My question is for all of you rose experts. I enter my roses in the fair and seem to have the same delima each year. Is there anything I can do to either stop the roses from blooming too soon or speed up the blooming process for roses that are not far enough along. The dates to enter the roses are strict in the sense that they must be bloomed out but not to the point of over bloomed.
Currently, I have buds that are quite large and ready to bloom but I need them to wait for two more weeks. Can anyone help me??
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grandpasrose
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Hello Rosy!
There are no fancy tricks to timing your blooms unfortunately. Basically the one thing that has a big impact on how quickly, or slowly, your rose blooms, is temperature.
If roses are kept cool, they slow down. If they are kept warm, they speed up!
To slow them down, you might try shading them somehow, so they stay a little cooler. This would actually prevent any rain damage as well, if you are concerned about that.
Something that the experts use, and if you have never done it, I am not sure I would try, because you could end up damaging your rose, and not having anything worth exhibiting - is tying. This is done by loosely tying together the half open blooms with soft, thick, uncolored wool, to keep the petals from opening too soon. You can only do this a few days ahead, however.
The only tried and true way to be sure you have a rose for the correct time is to have lots of roses, and to alternate pruning times, so that you will always have them at different stages.
Hope some of this helps and good luck at the show!!
By the way, what Zone would you be in Rosy?
VAL (Grandpa's Rose)
There are no fancy tricks to timing your blooms unfortunately. Basically the one thing that has a big impact on how quickly, or slowly, your rose blooms, is temperature.
If roses are kept cool, they slow down. If they are kept warm, they speed up!
To slow them down, you might try shading them somehow, so they stay a little cooler. This would actually prevent any rain damage as well, if you are concerned about that.
Something that the experts use, and if you have never done it, I am not sure I would try, because you could end up damaging your rose, and not having anything worth exhibiting - is tying. This is done by loosely tying together the half open blooms with soft, thick, uncolored wool, to keep the petals from opening too soon. You can only do this a few days ahead, however.
The only tried and true way to be sure you have a rose for the correct time is to have lots of roses, and to alternate pruning times, so that you will always have them at different stages.
Hope some of this helps and good luck at the show!!
By the way, what Zone would you be in Rosy?
VAL (Grandpa's Rose)
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Rosy disposition
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Thanks for your response Grandpa. I am in Wasilla Alaska so I assume my zone is about a 3 or 4. Keeping my roses cool would not normally be a problem this time of year BUT we are having unusually warm weather and it is supposed to be about 80 degrees today. The normal high for August is around 60 degrees, lows in the upper 40's. I do have 6 roses to date but they are different species of roses so I am able to enter in different classes and categories. It is very difficult to have "outdoor" roses up here. I winterize with burlap and straw and tie the roses to the house to stop them from whipping around in the wind. We get 90 mile per hour winds in the winter so I loose (some) roses every year. The growing season is very short, June 1st to August 31st, and the days are very long with 18 to 20 hours per day of sunshine.
Thanks again for your response and hopefully it will start to get cooler very soon!
Thanks again for your response and hopefully it will start to get cooler very soon!
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grandpasrose
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As I wrote earlier, if you are getting a lot of heat, try shading the rose you are worried about - an umbrella, sheet, or something. It will cool it down several degrees.
Your climate sounds very similar to mine. I live in northern British Columbia in Canada and have been growing roses here for 18 years. Right now I have 72 rose bushes. Our winter temperature here goes often down to 30 below, sometimes 40. As you can imagine, not many of our rose bushes normally survive even with covering. However, I have discovered a few ways to fool them!
When planting a new rose, I always plant it with the bud union at least 4 inches, preferrably more, below the ground level. Then in the fall, after the frost, I prune all my bushes down to six inches. They are then mounded with compost, and then covered with two feet of straw, and then a waterproof tarp. The tarp is to prevent the roses from getting further water as we have alot of freeze and thaw through our winter, and I tend to lose roses if they are not kept dry. I also include some mouse bait, as they like to eat the green bark on the remaining canes.
