Transplanting roses in the ‘wrong’ season

We are moving from one home to another this summer. We have a rose bush in our garden that was a gift for a special occasion that we planted about three years ago, and we’d like to take it with us. Is it possible to transplant a rose bush? It’s not very large, but it has a few blooms on it now.

The best times to transplant roses are in early spring or in the fall, but if, for whatever reason, mid-summer is when you have to do it, then give it the best care possible. Here is advice from Marty Reich, a consulting rosarian with the Nashville Rose Society and American Rose Society:

Winterize your roses

I’ve heard gardeners talk about “winterizing” roses. What does that mean? And how do you do that?

Winterize rose shrubs to prevent damage from cold and wind.

If you live in an area that experiences intense cold or cycles of freezing and thawing, you may have heard about the importance of winterizing your roses. While rose shrubs are generally hardy, some varieties may be vulnerable to extended cold weather and strong winter winds. “Winterizing” helps protect roses from winter damage.

The process begins in late summer. You should discontinue fertilizer applications about mid-August, to slow down new growth. Stop cutting off the dead blooms in early October, which signals the plant to stop producing new growth.

Now comes the important “winterizing” part: Between now (late November) and mid-December, cut the canes back to 2 to 3 feet tall to keep them from blowing around in the winter winds, loosening the soil around the roots. Rose experts at the Nashville Rose Society suggests placing a 12-inch high mound of soil or mulch around each bush. To minimize winter damage at the end of each cane, you can also erect a small cage of chicken wire around each bush and pile about two feet of hay or other loose organic material inside.

Miniature roses and others grown in containers can be moved to an unheated garage or other space where the temperature remains above 20 degrees. Plants should be watered just enough to keep them moist.

For advice on roses in Middle Tennessee (where The Garden Bench calls home), I usually turn to the rosarians at the Nashville Rose Society, who provide excellent information on growing roses at their website. We are in USDA Hardiness Zone 7a, and the schedule reflects normal conditions in our climate. Gardeners in colder areas may adjust accordingly.

Rose enthusiasts can also get information (and see photos of beautiful blooms) from Birmingham, Alabama-based rose expert Chris VanCleave aka “The Redneck Rosarian.” He writes about roses, hosts podcasts, and keeps the conversation going with #RoseChat on Twitter.

Prune roses for better blooms

We have a rose bush that is out of control and really needs pruning. Can it be done now? Or is it better to wait until next spring?

Rose experts say that roses can be pruned anytime they are actively growing. Start by trimming out the older wood first, along with any dead or dying canes. You may also want to remove canes in the center of the bush to provide better air flow, any canes that cross and rub each other, or any twiggy growth that might be tempting to spider mites.

The Nashville Rose Society provides general pruning guidelines: each pruning cut should be made about ¼-inch above an outward-facing bud eye (where the leaf is attached to the stem). Use sharp bypass pruning shears, which will make a clean cut without crushing the stem.

An added tip: remove the spent blooms of roses regularly to encourage the plant to bloom more.

Serious rose growers may do a more severe type of pruning in the fall to winterize bush roses. Nashville Rose Society also provides general guidelines for this process: Stop fertilizing roses early in August to allow the plant to slow down producing new growth, then in early October, stop cutting off the dead flowers. In late November or early December, cut the canes back to 2 to 3 feet and place a mound of mulch around the bush.

Next spring, once the weather begins to warm up, move the mulch away from the roses and prune to about 12 inches to get new growth.

In Saturday’s Tennessean

The Ernest and Berdelle Campbell Land Trust Garden is a quarter-acre oasis in Nashville’s tightly-packed Germantown neighborhood. “This will always be green space,” Berdelle Campbell says. Read about the garden and Berdelle’s agreement with The Land Trust for Tennessee in Saturday’s Tennessean, and find more here about my visit with Berdelle, and more photos from the garden.

Free daylilies!

A Middle Tennessee reader emailed last week to say that she has a back yard full of daylilies that she can no longer take care of, and she is trying to find a home for them. “There is a huge assortment in lots of different colors and types, mostly full size but some miniatures,” she wrote. “My grandmother and mom collected them over the year and I don’t really know any of their names.”

