – 2 sessions
a.m. Speaker Diana Sargeant – Consulting Rosarian
p.m. Garden Symposium with Jill Hildebrand,
Garden Curator Buda Historic Home & Garden

Gill Miller, Curator Castlemaine Botanic Gardens and Diana Sargeant, Silkies Rose Farm, Clonbinane

Please register your attendance with TOM COMERFORD at Castlemaine on 5470 6230.

Q. Why did the monkey put a piece of steak on his head?  A. He thought he was a griller.

ROSE PRUNING DEMONSTRATIONS …

Let’s kick off traditional ‘rose pruning season’ with some demonstrations in June … come along to one of our FREE DEMONSTRATIONS and I’ll show you what to do …

SUNDAY 4th JUNE & JUNE 18th
1.30pm

Please know that you really should let the roses go into a natural dormancy, allow them to lose their leaves and then just as they start shooting new seasons leaves, do the pruning!  That way, they’ll indicate exactly where to prune – makes pruning a real cinch and makes you look like an expert!

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 …

SUGAR MOON
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

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 …

ROSE RAMBLER 27.04.2017 …

Hello dear rose friends – phew, what a month this has been and thank you to ALL OF YOU who supported the events which we have been involved with, thank you for coming to the Rose Farm and thank you absolutely for ordering your winter roses/bare-rooted roses online during this past month that the online store at www.rosesalesonline.com.au has been open for winter ordering.

In coming weeks I will be uploading all the wonderful photos I’ve taken this past season – do take a look and please, if you see a photo which you don’t think does our website justice because it’s wrongly loaded, please can you shoot me an email.  I will happily add a free rose to your winter order as thank you for being my ‘online scout’ but you have to let me know … thank you so much!

NEW ROSES FOR 2017 …

Here are a few of the beauties we showcased at Tesselaar’s Garden Expo this past weekend – gosh, was it spectacular!

SPIRIT OF RURAL WOMEN
A healthy shrub which produces pure white blooms
displaying a swirling mass of petals on long, strong stems ideal for a vase.

ORIGAMI
Distinctly unusual rose with strongly angular red and white
petals which give the bloom a ‘square’ appearance,
similar to a paper folded flower – hence the name Origami.
Highly disease resistant and well clothed in mid green foliage,
plant singly, as a hedge or in a pot. Light rose perfume.
A Gold Award winning rose – Australian National Rose Trial Grounds.

BOSCOBEL
This David Austin New Release Rose for 2017
had people stopping to check whether the flowers
were real when we presented this magnificent rose at the
Tesselaar Plant Expo in April, 2017 …
what a rose and it just got better as it aged in the vase!

GRA’S GARBLE …

There’s all sorts of talk about how small business makes this country ‘tick’ – so easy to talk and talk and talk!  Please, Australians, buy as local as you possibly can!!!  We select products for our household shopping with diligent care – the one we like MUST preferably be ‘MADE IN AUSTRALIA’ or we’ll find an alternative product of similar or better quality to pop into our shopping trolley!

YES, the Aussie product will obviously be more expensive … H-E-L-L-O … we are SO WELL PAID that all the products we make and distribute here in Australia are always going to be more expensive than what is imported where cheap labour is used to produce our overwhelming need for more!

All worth a thought as our beautiful roses have been taken in luggage to India, Thailand and UK in past weeks.  It’s a small world and becoming smaller.

Q. What do snakes write at the bottom of their letters?  A. Love and hisses …

Hope you haven’t had issues with them in your garden recently – just a few sightings here this past summer and we’re now confident again with colder weather that they’re gone off to hibernate!

ROSES AND SHADE TOLERANCE … PERHAPS TIME FOR A REST TOO …

Here’s an email chat with Jodie in QLD who has received three consignments of roses, eco-products and Diana’s book, ALL ABOUT ROSES in recent months …

Think about it too … does NEPTUNE need a bit of fertilizer – it’s been flowering like a ripper … yes?  All the roses will be adapting to your climate, soil conditions and quite frankly, it’s a heck of a journey from here to you, being planted in a whole new environment and perhaps a bit of stress (ie, indicated by back spot on foliage) would be NORMAL???

Remember too Jodie … it’s that time of year when the roses are ready to have a break – there one means of losing foliage to become hardened up for winter pruning is to be riddled with black spot so the foliage cannot photosynthesise, it drops, the plant becomes bare, you prune it, it rests for winter and the next minute, it’s sprouting foliage again and then very soon after, it’s flowering!