I leave my bushes like this until there is sign of the first leaf buds on the trees that are NATURAL to my area. I then uncover them, leaving the compost as is. I fertilize and deeply water them. They will come back to life - don't give up hope! Once they have come back and I know what has survived, I then do a clean up pruning on them to take out any further dead wood. I have glorious roses, and have continued my grandfather's love of growing roses here since 1940!
I go through this every year, and actually lose very few roses now. It took a few years to get it all figured out.
I am glad to hear to someone else thinks roses are worth the work to grow in these harder conditions!!
Best of luck in your contest!!
VAL (Grandpa's Rose)
Your climate sounds very similar to mine. I live in northern British Columbia in Canada and have been growing roses here for 18 years. Right now I have 72 rose bushes. Our winter temperature here goes often down to 30 below, sometimes 40. As you can imagine, not many of our rose bushes normally survive even with covering. However, I have discovered a few ways to fool them!
When planting a new rose, I always plant it with the bud union at least 4 inches, preferrably more, below the ground level. Then in the fall, after the frost, I prune all my bushes down to six inches. They are then mounded with compost, and then covered with two feet of straw, and then a waterproof tarp. The tarp is to prevent the roses from getting further water as we have alot of freeze and thaw through our winter, and I tend to lose roses if they are not kept dry. I also include some mouse bait, as they like to eat the green bark on the remaining canes.
I leave my bushes like this until there is sign of the first leaf buds on the trees that are NATURAL to my area. I then uncover them, leaving the compost as is. I fertilize and deeply water them. They will come back to life - don't give up hope! Once they have come back and I know what has survived, I then do a clean up pruning on them to take out any further dead wood. I have glorious roses, and have continued my grandfather's love of growing roses here since 1940!
I go through this every year, and actually lose very few roses now. It took a few years to get it all figured out.
I am glad to hear to someone else thinks roses are worth the work to grow in these harder conditions!!
Best of luck in your contest!!
VAL (Grandpa's Rose)
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grandpasrose
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grandpasrose
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I received a post by PM from someone that grows roses in Alaska, that asked some good questions, and got into some good information, so I have included it in this note:
WOW! Thank you so much for your advice Val. I was always told to only prune in the spring. For the past 5 or 6 years we have also been getting the freeze and thaw winter. I am amazed that I have roses at all considering the only thing I do the same as you is cover with straw. I will do exactly what you suggested. I love roses and would like my entire yard filled with all different varieties. Do you also prune climbing roses?
Thank you soooo much for the advise. I am VERY happy that I found this web site and that you are here! .......................
Not a problem! I know what a struggle it is to get appropriate information for roses in our climates!
For climbing roses, I have to be honest and say I have not been as successful, except with the Explorer varieties. For the Explorer varieties,in the spring, I just prune out what died out over the winter.
For other climbers, try burying the entire plant (if it is not too unwieldy) under straw laying on the ground. This keeps the canes from being totally exposed to the winter.
A couple of excellent books that you may find helpful that are more specific to our climates are: "Tender Roses for Tough Climates" by Douglas Green, published by Chapters, and "Roses for BC" by Brad Jalbert & Laura Peters, published by Lone Pine. I actually buy roses from Brad Jalbert - his nursery is Select Roses. He breeds and grows his own roses here in BC.
Enjoy and stop and smell the roses too!
VAL
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Yea Val, I tell folks that I don't answer PM'd questions for just that reason; get them to post them here so we can educate everyone with the answer. You did great with this one but you'll go nuts trying to answer everyones individual PM's and then posting them as well. Best to get them to post them as a new thread...
Scott
Scott
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grandpasrose
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The following is copied from my pm as I think it has information interesting to others:
............................................................................................................
