Selection Of Varieties And Planting Of Roses

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

Rose is one of the most beloved plants in our garden. Every year the number of rose seedlings in our market increases, new varieties appear, more and more gardeners and simply summer residents want to plant these wonderful flowers in their homes.

The literature on growing roses is very extensive: books, articles, websites. It would seem that agricultural technology has been developed in detail, but roses do not always grow well in our gardens, they often die in winter.

There are many reasons for this: our difficult and unstable climate and agricultural technology that does not take it into account, the thoughtless choice of varieties for specific sites, and the wrong choice of location.

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In this series of articles, I want to share with gardeners my many years (more than 40 years) experience in growing roses in the northern suburbs of St. Petersburg. In August, the time for summing up the first results of the summer, as well as the best time for planning next year's plantings. It is at the peak of decorativeness that good luck and miscalculations in design are clearly visible. This is the best time to plan planting roses, carefully choose a place for them, prepare a place for spring planting in the fall. And you can plant roses in September. Under favorable conditions, next year they will already give full bloom.

How to choose types and varieties of roses for your garden

With the existing abundance, choosing the right varieties of roses for your garden is really not easy. When deciding which rose to buy, you need to go from the existing design, from the place where these roses will grow.

These plants differ markedly among themselves in the nature of growth, size, whimsy. A strain that is perfect for one location may not be appropriate for another.

Roses, especially grafted ones, can be transplanted only at a very young age, so the planting plan must be very carefully thought out, taking into account the design, the requirements of roses for growing conditions, ease of care and shelter for the winter.

Depending on the size, growth and flowering characteristics, use in the design, rose varieties are combined into garden groups based on the classification of roses. Usually there are park, shrub (shrub), climbing, hybrid tea, ground cover, miniature roses, floribunda and patio roses. It is necessary to start choosing a variety precisely with the choice of a group, in accordance with the design concept. In addition, there are significant differences in varieties within the groups.

For example, for planting to an arch, you need to choose not just a climbing rose, but rather high and flexible. It is important to estimate the height of the rose, the area that it needs to be given. The principle for choosing a variety is the presence of repeated or even better constant flowering, as opposed to a single one. You need to think about how the chosen place is favorable for the growth of roses, and what kind of care you are ready to provide them. In many cases, you will have to give preference to the most stable, unpretentious varieties, even to the detriment of the size of the flowers, terry and other valuable qualities.

The resistance of roses is indicated by the distinction awarded to certain varieties, for example the ADR. Often, when choosing a variety, it is worth consulting with experienced rose growers who have experience growing these plants in your area. It is worth paying attention not only to the color, but also to the size and shape of the flower, its doubleness, the presence and characteristics of smell, the resistance of the flower to dampness, rain, the ability to self-clean after flowering. In any case, it is wrong to buy a rose simply because you liked the picture on the rose packaging or even in the catalog. In order not to be disappointed in your purchase, you need to take it seriously enough.

It must also be remembered that there are roses grafted on the roots of a rose hip, and rooted roses grown from cuttings, offspring or seeds. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods of growing roses. Grafting makes it possible to massively multiply species and varieties with poor rooting of cuttings, such plants are more drought-resistant, with a more cold-resistant root system.

But recovery from the root system after freezing is possible only with rooted roses. Grafted plants can produce rose hips, which must be cut out in a timely manner and carefully. The rootstock used is also very important. Roses grafted onto non-resistant greenhouse rootstocks or rooted cuttings are very unstable in our country. The best rootstocks for us are the "dog rose" seedlings - canina. These roses have strong deep roots with a pronounced stem.

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Choosing a place and planting roses

The place for roses is chosen based on the requirements of a particular type. The place should be warm, sunny, protected from wind, cold air and stagnant water. But it is no less important that decorativeness and convenience of caring for them are provided.

It is best to arrange roses, especially thermophilic ones that require shelter, compactly in a rose garden. It will be more convenient to cover them if the rose garden has a rectangular shape no more than 1.5 m wide. It is convenient to plant climbing roses in one row along the wall or support, then the shelter will be more compact. Do not plant roses too close to buildings, no closer than 70-100 cm.

For planting roses, spacious pits or trenches are dug in sizes from 40x40 cm for miniature ones, up to 80x80 cm for shrub and climbing species. When planting in a rose garden, you can completely replace the earth there, and then place the plants in it arbitrarily. Pits are dug and filled with soil in advance so that the earth has time to settle in them. Pit filling is common for large, soil-demanding plants. The addition of humus or compost is mandatory, it can be semi-rotten, mineral fertilizers, preferably long-acting, on acidic soils, lime or dolomite flour must be added.

In the North-West, it is better to plant roses in the spring, although grafted roses, when planted in September, also root well and hibernate with sufficient cover. In spring, dormant or early growth plants can be planted as soon as the soil is ripe. Before planting roses, it is necessary to inspect, cut off damaged branches and roots and paint over the sections and defects with water-based paint with copper chloride.

Often, plants infected with diseases, especially powdery mildew, go on sale, therefore, before planting, it is necessary to etch the aboveground part in copper oxychloride (5-10 g per liter of water), and if there is a danger of pest infestation - with carbofos or another insecticide.

The root collar of a grafted rose should be 5-6 cm deep, and a self-rooted one - 2-3 cm. If the soil in the hole has not settled well, it is better to plant it a little higher, and after shrinkage add earth. Deepening of the root collar, i.e. the grafting site of such a rose is very important because, being underground, the lower buds of the scion are better preserved in winter. In case of freezing of the aerial part, the rose will be able to recover from these buds.

