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| Knockout Roses are smaller, but prolific. They are immune to black spot. |
I mentioned the Icha-peek to one reader, and that person confessed. An Icha-peek is one more look at this blog, to see if a new post is published, late at night. One reader told me he looked three times a day and enjoyed seeing new posts each time. Therefore, I feel obliged to provide that last post more often. I add to posts later, so it does not hurt to come back later.
Today I recalled all the bad advice I received about growing roses, so I decided to list it as a warning to those who want to enjoy roses at their best (and do less work at the same time). I put the bad rose advice in bold, black letters.
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| Each earthworm moves its weight in soil every day. No gardener can keep up, so why try? Worms constantly improve the soil. |
Planting Bare Root Roses
Soak them in water until sprouts appear. Bad idea. They do not need to be waterlogged, and that will do them no good. That early red growth, turning green, is the sign of properly planted roses taking root. Please pay attention to the root-soil connection, which is vital.
Put fertilizer or sugar water in the hole when planting, so they have food. That is like putting a baby in a crib, on top of jars of Gerber's Mashed Potatoes. The fertilizer will kill or drive away the soil creatures needed by the plant for supplying food to the roots.
Use systemic insecticides. Why not just nuke the garden so nothing lives in the smoking crater? Insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides have one thing in common - they kill indiscriminately. They are stupid and expensive, like some lawyers. Protect the soil-food web and the good insects will take care of the bad ones. Healthy plants will shake off various kinds of attacks.
Instead - dig a hole, use good soil or perhaps mix mushroom compost in. Avoid manufactured, bagged soil, although that might be good if planting roses in very sandy soil. In that case I would let the mushroom compost dominate.
Scared to Death of Black Spot
Be prepared to spray them all the time with various expensive potions. Tons of perfume smell good too, right? I could tell one lady was at the university library before the elevator door opened on her floor. Black spot is a fungus that lives in the soil, so mulching and avoiding yellow roses will help that problem.
When black spot appears, pick off the leaves and cut away affected branches. Throw the diseased parts away (John 15:1-10) Pruning wakes up and benefits the rose. Roses involve some work - but not much. A woman at the chiro's office became angry and vocal about how I had to spray to have roses. Really? I do not spray at all.
Alternative - grow Knockout Roses. The red ones bloom continuously and the category is immune to black spot. The pink ones were less productive (first year) and the white ones seemed weak until the end of the summer. Rose production will grow with mature roots, so that was expected. Still, the reds were unbelievably productive.
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| Insecticides will kill ladybugs, parisitoid wasps, bees, spiders - everything the rose garden needs. |
Pruning Roses
Look over the 8 drawings and prune the roses where the dotted line indicates.
"Go to your garden, hold the book in the left hand and hold the clippers with your right hand - cutting in the same place on the rose as indicated by Drawing #1."
No wonder people avoid pruning!
A. Cut roses for indoors, for yourself and neighbors, all the time. Call it pruning. That works.
B. Cut off spent flowers, the ones that started to go to seed, dead wood, and anything in the wrong place. No need to look for five-leaf clusters. Snip snip - the roses love it.
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| Jackson Mulch has a lifetime guarantee: it will feed, protect, and keep the garden watered. |
Feeding Roses
Fertilize your roses after every blooming cycle, using the rose food with the right NPK balance. My uncle did that for his wife once, and burnt out the entire rose garden. Grampa Jackson was a rose gardener, so that made it difficult for my aunt to bear. Giving Uncle Max NPK was like handing a garden hose to a toddler - bad things are going to happen soon after.
Instead, cover the entire rose bed with newspapers, making sure there are no gaps. I am not sure the ideal depth of the newspapers. I open them up and lay them down, one section at a time, often covering the gaps with the ad inserts.
Once the newspapers are down, cover that layer with wood mulch (or possibly finished compost). This combination is ideal for suppressing most weeds and for feeding the roses, and Jackson Mulch costs almost nothing in money or labor.
Why does Jackson Mulch work so well?
1. Rose bushes need protection from the soil drying out and blowing away, not to mention rain washing topsoil away.
2. Soil creatures slowly shred and decompose the mulch layer, and all the ingredients (creatures plus mulch) combine to feed the roots and keep the nutrition in the first foot of soil, where plants feed.
3. An attractive wood mulch deters people from walking on the rose bed, so the fragile network beneath the surface is spared and continues to thrive.
Notice how church consults charge enormous fees to ruin congregations. They must be good, or they would not charge so much. All their solutions are wrong, and yet they have created an industry of coaches, consultants, and traveling yahoos. All the congregations need is fidelity to the Word of God, faith in the Gospel. Lacking that, they imagine frantic, expensive activity is a substitution.
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| Mr. Lincoln has many wonderful characteristics - fragrance, heavy petals, and hardiness. |