How I grow roses

raytherose

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How We grow roses - an update here is well overdue!

2009 /2010

Growing For Malvern

Having grown our roses for Malvern in two small 8' x 6' greenhouses for a number of years, we've finally decided to get a bigger growing house.

This is what our new greenhouse should look like but we're on a tigh t schedule. Just three weeks until we set off to the USA for the American Rose Society Fall Conference but with Shows Committee meetings and the RNRS AGM we will only have three sundays in which to prepare and build a concrete base and then erect the greenhouse itself. Realistically there will not be enough time as the floribundas and HTs need to be prepared and ready in November. The miniatures which are much more forgiving and a lot easier to grow are generally started / pruned on Christmas day, so there will hopefully be time to get the greenhouse ready. It's the 26th November and not a bit of work done yet! The new greenhouse is in the garage and just four weeks until Christmas. This saturday we're off to pick up our new roses so that just leaves sunday; I feel a disaster looming.

I have only myself to blame, not having done the preparatory work when the weather was fair we now have SNOW! The old, small greenhouses are stuffed to bursting with potted roses and if I don't get them a new home soon. they will start growing and be over-crowded. Maybe we'll find some time over the holiday to make a real start?

For the past couple of years we have not made much of an impression with our Spring roses. In 2010 we are pinning our hopes on Baby Boomer for the miniature single bloom classes and Rainbow Magic for the cluster flowered miniatures. Hakuun is always a good standby for the cluster flowered classes and we're also trying Hannah Hauxwell.

As for HTs, we've a few un named Lionel Pole varieties budding up nicely plus a few Isn't She Lovely, a Dickson's variety that I have high hopes for s a glass house rose

2008 / 2009

Growing for Malvern -

As we approach the winter solstice, mid winter and the shortest day; the time has come to prepare the potted roses for the spring show in Malvern. The show is held, every year, around the second weekend in May. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that the roses will react to the gradual lengthening of the days following the 21st December and if pruned and prepared on or around this date, will produce blooms for us at about the right time. Timing is more about guesswork and luck than any precise formula because the weather conditions and light levels at this time of the year can vary enormously. I prefer that the roses are early rather than late because it is a lot easier to hold them back, either when cut and stored in the fridge or on the bush by lowering the temperature in the greenhouse.

I grow most of the bushes in florist's large flower buckets ( Morrisons generally sell them off for about 10 pence each) The compost in the pots is refreshed every year, generally I replace the top and bottom two inches depending on how the roots have filled the pot. The potting medium I use is 5 parts multipurpose compost, 5 parts sterilized loam, 1 part crushed granite gravel, osmacote slow release fertilizer and a little swell gel to assist in keeping the compost from drying out. In the past I have used Perlite but whilst I find it helps to improve drainage, does little to retain moisture.

I tend to prune the greenhouse roses quite a lot harder than those grown in the open ground. The main reason being that I want roses for one show only and and just a few stems from each of the 50 or so pots that I grow should provide more than enough blooms/stems for our purposes.

Varieties -

We have two 8' x 6' greenhouses for our roses and other plants so space is always at a premium. Miniatures are therefore the most 'value-for-money' type of rose to grow. We grow a few HTs and floribundas but I find them less reliable (often throwing up blind stems) more diifcult to time correctly and generally more difficult to grow.

Miniature varieties include:

Irresistible; Chelsea Belle; Amber Star; Glowing Amber; Miss Flippins; Caliente; Louis Desamero; Erin Alonso and Bees Knees

This year I am trying some newer US bred, miniature and mini-flora varieties:

Lady Eowyn; Class of 73; Peter Cottontail; Luscious Lucy; Butter Cream and Ty

HT varieties include:

Piccadilly; Pedrus Aquarius; St Patrick, Hot Princess, Here's Sam and Grandpa Dickson. One cautionary note about HTs is that in four attempts, I have only managed to get TWO blooms (of Pedrus Aquarius) to Malvern - however,this probably says more about my lack of expertise than anything else!

May Update:

With just days to go before this years show (8th May 2008) things definitely look grim! The 50+ bushes that were prepared in November / December, now number less than thirty. Casulties have been many but we have not really been able to identify the causes. Sub zero (-3c) temperatures caught us out in February, before I'd set the fan heaters up, and I think was responsible for most of our failures. Low light levels haven't helped even though we've had the lights on since February.