From Rosy Disposition:
The roses are blooming like crazy! The rose I wrote about in the beginning of this is named irish gold. The roses are huge and are very unusual for our fair. I have never seen anyone enter one like this. The remainder of the rose plant has many buds as well but the stem I want to enter into the fair has smaller stems growing from it and each one has a bud, 12 to 15 in all. Two of the buds have bloomed from that main stem and the remaining are still buds. The rest of the plant is blooming crazy.
Thanks for all of your help and I apologize if I PM'd you instead of posting to the forum. I read the comments and was unaware that PMing was a no, no.
............................................................................................................
No need to apologize, but when we exchange information that others may interested in, or may have answers to, it's better to do it in the forums so that everyone benefits!
I have not grown Irish Gold myself, but can share a little information with you about it. It was initially named "Grandpa Dickson" for Alexander Dickson (1893-1975), who for many years was the head of the Dickson family of rose breeders in Ulster.
It was registered in 1966,in Northern Ireland. It's parentage is (Kordes Perfecta x Governador Braga da Cruz) x Piccadilly. It is rated for Zone 6, and has won several awards: RNRS PIT 1965; Golden Rose of Hague 1966: Belfast GM 1968; Portland GM 1970; RNRS GM; RHS Award of Merit. It does have a rather low ARS rating: 7.0. I usually try to stay with roses that are in upper 8's and 9's.
This rose is known for it's exhibition qualities, as it is well formed, does not rain damage, and blooms late into the season.
However, it can be prone to blackspot, and is a little thin on the foliage. It also is not as vigorous a rose as some, so may die out without lots of care.
You may want to prune some of your side buds off, so that you get a good healthy bloom with the right timing for your show - it's soon isn't it?
Best of Luck....... VAL
............................................................................................................
WOW! I am amazed with your knowledge. I was completely unaware of my rose's history. My experience with this rose is a bit different in that it blooms mid season (about 15 blooms) and then again in the fall. Last year I could not enter it because it bloomed too early. This year I waited about three weeks before I cut off the old blooms in hopes that it would bud again later. I have not had the blackspot problem with any of my roses thus far but I was aware that this particular rose did have a tendency towards it. The foliage is full with waxy deep green leaves. I must have 40 buds on it now. It seems to love where it is planted (south side right next to the house, raised bed). Oh yeah, but.....the first year the flowers were deep yellow. This year they have a tinge of pink around the tip of the pedals. Do you know what causes this? We are on a well and our water is rich in iron. Could this be the culprit? Please feel free to post our conversations to the forum any time you like.
By the way.....what does ARS rating mean?
............................................................................................................
Thanks for thinking that I have so much knowledge! Although I like to think I have gained alot over the last 18 years of growing roses, I also have a tremendous library of rose books that I turn to when I need to. I learn something new about roses everytime I read them, which I have done over and over!!
Your rose has a tendency to get a pink tinge to it if it gets alot of sun and the weather is warmer. You probably won't have a lot of problem with blackspot, (neither do I), as you live in a northern area. We actually have a benefit for roses living up here!!
Our humidity is considerably lower than it is in the south, because of our colder climate, and blackspot usually needs to have damp, humid conditions. The only time you may have blackspot is if you have a particulary rainy season.
ARS rating is the "Proof of the Pudding" (POP) classification number given each rose by the American Rose Society. This number can be as high as 10 and tells you how good the quality of your rose is, according to them. They base this rating on vigor (growth, health); fragrance; how good the spring bloom is; how good the repeat bloom is; and hardiness. I would only use this as a guideline, and if you find a rose that you really like, that isn't quite up there in the numbers - too bad!!
I have a couple of them myself.
It sounds like your rose is VERY happy where you have it, and is very healthy. Remember that roses are heavy feeders, and to continue to maintain healthy soil for them so they continue to perform for you!
Have a great day!
VAL
............................................................................................................
From Rosy Disposition:
The roses are blooming like crazy! The rose I wrote about in the beginning of this is named irish gold. The roses are huge and are very unusual for our fair. I have never seen anyone enter one like this. The remainder of the rose plant has many buds as well but the stem I want to enter into the fair has smaller stems growing from it and each one has a bud, 12 to 15 in all. Two of the buds have bloomed from that main stem and the remaining are still buds. The rest of the plant is blooming crazy.