It’s a cycle with a whole of lot of ‘stuff’ in between – most awesomely, beautiful flowers pretty consistently for around 7-9 months depending on the climate where you live … All very, very special … enjoy!

PERFUME – A ROSE DELIGHT …

Throughout the ages, humans have sought to capture the tantalizing, elusive perfume of the rose … here are some categories of scent …

• Aromatics such as aniseed and lavender
• Citrus
• Flora such as rose, jasmine or lilac
• Fruit such as raspberry, pear or peach
• Greenery from herbs
• Spices like cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon
• Wood and balsam – vanilla, heliotrope at the base.

On still, warm, sunny days, fragrance from roses is at optimum and strongest for even the most ‘hard of smelling nose’!  Blooms picked when the outer petals have fully reflected will exude fragrance for days at evenly warm room temperature – so when you pick a rose that you think is hardly worth popping in a vase, do it as you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the change in fragrance when vased in a warm environment!

Q.  What do you call a rabbit who tells jokes?  A.  A funny bunny!

GOOD TIP … to test for fragrance don’t just take a quick ‘sniff’ but rather hold a semi-open rose bloom in the palm of your hands, perhaps pick it and pop it in your pocket or place it under your cap for a short time and you will soon know whether it is or isn’t fragrant FOR YOU!  Remember, we ALL have a different capacity in our sense of SMELL!

I hope you’re digging and dunging the garden ready for planting bare-rooted roses this winter … next week I’ll give you some really good hints for what to add to the soil but if you’re out and about at a garden centre this week, take home a few bags of quality manure / compost / fertilizer … remember, it’s still autumn and the most wonderful season to sort your garden for this coming winter!

Enjoy the awesomeness of your autumn garden … take a drive out our way to experience the beauty of autumn colour in the ornamental trees … we’re basking in a whole other glory here at Clonbinane!

ROSE RAMBLER 20.04.2017 …

Hello dear rose friends as we pack the iLoad with buckets of cut rose blooms, boxes of vases, potted roses and head off to the Tesselaar Gardening and Plants Expo – which is EXACTLY what it is!

A gathering of some of the finest specialist horticulturalists who meet at this magnificent destination to show our wares and offer our discerning gardening friends an opportunity to come along and meet us all at one place – the pulsing heart of horticulture at Silvan in Victoria.  Yes, some customers have flown to Melbourne for this event!

If you require information about attending this weekend, please call us 03 5787 1123.

GRA’S GARBLE …

I have an opportunity to once again speak at the…

Tesselaar Gardening and Plant Expo
SUNDAY, 23RD AT 1.30PM
ROSES – ALL THE TRICKS OF THE TRADE

Bring along your questions!  Never, ever, not ask a question because you think you ‘should know the answer’!!!  I feel privileged and honoured to be invited to share my years of horticultural experience at these events.

For all our customers, always, if you have a query, please land it in an email or bring pictures and all your questions to us here at the Rose Farm.  Our belief is – if you don’t ask the question, the answer is NO … just bring on the questions when you have them!

ALSO! Don’t miss out on this 2 for 1 offer for tickets to the expo. Simply print the below coupon and bring it along to Tesselaars with you this weekend!

Q.  What happened to the dog who swallowed a watch?  A.  He got ticks!

Ever tried weeding in garden beds and you pull at the base of the weed but it just won’t come out roots and all?  Other times, you can hand weed such deep-rooted weeds like ‘dock’ and it almost falls out of the ground!  Well, from 21st April till 26th April INCLUSIVE will be a most successful time for weeding this month – please test this for yourself and we would love to hear your feedback!

You can source the MOON PLANTING GUIDE in Better Homes and Gardens monthly magazine so that you know when to plant, when to weed and when to take a rest from gardening!  Great idea!!!

Q.  What position does a monster play on a soccer team?  A. You’re right … GHOULIE!

This past week we experienced another “TYPICAL SCENARIO OF A POTENTIAL ISSUE WITH A ROSE IN YOUR GARDEN” … It starts rather impersonally and we eventually end up as best friends with Diana and I trying to solve a problem together with our customer …

So you see, good communication generally gets to the bottom of an issue … 10 days of backwards and forwards emailing, a few photos and Jayne will probably have those two roses flowering this autumn.