The new minifloras haven't been the success that I'd hoped for. Lady Eowyn appeared to be most successful but unfortunately the blooms, although plentiful, have been poor. They are nearly all very distorted, almost quartered in fact. Mike Thompson said that he'd had the same experience with the variety in his garden last year and that later season blooms were much better. Peter Cottontail has produced one magnificent bloom allbeit on a very short stem and the rest of the blooms will not make it in time for Malvern! Butter Cream, Rocky Top, Class of 73 and Luscious Lucy are all now growing well but again will not make blooms in time for the show - such a shame!

As usual we will take to Malvern all that we have in the way of blooms but it will be far less than in recent years. Other exhibitors have reported similar dismal expectations but we exibitors can be a pessimistic lot at times and often 'underestimate' our potential to exhibit. Hopefully there will be enough roses to provide a decent show for the public.

Dave Weatherby reigns supreme! As expected we took very few blooms to the show but Southport-based Dave took a truckload! He scooped all the major awards, see show reports page. We must try harder next year!!

Up at the Allotment-

OMG!!!!! It's December tomorrow; we've heeled all the new roses in on the allotment. Some of their living quarters have been prepared (deeply manured and dug) but there is still a lot of weeding to do. After a summer without rain the gound had become dry and dusty but now the rains of November have really got into the soil and it is in great condition for planting. All we need are floodlights so we can do a nightshift!

We've had an 8' x6' aluminium greenhouse frame on site since June and I really must get the glass in before the winter really sets in - yeah right!

Now that the winter has turned white there really is nothing likely to happen on the allotment. Now this is a pity because I've had the Howard 300 rotavator serviced and it's ready to get stuck into the preparation of the soil for Pauline's veggie patch. After her success with the spuds and the onions, look out for her parsnips in 2010!

As for the roses, we were disappointed with the flower production on our Lucky bushes in their first year but the bushes themselves have made good growth and probably deserve a second chance? We have a bed of 30 random / mixed floribundas that includes Grace Abounding, Dancing Pink, Iceberg, Anne Harness and a few others. These will be sacrificed for the afforementioned spuds. Some will be saved and some will be 'recycled' to some of our allotment neighbours.

New roses to be planted include; Absolutely Fabulous (Rose of the Year 2010), Princess Nabuko, Mystery Girl and a few new minifloras that Ian Roger now has in his catalogue. Ian also tells me that he has an agreement to supply more minifloras and miniatures bred by David Clemons which should include Whirlaway and Foolish Pleasure. RHS members will have seen an article featuring Whirlaway in the January edition of The Garden. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this prizewinning miniflora performs in the UK..

Up at the Allotment -

The pruning was completed in April, floribundas were done first, then HTs and lastly the miniatures. Following pruning all were given a handful of of Fish Blood and Bone and all were weeded prior to mulching.

Early signs of life in the bushes was soon spotted by the ever-vigilent greenfly population and we were visited by every fit aphid in Suffolk! Dimethiate, the chosen weapon of ahid destruction, soon sorted out the little blighters but a second treatment will I fear be required. Our organic friends will no doubt be concerned for our local ladybird population; sadly the very lack of a ladybird population is, in part, the reason for the drastic action. All that we've seen so far this year are these Harlequin, ladybird looky-likies.

Bindweed continues to be be our biggest weed problem, couch grass is not far behind and we've dug up wheel-barrow loads of both! Now, on the 4th May, the beds are weeded as best we can make them and the roses have been fed again with a handful of rose fertilizer each (Arthur Bowers balanced feed with all the trace elements) and now the back-breaking task of spreading 12 tons ( a very generous 12 tons as well thanks to Mr Johnson of Sluice Farm, Woodbridge) is nearly half completed.

Liquid feeding is paricularly important for our roses because we live in a vey low rainfall area and foliar feeding has proved the best method for giving our roses all their requirements . This year I have purchased a replacement dilutor; the bottle on my last dilutor split for no apparent reason and last year we decided to try to do without it. I think the roses liked it so with our new, improved bottle from Acces Irrigation Equipment we are back in dilutor business! Sangral soluable fertilizer is my preferred variety because

a) it's available locally and

b) is available in a variety of NPK mixes, all with added trace elements.

I try to stick to the rule of high N early on, for growth, high P mid season for the flowers and high K to harden up the bushes at the end on the season. Additionally, we decided to give Uncle Tom's Rose Tonic a whirl this year; it seems to have recieved some great reviews from the trade but I will reserve judgement until we have tried it!

Raytherose 2007