FROM THE GROUND UP

Rose resolutions

Now is time to prune, replace plants for bountiful garden in the spring

By RITA PERWICH

The dawning of a new year causes many of us to make dramatic vows and pledges. Some resolutions won’t even make it past the first weeks of January. But keeping resolutions for your rose garden should be a breeze.

A January rose pruning is therapeutic, symbolic and cleansing as well as enjoyable. We rid the garden (and symbolically ourselves) of last year’s old leaves and troubles while envisioning the promise and anticipation of beautiful new buds and blooms in spring. No wonder rosarians look forward to pruning; it is an annual ritual of love.

The other easy-to-keep rose resolution is improving the garden by selecting and buying new roses. In January, bare root roses are available in nurseries. This shopping opportunity provides the incentive to evaluate your present roses, remove deficient ones and replace them with well-selected varieties.

The Gertrude Jekyll rose has a strong scent and large

blooms. DREAMSTIME

DREAMSTIME

The Julia Child rose is a smaller variety with a licorice-like scent.

PRUNING

Pruning is enjoyable when you know why you need and how to do it. Pruning revitalizes roses, encourages the growth of more blooms, and opens plants to light and air circulation, which minimizes disease. Get started with these tips: • Use the right tools. You’ll need a sharp pair of bypass pruners, gauntlet gloves, long-handled loppers and a pruning saw. • Examine the rose from the bud union (the base of the plant below the branches, or canes). Keep healthy canes and cut out old, damaged, spindly ones. Unproductive canes need to be sawed out at the base of the bush, which encourages and opens room for the rose to grow new, productive canes (basal breaks) from the bud union. • Don’t prune severely. In San Diego, we generally cut about one-third off the height of hybrid teas and one-fourth off the height of floribundas, polyanthas, shrubs, miniatures and minifloras. On climbers, cut out main canes that are unproductive and damaged. The remaining canes are trained to grow horizontally, which encourages lateral growth. The blooms on climbers grow off these lateral stems. • Look for the outward facing bud eye. Notice the small swelling where a leaf is or was attached to a cane? This is called

a bud eye. When pruning, make cuts one-quarter inch above an outward facing bud eye. This prompts the rose bush to grow in an outward direction, keeping the center of the bush open to air and light. • Create a clean slate. Strip any remaining leaves on the bush and remove clippings from the garden to discard fungi and pests.

EVALUATING ROSES

Don’t put up with a crummy rose. Do use this simple, three-prong query before you shovel-prune (dig the plant out): • Could the rose’s non-performance be human error? If the answer is yes or maybe, give the rose a one-year reprieve and resolve to take better care of it. • Did the rose make your heart sing? Did it produce lots of blooms, or at a minimum, were the scant blooms knockout gorgeous? If the answer is no, the rose must go. A rose should never be dull. • Was the plant more trouble than it was worth? Don’t waste time on a rose that is a disease or pest magnet. Make way for a better rose.

SELECTING NEW ROSES

Do your homework and consider the following: • Do you desire a formal rose garden with high-centered hybrid tea roses? Perhaps a showy, breathtaking climber at the entry gate or on an arbor? Or is your vision multiclustered blooms of floribundas, polyanthas and shrub roses planted informally with other perennials?

Need help?

Consider these events to help get you started: • Pruning workshop. Pruning roses is best learned by watching the procedure and then practicing what you learned while being watched. Bring your gloves and pruners and attend the free annual hands-on pruning workshop presented by Master Gardeners and consulting rosarians at the Coronado Library Rose Garden, Jan. 14 from 9.30 to 11.30 a.m. Information about rose fertilizing, pests and fungal diseases will also be available. Master Gardeners will provide free cleaning and sharpening of one pair of pruners or loppers for workshop attendees. Tools need to be in good working condition. • The San Diego Rose Society is hosting a rose growing seminar from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Jan. 21. Topics will include pests and disease, soil, fertilizer, and pruning techniques and tools as well as rose care throughout the year. The cost is $36, which includes lunch and refreshments. For details, go to sandiegorosesociety. com/events/rose-care-seminar. – Rita Perwich

DREAMSTIME

With proper care, the Sally Holmes climbing rose is nearly always in bloom.

• What types of bloom make your heart sing: the simplicity of single-petal blooms with brightly colored stamens; the individuality and fun of striped blooms; or romantic, fragrant, multipetaled roses?

If you’re like most rosarians, it’s probably all the above. • Where will you plant the roses? Roses must be planted in a sunny location. Look up the size of a rose at maturity and assess your available space. • Research the rose variety. Gardeners know that going to a nursery is like going to the grocery store when famished. Shopping for roses without a list can be a gamble because not all roses are equal in disease resistance. Find the nursery’s rose list on the internet and check the varieties that meet your petal count, color, size and fragrance criteria.

Most importantly, research the variety on the internet. Is the rose described as being disease resistant? When disease resistance and fragrance are not mentioned, assume that they are lacking.

By prepping and planting roses now, you’ll set your garden up for a brilliant bloom in spring. ■

Rita Perwich is a Master Gardener with UC Cooperative Extension and a San Diego Rose Society consulting rosarian.

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