If you are looking for daylilies, are willing to take a chance on sizes and colors, and can dig them up yourself, she is willing to donate. Interested? Email me at gloria@gloriaballard.com and I will put you in touch.

Fortunately, the best time to dig and divide daylilies is coming up. I wrote about how to do that task here.

Spider mites can ruin your roses

What could be stripping the leaves off the branches of my roses? I spray with a product that is supposed to protect roses from insects and diseases, but it hasn’t helped.

Keep an eye on roses when it’s hot and dry. That’s when spider mites do their worst damage, say rosarians at the Nashville Rose Society, and they can turn a lovely rose bush into an ugly mess.

The tiny creatures get on the undersides of leaves and feed on the plant’s juices. The damaged leaves look speckled, turn yellow and fall off.

Spider mites are not insects; they are more closely related to spiders, so insecticides won’t have any effect. You can use a miticide, but it can be expensive. The best and cheapest way to control them is with a blast of water directed at the undersides of the leaves, rosarians say. If you do this every three days for a week or so, you break the mites’ gestation cycle.

Here’s a little more information about the tiny arachnids: Adult mites are less than 1/50 inch long. They use their mouthparts to pierce individual plant cells and remove the liquid. They produce webs that can coat the foliage with a fine silk that collects dust, making the leaves look dirty.

You can’t see them, but you can certainly see the damage. Heavily infested plants will be discolored, and if they are not controlled, the rose can be stunted, or even killed.

Keep your Valentine flowers fresh

Happy Valentine’s Day! Did someone give you flowers?

Whether they’re cut flowers or potted flowering plants, from a florist or from the nearest grocery store, here are tips from a variety of sources and experts on keeping the blooms fresh so you can enjoy them as long as possible.

Cut flowers: If someone hands you a bouquet of cut flowers in a cellophane wrapper, try to get them back in water as quickly as you can. Flowers that have been out of water for any length of time have reduced ability to conduct water into the stems, so hold the stems underwater and cut a bit from the bottom and leave them in water until you can arrange them in a vase.

Use a clean vase and cool water with a floral preservative added. When you cut the stems to the desired length, remove the lower leaves. Check the water level of any arrangement of cut flowers every day, and change the water frequently. Keep the flowers away from heat sources and out of cold drafts.

Miniature roses: If you want your miniature rose to keep blooming, place the pot where it will get a lot of sunlight. Water the plant thoroughly when the soil feels dry, and groom the plant regularly to remove dead flowers and foliage. Fertilize in spring and summer. Miniature roses can be planted outdoors when the weather warms.

Florist azalea: Bloom time will be longer if you keep the azaleas cool at night, though they also do best indoors when they receive good sunlight. Keep the soil moist. If it makes it until spring in good condition, plant it a part-shade spot outdoors.

Cyclamen: These plants also require sun during the day and cool temperatures at night to develop flower buds. They will quickly droop if they are allowed to get too dry. Most houseplant lovers enjoy these for a few weeks or a couple of months while they are in bloom, and discard them when their time is up.

And when the subject is roses, I can’t do better than to give a shout-out to fellow garden blogger Chris VanCleave at Redneck Rosarian. If someone has ceremoniously presented a beautiful bouquet cradled in a sturdy box or wrapped in cellophane, the blooms require (and deserve!) special care. Here’s a link to his excellent advice on preserving your Valentine’s Day roses.

Time to plant a rose

Question: We want to add roses to our landscape this year. When is the best time to plant them? Is it better to buy bare root plants, or plants in containers?

Roses purchased as bare-root plants can be planted in late winter, whenever the soil can be worked. In this area (USDA Hardiness Zone 7a), roses in containers should be planted after mid-April, say the experts at the Nashville Rose Society. Either should grow well and bloom if they’re given the right conditions: lots of sun – six or more hours a day – and good drainage.

