Recently, our name-sake, wrote a nice article on what we should be doing with roses this time of year. Bear in mind that he lives in north central KY and adjust his advice for your particular growth zone you could be a month or two either way on his timing, but the advice is still valid. When it comes to rose information, there is none better. Monty, thanks for the great read.
Are you ready to get started for a new rose season? Well it’s going to be here when the yellow forsythia blooms signal the growing temperatures are just right for rose roots to wake up and new growth to appear on your roses.
Last month I wrote about pruning the stems of large roses (Hybrid, Grandiflora, Floribunda) by removing winter damaged stems (those that have a tan or dark pith) instead of a healthy cream color, even if you cut-back into the mulch or ground. You should want the stored vigor and new growth to emerge from healthy tissue. If the weather prediction for the next week or so is favorable (no freezes), pull back the mulch, feed with your favorite dry fertilizer (20-20-20) within the rose bed area but as far from the center of the rose bush as is possible. Plants are like we humans; first of all they want to survive and secondly they want to propagate and produce seed. If your roses are planted close together then the roots don’t have to reach out very far at all and all other things being equal they will tend to have fewer stems and blooms.
This fact was presented to me by a farmer, Roy, who lives just outside Louisville. He did most everything different or wrong from what I had learned that one should do to have good roses. He had 300 rose plants planted in three rows of 100 each. Each rose within the beds were in a straight line 6’ apart. Each bed was 12’ wide. The ground was bare of grass, weeds and mulch because he tilled the soil monthly adding the rose clippings and 20-20-20 dry fertilizer before doing so. The beds were intentionally lower than the surrounding ground area and he had no watering systems but natural rain. The soil beneath the rose was heavy clay. The roses flourished because the ground held the moisture really well. Because the porous fertilized soil was 3 to 6 feet on either side of the line of roses, the roots reached out three to six feet. In doing so, each rose plant was humongous with twenty or more large stems and with 50 or more blooms. I have not seen so many huge rose bushes. Most of the plants were hybrid teas and grandifloras but the floribundas were spectacular covered with hundreds of blooms. This was an experience I’ll never forget.
Getting back now to your rose bed that is starting to grow. Pull back the mulch on a cloudy day to prevent damage from the sun. A stream of water can help disengage the new growth from the mulch with less chance of breaking the tender new growth. Should a frost or freeze be predicted, lightly recover with mulch. Taller stems may be covered with cardboard boxes. Do not use plastic covers. They will do more harm than good. If you do not cut back the old stems of roses before they leaf out in the early spring, just fertilize and let them grow. The time to prune will be at the end of the first bloom cycle. Remove the leaves and stems of all growth that did not produce a bloom, appear damaged or are smaller than a pencil. Removing up to 50 per cent of these non productive stems will cause significant new growth at the base of the plant. The timing for this pruning will create new vigor and more stems and blooms for the rest of the year.