Believe me, roses are tough as indicated by our very long-time customer Wendy who popped in today and we took a walk in the garden together – she revelled in the fact that we had lots of roses flowering – hers have been dormant through a very long, hot spell in northern Victoria when she didn’t water her gardens!

A few weeks ago she turned on the tap and thoroughly soaked all her rose gardens and then we’ve had this lovely rain so she is totally excited about autumn flowering.

THE LOVELIEST ROSES IN THE NURSERY THIS WEEK …

GRA’S BLUE
No matter how cold or wet, customers are invited to sniff the fragrance … aaaaah, it is amazing and very worthy of its GOLD MEDAL AWARD for MOST FRAGRANT ROSE at the AUSTRALIAN ROSE TRIALS, 2015 …

CREPUSCULE
Is rich apricot now and will flower right up until the coldest winter weather shuts it down for a rewarding spell as this thornless beauty has flowered and flowered absolutely continually from October onwards …

FLOWER CARPET
You cannot deny a rose which has won more than 25 international awards and sold more than 90 million plants world-wide – it will flower freely until the frost tells it to take a rest!

Enjoy all the glorious moments of your autumn garden and remember, if you have a query about something in your garden, let us help you get it sorted!

We hope to see you at Tesselaar’s Garden Expo this weekend – for our interstate gardening friends, we hope you continue to enjoy your autumn roses and remember, the online store is now open for ordering bare-rooted roses!

Graham and I still hope to get across to see the 2017 new release roses flowering at Penola so that we can give you our opinion of their growing habit and fragrance – it’s so very important to us that you read our personal experience of the new release roses …

ROSE RAMBLER 13.04.2017 …

Hello dear rose friends and thank you to all who came this past weekend – phew, wasn’t it a beaut event?  We certainly enjoyed the occasion and are so grateful to you all for coming … THANK YOU!  Also, a huge THANK YOU on behalf of the Rotary Club of Southern Mitchell and Kilmore Art Society for participating and contributing to this wonderful event!

Just a quick reminder, we are closed tomorrow on Good Friday, but we’ll be OPEN 9am – 4pm the rest of the weekend from Easter Saturday, Sunday through to Monday!

GRA’S GARBLE …

Q.  What do you get if you cross a centipede with a chicken?  A. Enough drumsticks for everyone!  

We’ve had some beautiful rain here at Clonbinane so we know that after a very long, dry spell, such a rain event will result in lots of black spot fungus and potentially, some infestation of insects such as aphids – before the cold nights and rain, we had an infestation of white-fly which proliferate in hot/dry conditions!  There’s always something!!!

If you’ve been regularly spraying with our recommended organic rose-management program, your roses should look ok just as ours do – there will be some stress indication as the roses adapt to this wet and cold weather – black spot may tend to defoliate some varieties earlier than others … they’ll recover with a good quality organic fertilizer and fortnightly application of seaweed solution.

VERY IMPORTANT TO FERTILIZE NOW – this is the last fertilizer application until after pruning in late July/August.

Stressed roses are always more susceptible to black spot and undernourishment, the roses growing in partial shade due to trees blocking out the sun or the lower roots suddenly unable to function due to sopping wet soil will all cause fungal infection and defoliation.

The one positive aspect of black spot infection and defoliation is that it starts on the mature leaves, lower down on the bush, as well as on those shaded, on the inside of the plant.

If the upper leaves are protected by spraying with a fungicide, the sap flow is ensured and even with reduced photosynthesis, food flows to the roots, encouraging them to start sprouting new shoots on the denuded stems.

If your rose has dropped its leaves due to black spot infection, trimming the plant appropriately will still stimulate new sprouting and encourage blooming right into the start of winter.

Q.  Where should a 500kg alien go?  A.  On a diet …
(oh, my goodness, are these jokes getting worse or is it just ME???  Editor: Diana)

TESSELAARS PLANT EXPO …

Hope you’ve got the date in your diary …
SATURDAY 22ND AND SUNDAY 23RD APRIL
9am – 4pm

The perfect weekend for green thumbs and budding gardeners where you can meet more than forty nurseries and plant growers with a vast range of bulbs, plants and perennials on offer in the one location.

Gather knowledge with free gardening talks and information all weekend or directly pick the brains of your favourite grower or specialist. Visit http://gardeningandplantsexpo.com.au for more information.

Come down and see us!

