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ROSE CARE FOR JUNE
by Joan Goff, Consulting Rosarian
by Joan Goff, Consulting Rosarian
The 2011 Annual Rose Show is now history for another year, the vases have been put away, the tags and Q-tips are in the rose prep box, and my garden is now blooming like crazy! Doesn’t this just drive you nuts? As an exhibitor, this seems to be the way my garden blooms, about a week or two AFTER the annual rose show.
Actually my garden is in multiple stages of bloom right now. I have some roses that have not bloomed at all this year: ‘Mardi Gras’, ‘Alain Blanchard’ (this is normal as it is a late once bloomer), ‘Tea Clipper’ and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. They all have buds now, but have not yet bloomed. I have roses that have been fully cut back and now new growth is just beginning and I have roses in full bloom. Many need dead heading and I am trying to find the time.
So in June, it is time to cut back your first blooms and you can choose to cut hard or lightly by taking out spent blooms. (I remember that Tom Bonfigli always said to prune lightly on the first blooms on a new plant.) Of course there is always weeding to do as well. Trying to keep ahead of the weeds is always a problem in my garden, but it makes sense to get them out so that all the water can go to the roses.
You can also fertilize now after you have cut back and cleaned up the area around the roses. Using any fertilizer with a 15-15-15 balance is fine. You could also make up the organic fertilizer tea (the recipe can be find on our website at: http://www.marinrose.org/caremarch2010.html), and give your roses a nice boost.
I believe this is also a good time to evaluate your roses. Actually any time is a good time to evaluate your roses but why not now? You have had a good first bloom to judge, variable weather conditions to judge how fungal diseases have either attacked your bushes or not, and generally - do you want this rose or not?
I am now keeping track of these variables in my garden and adding one more evaluation: whether or not a rose has blind shoots. I have several roses that continue to throw blind shoots for the first bloom. In other words, they have no first bloom, only blind shoots.
Last winter I shovel pruned ‘Color Magic’ and ‘Sheer Magic’ because of blind shoots. This spring I had blind shoots on ‘Mardi Gras’ (the reason it is in bud just now) and ‘Mimi Farina’ plus a couple more. I am not sure why I continue to get blind shoots but it is probably rose midge that is to blame. Since I don’t spray, I will either have to live with this problem or shovel prune. The odd thing that remains is, why does rose midge only pick on some of the roses and others not all? Most of my roses do not have this problem.
I plan on doing some research on this problem and if I find a cure, I will be sure to let you know. Enjoy your roses!
A YEAR OF ROSE CARE:
January
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Last Modified: 6/20/11