Growing A Rose: Caring For Roses, Pruning Roses

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Read the previous part - Growing a rose: purchasing seedlings, choosing a place for planting and suitable varieties

Rose care

Caring for roses is weeding, watering, loosening, feeding, pruning faded inflorescences, removing wild growth, as well as sanitary and formative pruning, pest and disease control, shelter for the winter and opening in spring.

And so as not to cut off more than one branch from a bush per season for bouquets! Because it weakens him, he may not overwinter. Unless a small bouquet with short "legs" can be cut from a climbing large-flowered rose. Because in the roses grown in the north, you need to save every leaf for photosynthesis. Cutting roses on long "legs" is done only from bushes specially grown in greenhouses.

Watering

Rose bushes have a deep root system, and the bush can do without watering for a long time. The leaves will remain green and dense, but the flowers will be small and literally have a pale appearance. Therefore, watering is required for them.

In hot summer, watering should be done often, pouring water up to a bucket under the bush - the older the bush, the more water is required. For large bushes of park, spray and climbing roses, even more is required - one and a half to two buckets. First years especially need watering. It is better to water less often, but abundantly, and not in the middle of the bush, but around, stepping back from the middle 10 - 20 cm.

A very bright color of roses is obtained if the bushes are watered with magnetized water. Irrigation water should not fall on the leaves, so as not to help the development of fungal diseases.

In August, watering should be done as little as possible - for better wintering.

Loosening

After watering and rains, it is necessary to loosen the soil, but not deeper than 2-3 cm, so as not to damage the roots that grow close to the surface.

Fertilizing roses

In the first year after planting, the rose can not be fed until the buds are formed. Then young bushes are fed with liquid organic fertilizer - cow dung (1:10) or chicken droppings (1:20). In the subsequent years of life, in early spring, as soon as the main shelter was removed after wintering and the rose was broken, it is necessary to scatter around the bushes and embed in the soil a complete mineral fertilizer with a predominance of nitrogen. Fertilizers are always applied to the root placement area - this is within a radius of 15-20 cm from the root collar. At this time, the bush needs to be mulched with humus - the rose will really like it. Mulching roses is a very important agricultural technique.

When buds appear, top dressing is carried out with liquid summer dressing, which is prepared as follows. A bucket of cow dung (or half a bucket of chicken manure) and 1 kg of ash are placed in a barrel of 100 liters, filled with water. The solution is allowed to ferment, it is stirred several times a day. As soon as the bubbling stops, the solution is ready for use. On 10 liters of such "kvass" add 15 g of ammonium nitrate and potassium salt and 30 g of superphosphate, and this is fertilized after rain or watering. This dose goes for 1 sq. meter. You can add trace elements to the dressing - according to the instructions for them, you can give it by the foliar method.

Around the middle of August, you need to give potassium-phosphorus fertilizing, but in no case give nitrogen.

Real climbing roses - ramblers - must be well fed with compost - a bucket per bush in spring and after flowering. They are very fond of foliar feeding with bird droppings - little by little, but often.

Roses can be given "home" dressing: in the spring, add eggshells crushed on a coffee grinder to the trunk circle, at the beginning of bud formation - furnace soot, from which the color of the roses becomes very clear and bright. Doses - by eye, about a glass per sq. meter, because there are no scientific recommendations on this score. The main thing is not to overdo it.

Removing flowers and buds

On roses, it is imperative to remove the fading flowers. Otherwise, it will look sloppy. Or it will litter and throw petals around - collecting them is very tedious.

In summer, on hybrid tea roses, for a quick re-flowering, the flower is removed to the first true leaf (on which not 3 slices, but 5 or 7, depending on the variety) or a strong bud. If 2-3 buds have formed at the end of the shoot, then to get a large flower we leave one bud, remove the rest.

For all the rest, we remove the fading flowers as soon as at least one petal flies from them. In the flower brushes, gradually we simply pluck out the faded or crumbling flowers until the whole brush has faded.

With prolonged rains on some varieties of roses, the buds do not open, their outer petals begin to rot. We'll have to cut these buds. Or it is necessary to protect such roses from rains by covering them with a film on top.

The first buds of the seedlings planted this year are pinched, the bush should develop roots better, gain biomass. In the second half of August, one bud can be left and allowed to bloom, so that the bush will enjoy life and to make sure that the variety matches what you bought.

Pruning roses, basic principles

If the roses are not cut, the bushes will soon turn into green thickets. Pruning stimulates flowering, without it it is impossible to grow a beautifully blooming rose. Pruning is different: spring, autumn for wintering, forming, pruning when planting, which we have already talked about. Pruning roses requires a very sharp pruner that produces smooth cuts rather than crinkling the stems.