Thanks for all of your help and I apologize if I PM'd you instead of posting to the forum. I read the comments and was unaware that PMing was a no, no.
............................................................................................................
No need to apologize, but when we exchange information that others may interested in, or may have answers to, it's better to do it in the forums so that everyone benefits!
I have not grown Irish Gold myself, but can share a little information with you about it. It was initially named "Grandpa Dickson" for Alexander Dickson (1893-1975), who for many years was the head of the Dickson family of rose breeders in Ulster.
It was registered in 1966,in Northern Ireland. It's parentage is (Kordes Perfecta x Governador Braga da Cruz) x Piccadilly. It is rated for Zone 6, and has won several awards: RNRS PIT 1965; Golden Rose of Hague 1966: Belfast GM 1968; Portland GM 1970; RNRS GM; RHS Award of Merit. It does have a rather low ARS rating: 7.0. I usually try to stay with roses that are in upper 8's and 9's.
This rose is known for it's exhibition qualities, as it is well formed, does not rain damage, and blooms late into the season.
However, it can be prone to blackspot, and is a little thin on the foliage. It also is not as vigorous a rose as some, so may die out without lots of care.
You may want to prune some of your side buds off, so that you get a good healthy bloom with the right timing for your show - it's soon isn't it?
Best of Luck....... VAL
............................................................................................................
WOW! I am amazed with your knowledge. I was completely unaware of my rose's history. My experience with this rose is a bit different in that it blooms mid season (about 15 blooms) and then again in the fall. Last year I could not enter it because it bloomed too early. This year I waited about three weeks before I cut off the old blooms in hopes that it would bud again later. I have not had the blackspot problem with any of my roses thus far but I was aware that this particular rose did have a tendency towards it. The foliage is full with waxy deep green leaves. I must have 40 buds on it now. It seems to love where it is planted (south side right next to the house, raised bed). Oh yeah, but.....the first year the flowers were deep yellow. This year they have a tinge of pink around the tip of the pedals. Do you know what causes this? We are on a well and our water is rich in iron. Could this be the culprit? Please feel free to post our conversations to the forum any time you like.
By the way.....what does ARS rating mean?
............................................................................................................
Thanks for thinking that I have so much knowledge! Although I like to think I have gained alot over the last 18 years of growing roses, I also have a tremendous library of rose books that I turn to when I need to. I learn something new about roses everytime I read them, which I have done over and over!!
Your rose has a tendency to get a pink tinge to it if it gets alot of sun and the weather is warmer. You probably won't have a lot of problem with blackspot, (neither do I), as you live in a northern area. We actually have a benefit for roses living up here!!
Our humidity is considerably lower than it is in the south, because of our colder climate, and blackspot usually needs to have damp, humid conditions. The only time you may have blackspot is if you have a particulary rainy season. ARS rating is the "Proof of the Pudding" (POP) classification number given each rose by the American Rose Society. This number can be as high as 10 and tells you how good the quality of your rose is, according to them. They base this rating on vigor (growth, health); fragrance; how good the spring bloom is; how good the repeat bloom is; and hardiness. I would only use this as a guideline, and if you find a rose that you really like, that isn't quite up there in the numbers - too bad!!
I have a couple of them myself. It sounds like your rose is VERY happy where you have it, and is very healthy. Remember that roses are heavy feeders, and to continue to maintain healthy soil for them so they continue to perform for you!
Have a great day!
VAL
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grandpasrose
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No problem Scott!
Rosy and I have discovered that we have very similar growing circumstances, and it's kind of cool to be able to chat with someone that shares the same type of problems.
She and I have a standing agreement that anything I think should be in the forums, I will post there - hope that's okay!
VAL
Rosy and I have discovered that we have very similar growing circumstances, and it's kind of cool to be able to chat with someone that shares the same type of problems.
