This has been a busy week in the garden. The climbing White Maman Cochet on
one side of the arbor has been deadheaded to the best of our ability. I
couldn't help but think of the poster who wanted a 20' climber. Using a ladder
we were able to get about 75% of the dead and dying, but the others could not
be reached. We managed to fill two 5 gallon buckets with blooms. This is her
third year and the old saying (the third year they leap) really came true. Not
only did she reach several feet above the arbor, she decided to claim the roof
of the boat house as her own. I spent a great deal of time trying to find the
best rose for this spot and in hindsight, I can see I didn't make a great
choice. Sure she had lots of blooms but the thrips and balling kept far too
many of them from reaching their full potential. Plus they make the
unreachables look very unsightly. Oh well, she'll have to stay there for
awhile. Someday I may find another rose that fits that spot better and when I
do, she will be a strong contender for the shovel.
Angel Face and one of the Mons Tilliers are gone. I could not face walking
past the sickly looking AF another day everytime I went towards the front door.
This Mons Tillier had dieback pretty severely. I kept cutting off and cutting
off until I decided it was easier to just take out the whole plant. Besides
I'll need the space for one of my new roses.
I was surprised at the root system on both of these roses. AF on fortuniana
had only one of the far reaching roots I normally see on this rootstock. And
it wasn't the typically thick 4-5' foot kind. Only 2' long and about the size
of my finger. Very surprising for a 5 year old rose.
Mons Tillier was own root and had been in the same spot for all four years.
There was a rootball of small feeder roots not nearly as large as a basketball.
Then there were three larger, farther reaching roots, but nothing I couldn't
pull out by hand. Again surprising for the age of the plant.
If there's a lesson to gained, sometimes poor performance can be based on the
lack of roots. Now to only understand why these roses in two different
locations has such small root systems.
Two more cuttings up and died this week. For some reason I've had terrible
luck with all my cuttings this year. I've managed to loose all of the ones
using my normal methods. So far the only ones to survive are those I stuck in
pots in the ground, no rooting hormone, no cover. After I had used all the
good looking parts for cuttings I had a few peices left. Theses are the ones
that have taken. They are now almost three months old, lots of new growth and
plenty of baby roots. Thank goodness I had the good sense to mark them with
names since I didn't expect any of them to live.
It's shaken my confidence to loose so many cuttings. They were from three
different people in three different location. I can't think of anything I did
outside of the normal. It's puzzling. But I will try again. In fact I
already have. I took a few cuttings from Mons T before she was all gone.
These I don't expect to live, but it was an outside chance. My luck they'll do
great. Just what I need, more of a rose I don't like all that well anyway.
So that's it in my rose world, what's happening in yours?