You need to cut off the shoot above the bud 0.5 cm above its top, at an angle of 450, so that the rain rolls down. If the stump is larger, then it will gradually dry out, if less, then the bud will dry out. These are the subtleties.

Before pruning, you need to feed the bush with a small amount of humus in order to activate the growth of shoots. If several shoots grow from one bud, the weak ones must be removed, leaving one strongest.

It is worth paying attention to skeletal shoots: they should be at some distance from each other, the center of the bush should be free so that there is no stagnation of air and diseases. Always remove to the base all the thin stems that go into the bush and thicken it. All sections must be lubricated with garden varnish or "brilliant green", preferably with Novikov's liquid.

If the rose is grafted, it is necessary to remove the wild root shoots immediately after detection. It differs from cultivated leaves and can form at a great distance from the bush. You need to get to the place where the wild boar grows, and cut it to the base.

In the spring, after the complete removal of the shelter, as soon as the daytime temperature is above zero, the dead branches and diseased parts of the stems are removed to the base to healthy wood. All diseased, overlapping, weak, dead branches are also removed. At this time, the most serious pruning takes place, forming a bush: if it is compact, pruning is done on the outer bud so that the center does not thicken, and rarely on the inner bud if the bush is spreading and the center is very empty.

Young shrubs, planted last spring, are cut strongly - at a height of 10-15 cm from the soil surface. This strengthens the root system and stimulates the growth of strong young shoots. In climbing roses, the dead ends of the shoots are removed.

Pruning of adult bushes is done during the entire growing season. It depends on the class of the rose.

Pruning different classes of roses

Hybrid tea roses: In most roses, the apical bud dominates the axillary buds, and until it is cut off, nothing else will grow from this shoot. Therefore, it is impossible to leave fading flowers on the stem for a long time, they inhibit the growth of shoots from the lower buds.

Cropping depends on what you want to get. In spring, when we want to get the earliest possible flowering, the shoots should be cut as weakly as possible. Part of the shoots can be cut strongly - for 2 - 3 buds. In this case, we will have powerful shoots and late flowering - in 60 - 70 days. The flowers on these shoots will be larger and brighter, and their "legs" will be longer. In this way, we prolong the flowering of the bush.

In the second half of summer, powerful "Ivanov" shoots grow on the bushes. At the end of the first year of life, they must be completely cut out in the fall. From the second year - to leave. They can bloom - and let them bloom. If they grew in the second half of August, it is better to pinch them by 1/3 so that they have time to ripen before winter.

Floribunda, miniature, polyanthus roses have excitable dots all over the shoot. The shoots of these roses should not be cut too much so as not to lose a lot of nutrients. They are usually pruned to a strong bud. To speed up the awakening of the buds, you need to immediately pick off the fading flowers without touching the leaves: in floribunda, every leaf must be protected.

With the help of pruning, a powerful bush is formed. To do this, on a young bush, after every four leaves, a pinch is done on the shoot. When a sufficient leaf apparatus accumulates on the bush, this will provoke the growth of a powerful skeletal shoot.

We will allow him to bloom only in September in order to delay the growth of new shoots in the fall. To do this, until the end of August, we will pinch all the pea-sized buds on it. This tactic is carried out for two years, until a bush with several powerful skeletal branches is formed.

The general method for pruning floribunda bushes is the same as for hybrid tea roses, but pruning is done more moderately - by 4 - 6 buds. Every year, 1 - 2 young shoots should be left on the bushes, and 1 - 2 old ones should be cut out completely. In general, pruning is a creative process, the main thing is to try to follow the principles.

Climbing roses. They mostly bloom on last year's shoots. Flowering shoots develop in the upper part of the bush, so you need to cut the top of the whip very carefully, removing only the dead parts.

In the second half of summer, young bushes form 1 - 2 basal shoots. For the wood to mature, in mid-August - early September, you need to pinch the tops of all shoots. Thin, short, completely unripe shoots must be removed completely. In order for full-fledged basal shoots to form next year, after full flowering, 1 - 2 old shoots are removed on adult bushes.

In total, in a climbing rose bush, you need to have 4 - 5 ripe shoots under the age of three years. A couple of old shoots in the fall are shortened by 1 - 2 buds - in case the main shoots freeze, they will be a lifesaver. In the spring, if the winter passes safely, they are cut out completely. And so - every year.

Park roses. Blossom on shoots last year. For 4 - 5 years old shoots are cut out on the ring. In the future, the old shoot after shoot is removed year after year.