A LOOK IN OUR GARDEN …

Here are a few shots of a couple of great looking roses this past week …

THANK YOU
THE THANK YOU ROSE produces masses of very fragrant deep
mauve blooms in clusters all over a very healthy,
well rounded shrub continually throughout the season
a lovely rose to gift when you want to say a special
“Thank You” to somebody special!

REMEMBER ME
Hybrid Tea rose with a delightful confection of colours
including burnt orange, amber and beige with burnt red edges.

TROPICAL SUNSET
This is a very striking rose – one that stands out when in bloom.
The flowers are beautiful in form and the colour is amazing,
yellow with orange stripes fading to a soft pink.
Tropical sunset is a great performing rose with numerous
blooms throughout the season and healthy semi-glossy foliage to compliment.

Hope you have a lovely Easter time with family and friends – perhaps a grand opportunity to have some time in your garden … enjoy the moments!

ROSE RAMBLER 06.04.2017 …

By golly, time is moving fast and we wish you a pinch and a punch for the first day of this month of April!  Dear Rose Friends you can be pleased we didn’t have this edition of Rose Rambler land in your inbox on 1st April … Gra was in his absolutely finest form with shenanigans for April Fool’s Day – one day I will discover his source of fun!

Meantime, I need you to know that we offer a fabulous GIFT VOUCHER service which will prove useful when you need a ‘last minute’ gift like I have organised here …

SILKIES ROSE FARM continues to offer such a diverse service with gifts in $ value GIFT VOUCHERS or as beautifully gift-wrapped, potted GIFT ROSES with personal messages along with the best quality roses you could purchase online or by visiting our Rose Farm at Clonbinane – located just 500 metres from the Hume Freeway interchange.

GRA’S GARBLE …

Oh, aren’t the cooler nights glorious – the trees are starting to turn colour and I’m sleeping under a doona again!  Lovely!!!

Q. How do thunderstorms catch fish?  A.  With a lightning rod … !  

I went to see this magnificent hedgerow of KNOCKOUT – Sharyn and Ewen are thrilled with how quickly they were able to cover the unsightly wire fence at the front of their property, how low maintenance the hedge is and obviously, how their front boundary is a stand-out in their street!
Sharyn wrote:

Q. Why did the students study in the aeroplane?  A.  They wanted higher grades! 

Hope your kids are enjoying these Easter Holidays – get them out helping in the garden to plant winter veggies, fertilize the garden so you get the most amazing flowers right into winter and don’t be afraid to freshen up the mulch by adding another light layer because worms will start breeding soon and they’ll need protection!  Enjoy the moments with your kids and grandkids these holidays.

ART & ROSES – THIS WEEKEND …

It’s going to be superb autumn weather so jump in the car and come visit our region for a great day out.  Print this voucher so you pay only gold coin donation at each destination where you enjoy a cuppa.

Lunch at the Art Expo Café, Memorial Hall, Kilmore will be delectable home-cooked fare as usual – served by Rotarians and Artists – COME WITH AN EMPTY BELLY for the most enjoyable lunch you’ve had in a long time!

After this weekend, we’ll get stuck into some serious ‘rose information’ to ensure you get maximum flowering through autumn.  Meantime, when weather permits, don’t hesitate to apply the organic rose management program – we’re doing every 7-10 day applications here because of the very cold, damp nights which produced ‘instant’ spots on foliage.  Remember, lots of healthy foliage produces lots of flowers so to retain good cover of healthy foliage, apply fertilizer and eco-spray NOW!

We wish all our dear rose friends who are cleaning up from recent cyclone Debbie our very best wishes – we hope you are seeing light at the end of the tunnel!!!

Here at Silkies Rose Farm, Clonbinane, both Graham and Diana will be conducting WALK & TALK IN THE GARDEN with Mooi as supervisor while our assistant, Tova will assist you in the Rose Nursery where you can…

BUY ANY ONE ROSE,

GET ONE FREE!
ALL WEEKEND FRIDAY – MONDAY
(*conditions apply)

 Our supervisor Mooi& the chooks – “I AM THE BOSS … REALLY???”

(*conditions:  PLEASE NOTE, OFFER EXCLUDES GIFT ROSES AND WEEPING ROSES IN TUNNEL AREA – OFFER INCLUDES STANDARD ROSES AND ALL OTHER ROSES IN THE NURSERY – LIMIT 5 FREE ROSES PER CUSTOMER. NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE.)