|
|
|
|
Judith’s Corner - October, 2001
My first mistake was that I had been scratching compost into the soil around my roses, and he said I was probably hurting the tender feeder roots. That would be those hairy little strands that I pulled up now and then with the prongs of my scratcher. Oh. My second mistake was that I was still cutting blooms to bring into the house--my Fall blooms have been gorgeous, so how could I resist? He told me to resist--that each time I cut a rose this time of the year, I was leaving a stem vulnerable to freezing further down into new growth when the weather turned cold on us. “But . . .”, I sputtered. No “buts” about it, he said. “Don’t prune after August!” Oh. My third mistake was that I’d begun mulching around my roses, most of which are hybrid teas. I’d heard that hybrid teas need to be thickly mulched for the winter--some people nearly bury them in mulch, so I was out there getting started. Curtis Swift told me to stop mulching, and to remove the mulch I’d put down. This last point about mulching was veerrry interesting. It turns out that I was completely wrong about what the mulch was supposed to be doing for the roses. I thought the mulch was to hold in moisture and warmth--I thought the goal was to keep the ground warm for the roots. I was right about the moisture holding part, but wrong about the warm part. The mulch is to hold in moisture and cold. Ooooh. Roses have to go dormant, and stay dormant until the correct time to warm up and start new growth. So, it’s important that the roots get cold enough to hit dormancy--the mulch I was putting down now would make it much harder for the soil to get cold enough for the rose, so it might never go dormant. Or, the rose would go dormant, late, and then warm up during one of our unpredictable winter warm spells, breaking dormancy and making the rose vulnerable to re-freezing. Dr. Swift said not to mulch before December 15th--that the ground needs to freeze 3”-4” before mulching. Oh. It’s really only the hybrid teas that need all this winter attention. Old Garden Roses, rugosas and species roses are much tougher, and don’t really need mulching. I’m beginning to understand that hybrid teas are gorgeous wimps. Dr. Curtis Swift, horticultural Extension Agent for the Tri-River office of Colorado State’s Cooperative Extension, writes a local gardening column in Saturday’s Daily Sentinel. Call him at (970)244.1834, see his webpage at: www.coopext.colostate.edu//TRA/PLANTS, or you can e-mail him at: cswift@coop.ext.colostate.edu. The Cooperative Extension facility has demonstration gardens, including a rose garden. I think we should put a field trip to see the rose garden on next year’s calendar. Maybe, by then, my list of mistakes will be shorter.
Back to Judith's Corner This page last modified: November 22, 2003 |
|
|
Dr. Curtis Swift visited the
GVRS last month, and the first thing I learned, as I took notes, was that I was
making three (count 'em - 3!) mistakes. He didn’t mince words. He told me to
stop making the mistakes, immediately. I deflated right onto my notebook.
