Category: Spring

June Rose Growing Notes

by Marty Reich, Master Rosarian, Editor of the Rose Leaf

Louis Philip, one of the OGRs planted in the Adelicia Acklen Rose Garden at Belmont University, Photo by Pam Graves Brown
By now you have done spring feeding and have enjoyed the first bloom cycle. Be sure to dead-head everything, meaning to cut off the spent blooms, to make the bushes look better and to encourage them to re-bloom. You should go down to a strong part of the cane where there are 5 leaflets from an outward facing node and cut 1/4″ above it. Sometimes a node has a dark spot on it signaling that new growth will not come from there so you may need to go up or down to avoid it.
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April Rose Growing Notes

by Marty Reich, Master Rosarian, Editor of the Rose Leaf

So you have pruned your roses and cleaned up the beds some time around now. It is still too early to pull the mulch very far away. We could have a freeze until the middle of April and did last year. If you spray, you have done that as well, soaking the mulch as well as the almost bare bushes. It is so much better to get ahead of blackspot and spray routinely than to let it get ahead of you.
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March Rose Growing Notes

by Marty Reich, Master Rosarian, Editor of the Rose Leaf

Pruning is on all rosarian minds right now. Should I or shouldn’t I, that is the question? These mild winters are confusing to both roses and rosarians. We used to say prune when the forsythia blooms, but there are newer varieties of forsythia which bloom perhaps too early. In the last Rose Leaf I talked about pruning Austins and climbers in February. I just pruned some shrubs as well. Last year I pruned my HTs and Fls March 16-18, did some touch-up pruning April 28 and the garden was in full bloom (climbers and all) May 14. That is a general plan for me again this year.

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