Plants planted without deepening die more often in winter. It is very useful to cover the root collar and the lower part of the stem with coarse sand, this will prevent stagnation of water in the most prone to underpinning place. After planting, the rose must be watered, mulched with peat, humus or a mixture of them. To improve rooting, it is advisable to shade them with paper or cloth.

Immediately after planting, all roses must be cut off, leaving 2-4 buds on each shoot. When the roses begin to grow, you need to pinch the shoots above the fourth leaf to enhance the branching and regrowth of new shoots. In this case, more powerful, symmetrical bushes grow. When buds appear in the first half of summer, they must be removed, since flowering will slow down the growth of new shoots.

In August, you do not need to pinch the buds, now the growth of new shoots is undesirable, and flowering will only accelerate the ripening of the shoots. Climbing and park roses do not need to be pinched after regrowth of shoots. When planting in autumn, roses are not pruned so as not to cause the growth of new shoots, it is advisable only to tear off part of the leaves to reduce evaporation.

Rose care

The main difference between roses and other shrubs usually grown in our country is the absence of a natural dormancy period in most roses, the absence of cyclicality, which makes plants grow intensively in spring, bloom, slow down growth by autumn and prepare for winter. Roses grow until late autumn, do not prepare for cold weather and winter badly.

Our main task is to create such cyclicality artificially, using agricultural technology. At different periods of the growth and development of roses, the gardener faces different tasks, which he solves using different agrotechnical methods. Consider caring for your roses according to these periods.

Early spring is the period from the beginning of massive snow melting to its complete melting and soil thawing (second half of March - April). This period is characterized by sharp temperature changes, snow is actively melting, and the weather is often sunny. The temperature in the shelter can rise to high values, especially if it is covered with plastic wrap. For roses during this period, the danger is represented by: disease and bark podoprevanie, premature bud germination with the formation of weak shoots.

During this period, you should not clean off the snow from the shelters, it smooths out temperature drops, shades the shelters. After the shelter is free of snow, the roses covered with foil must be ventilated. Roses covered without a film can be left alone at this time. As soon as the snow melts, the soil thaws, you can start opening the roses.

Spring is the period of opening of roses and caring for them until the end of frost (late April - early June, in more northern regions this is early May - June 5-10). The weather during this period is unstable, during the day the temperature can rise to + 20 ° С, and at night it can drop to -5 ° С and even lower. The gardener is faced with the task of preventing roses from burning, freezing during night frosts, the development of diseases, ensuring initial growth, preparing for earlier flowering.

Roses should be opened gradually, accustoming them to full lighting for several days. The situation is very dangerous when, when the soil is not completely thawed, the roses end up in the bright sun. Water from the soil does not flow to the plant, since the roots do not work yet, but evaporation occurs, the roses dry out, and the shoots shrivel. There are no problems with the opening of roses, covered in winter only by spruce branches and lutrasil. During this period, it is necessary to carry out the first basic processing of the plants: uncook them by removing unnecessary soil or distributing it in the rose garden, carry out the main pruning of roses, spray them to prevent diseases. If the roses come out of the shelter dry, you need to water them abundantly, fertilize them with full fertilizer (N, P, K) with microelements, mulch with humus, peat.

The first half of summer is a period of active growth and flowering of roses (June - July). The main task of this period is to provide optimal conditions for active growth and flowering of roses, the formation of new shoots, preparation for the secondary flowering of re-blooming roses.

Immediately after the end of the frost, it is necessary to process the roses: check for damaged, poorly growing branches, which are often additionally detected during this period, cut them out, water the roses and fertilize with full organic or mineral fertilizer. At this time, diseases and pests often appear, but even in the absence of visible signs of damage, it is advisable to spray roses from fungal diseases, aphids, spider mites.

In June - July, they do systematic, every 7-14 days, fertilizing plants with mineral and organic fertilizers, watering, weeding the rose garden. During this period, faded flowers and inflorescences are cut to enhance growth and the formation of new flowering shoots. The inflorescences are pruned to a well-developed bud. You can cut flowers into bouquets.

When diseases and pests appear, it is necessary, without allowing their strong development and spread, to spray the plants with appropriate preparations. When signs of damage appear on one or more plants, you need to spray everything.

The second half of summer, the period of attenuation of the growth of roses and the ripening of shoots (August - September). The main task of this period is to create conditions for the maturation of the formed shoots and the termination of the formation of new ones, which will not have time to mature before winter. Many groups of roses continue to bloom at this time.

From the end of July, it is necessary to stop the supply of nitrogen, the increased content of which delays the growth of shoots. The last fertilization with nitrogen in the form of foliar top dressing can be carried out in mid-July or a little later - after the end of the first mass flowering of roses. This is necessary in order to induce their active growth and prepare them for re-flowering. Foliar dressing is quickly absorbed and has a short duration of action. The use of dry full (with nitrogen) fertilizers at the end of July is already unacceptable.

In August, you need to fertilize roses with potassium-phosphorus fertilizers and water with a solution of boric acid. This contributes to the better preparation of roses for winter. Watering during this period is necessary only if the weather is hot, dry. It is necessary to stop cutting off the faded inflorescences to prevent the stimulation of new shoot growth. Fruit formation improves shoot ripening. If there is a need to cut flowers for a bouquet, then you need to cut off the branches at the top of the bush. Cutting at the bottom of the bush will lead to the growth of young shoots close to the base, they will not have time to ripen. The formation of young shoots in the upper part is not so harmful, since the entire upper part of the plant is cut off in front of the shelter.

Read the next part. Types and rules for pruning roses →