She and I have a standing agreement that anything I think should be in the forums, I will post there - hope that's okay!
VAL
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grandpasrose
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Rosy disposition
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Hi all! I just wanted to tell everyone that I did very well at the Fair with the roses. Perfume Delight won 1st place as well as the John Cabot shrub rose. The yellow rose, Irish Gold, took 2nd Place.
The advice I received from Grandpa Rose definitely paid off. I am planning to enter again in the 2nd entry this Wednesday. The weather has been much cooler this week so I am hoping the buds that are starting to bloom out on the Irish Gold rose do not have pinkish edges.
Wish me luck!
The advice I received from Grandpa Rose definitely paid off. I am planning to enter again in the 2nd entry this Wednesday. The weather has been much cooler this week so I am hoping the buds that are starting to bloom out on the Irish Gold rose do not have pinkish edges.
Wish me luck!
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Congratulations Rosy!! I have been thinking of you and wondering how your roses made out.
Another thing you could try to keep the edges from turning pink on the edges of your Irish Gold is sheltering the bush with some shade with an umbrella or a tarp, so that it stays a little cooler - if it's not going to slow down the timing of your bloom of course!
I'm so glad it worked out for you and you are pleased with your results! Best of luck on the next round, and let us know how it goes!
VAL
I have been thinking of you and wondering how your roses made out.Another thing you could try to keep the edges from turning pink on the edges of your Irish Gold is sheltering the bush with some shade with an umbrella or a tarp, so that it stays a little cooler - if it's not going to slow down the timing of your bloom of course!
I'm so glad it worked out for you and you are pleased with your results! Best of luck on the next round, and let us know how it goes!
VAL
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grandpasrose
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I guess I got all caught up in the moment and since I did so well I did not fret any longer. I received a total of 11 ribbons at the fair this year. 7 alone were from the roses. In the 2nd entry the Irish Gold rose took 2nd place again. Perfume Delight and John Cabot both took 1st. I have entered my roses in the fair here for about 7 years now. There is one person who takes grand champion EVERY year. This year I found out who he is...the President of the rose society for Alaska, Charles Decker.
Watch out Charlie, next year I am gonna get ya!
Now my sights are set on next years crop. I will diligently follow the advice of Grandparose and winter them over as she suggested. The temps are getting much cooler now in the low 30's and highs in the low 50's. Snow is right around the corner.
I would like to thank everyone for their advise and support. Next year is going to be exciting!
Watch out Charlie, next year I am gonna get ya!
Now my sights are set on next years crop. I will diligently follow the advice of Grandparose and winter them over as she suggested. The temps are getting much cooler now in the low 30's and highs in the low 50's. Snow is right around the corner.
I would like to thank everyone for their advise and support. Next year is going to be exciting!
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Rosy, that is excellent! Good for you! I'm so glad you did so well. I was wondering when we didn't hear from you what had happened. You just stay right on Charlie's rear and you'll get there!!!
I have written a few articles on winter care of roses in this forum that you should definitely take a look at for your roses. Don't do any wintering of your roses until you have a few good heavy frosts.
Sounds like your weather is about like ours is right now. Very foggy mornings, and drippy, heavy dew on everything. My dahlias have been touched so they're black now, but so far everything else is doing okay. This is the time of year I get disheartened with it all and sort of give up, so I have to kick myself to get the winter stuff done. I hate to think that it's all over for another year.
Great to hear from you and your successes! Keep it up and keep in touch!
VAL
I have written a few articles on winter care of roses in this forum that you should definitely take a look at for your roses. Don't do any wintering of your roses until you have a few good heavy frosts.
Sounds like your weather is about like ours is right now. Very foggy mornings, and drippy, heavy dew on everything. My dahlias have been touched so they're black now, but so far everything else is doing okay. This is the time of year I get disheartened with it all and sort of give up, so I have to kick myself to get the winter stuff done. I hate to think that it's all over for another year.
Great to hear from you and your successes! Keep it up and keep in touch!
VAL
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