Here’s how to plant roses to get them off to a good start:

Before you plant a bare root rose, soak it for 8 – 24 hours in a large bucket of water with root stimulator added. This rehydrates the plant. Dig a hole 18 inches wide and deep. Place ½ cup of superphosphate in the bottom of the hole, and cover it with a mound of soil made up of 1/3 top soil, 1/3 compost and 1/3 sand or perlite. Prune any broken or dead branches or old canes smaller in diameter than a pencil, and prune back any broken or unusually long roots.

Place the roots over the soil mound in the hole and spread them out and downward over the mound. Place the soil mix around the roots to fill the hole about halfway, and pour a gallon of water with root stimulant over the soil and let it drain. After this has soaked in, finish filling the hole up to ground level with soil mix. Cover the soil with mulch to help keep the bush hydrated until the feeder roots begin to grow; remove the mulch gradually as the weather begins to get warmer.

To plant a potted rose (after the last frost date in your area), dig a hole slightly larger than the diameter of the pot and about 18 inches deep. Place ½ cup of superphosphate or bone meal in the bottom of the hole and cover it with 2 inches of soil. Remove the bush from the pot without breaking the root ball (you may have to cut the sides of the pot away) and place the root ball in the hole so that bud union – the knot where the rose was grafted onto the root stock — is just above ground level.

Fill in around the root ball with soil, and water thoroughly with a bit of root stimulator added to the water.

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The Garden Calendar returns in The Tennessean and at Tennessean.com

In March, hope springs eternal in the garden

Lovely roses, ugly leaves

QUESTION: I have two rose bushes and the flowers are beautiful, but there are small, irregular holes in some of the older leaves. My neighbor’s roses have black spots on the leaves. What causes these things?

There seem to be so many things that can bug roses: aphids, spider mites, Japanese beetles, thrips. Blackspot, anthracnose, mildew.

Damage to leaves is most often caused by insects. If you find holes in the leaves of your rose bushes, most likely they have been visited by the chewing kind. One likely suspect may be the little caterpillars known as rose slugs, the larva of an insect called a sawfly.

A little research reveals that the adult lays her eggs on the leaf surface, and when the larvae hatch they move to the underside of the leaf and begin feeding, creating holes between the veins. Finally, the larva drops to the ground, and later emerges as an adult sawfly, ready to begin the cycle again. There can be six generations a year.

The best method for eradication is to pluck these things off the leaves when you see them. Examine the undersides of the leaves, particularly, for the ¾-inch, lime green caterpillars. If you feel you must spray something, a pyrethrin product is advised.

The black spots on rose leaves could be one of several possibilities: Anthracnose is a fungal disease that causes black spots that later turn purple or brown. It thrives where conditions are moist. Downy mildew begins with irregular purplish spots that turn black. The most common, though, is a condition called blackspot, another fungus that thrives in moist conditions.

These diseases overwinter on old leaves that fall to the ground, so it’s good gardening practice to clean up around the base of the shrubs and remove dead foliage. The experts at the Nashville Rose Society recommend a regular fungicide spray schedule beginning in the spring.

With all that can go wrong with roses, why bother growing them? Because if you have the right sun and soil conditions, they can be one of the most rewarding plants in the garden.

Eating extra-local — from your back yard

Find ideas for all that zucchini, that basket full of okra, all those tomates, plus summer garden tips and tasks in the August Garden Calendar at Tennessean.com.

Garden events in Middle Tennessee

August 20: Julie Berbiglia of NPT’s Volunteer Gardener is the speaker at this month’s Perennial Plant Society of Middle Tennessee meeting at Cheekwood’s Botanic Hall. Her topic: “Water Conservation.” Refreshments at 6:30, meeting at 7 p.m. The public is invited. www.ppsmt.org.

August 22: Hosta hybridizer Bob Solburg of Green Hill Farm in Franklinton, N.C. is the speaker at this month’s meeting of the Middle Tennessee Hosta Society at Cheekwood. The meet-and-greet begins at 6:30, meeting at 7 p.m., and Solburg will have plants for sale. www.mths-hosta.com.