In article , Judy Ghirardelli
wrote:

Hi all!!

Remember me? Well, after carefully planning my roses and garden,
getting my wonderful husband to give me 12 Almighty Rose Holes in clay
soil (2 more to go...), I'm ready to start my first rose garden! I now
am the happy owner of 3 roses (11 to go!) (Jeanne Lajoie, Carefree
Beauty, and Princess Marianna - wow she's got scary prickles!!).

Some questions:

* How far down to I plant the bud union on a grafted rose in MD? I've
read that the wisdom on this varies by location. Any experienced
Marylander's with advice?? What about an Own root bareroot rose (of
which I plan to order 3 which I can't find potted locally. They are
William Baffin, Belinda's Dream, and Hawkeye Belle)? Does the location
of the bud union planting differ if they are bareroot roses?

Most own roots arrive in pots, not bareroot. In fact, the only time I
ever got a bareroot own root was from another rosarian who sent it to
me by FedEx. Own root roses don't have a bud union, since they aren't
grafted onto rootstock: they are grown on their own roots, hence the
name.

Own root roses are planted deep enough to bury the crown. That means
the first nice branch in the canes. However, Judy, it is much safer to
grow ownroots (and, in my opinion, bareroots) in pots until they reach
5 gallon size before you plant them. Most ownroots arrive in bands or 1
gallon pots. I immediately repot them into the next larger size pot
that will accommodate burying the crown. That might be a 1 gallon pot,
it might be a 2 gallon pot, it might be a 5 gallon pot. Then I wait
until I see roots in the drain holes. When I see roots, it's time to
pot up again or put in the ground. A rose in a 1 gallon pot will
usually outgrow that pot within 3 or 4 weeks.

Use good organic potting soil. You can get discarded free 1 and 5
gallon pots from the trash heap of good nurseries or from landscapers.
Add a little bonemeal and a handful of alfalfa pellets to the dampened
pottintg soil. No fertilizer is necessary unless you want to add a
teaspoon of time release fertilizer like Osmocote, Dynamite or
Vigorgrow. Place the new rose in the pot deep enough to bury the crown
and still leave an inch of space at the top for watering. If you can't
bury the crown, try the next taller pot size.

Hope you get your answer on where to bury the budunion from someone in
Maryland. Even someone in PA would know the answer!

* I saw another poster post about the continued threat of cold
weather. I take it I can plant the babies, and then cover them for
protection should we get temps 28 degrees, which we could still get.

Covering might not be necessary if you keep them on the south side of
the house sheltered near the building or a big tree.

* I plan to alternate fertilizing with something like Osmocote (or
whatever, I'm sure I've got that name wrong), and also alfalfa meal. I
thought I'd do the alfalfa meal first. Do I do this when I plant them?
When they leaf out? Not at all now because they are babies? In June?
In late summer? I thought I read somewhere that I should not fertilize
the babies, but I don't know if that was "until they leaf out" or "until
much later."

Alfalfa pellets or meal are commonly used in the late winter/early
spring. You can apply alfalfa to tiny babies at potting time.
"Fertilizing" usually refers to either granular fertilizer or water
soluble with a nitrogen component of 10 or more. The rule of thumb is
that you apply water soluble fertilizer dissolved in water at about
half the recommended rate to roses after they have about 2 inches of
spring growth. Fish emulsion is great too. Don't apply any fertilizer
unless the plant is already well-watered from the day before.

* Despite massively amending the holes, raising the beds a little, and
preparing the beds in the fall, and heavily mulching, I am still
concerned about the drainage. We did a half-baked drainage test because
I was stressed out about this. We had about 1.75 - 2 inches of rain on
a Thursday - so it was WET. No standing water in the beds, but very
wet. We dug 2 1-gallon holes on 2 sides of the deck, in designated
already-prepared Almighty Holes, and filled each hole with 1 gallon of
water. Unfortunately we did this late in the evening. One hole was
empty (mucky at the bottom, but empty) in less than 1.5 hours. The
other drained overnight, and was empty (albeit mucky) in the morning,
about 14 hours after we filled it. Again, it was a half baked test
because 1) we didn't watch it very closely, and 2) the results might not
even be viable since we did this after an exceptional rain. We plan to
do 4 more tests (more regularly spaced) on Friday, digging down 18
inches, after not having precipitation for almost 6-7 days, and watch it
more closely. What SHOULD we look for? The "drainage test" guidance
I've seen varies greatly!

I suggest that you dig deeper holes, say the depth of a 5 or 10 gallon
pot. My test is very simple: if there is enough water in the hole to
reach the fine, white feeder roots of the rose (which really grow in
the top 18 - 24 inches) after 24 hours, the drainage is not adequate.
If my rose holes drain by the next day, they're fine here. A little
water in the bottom is to be expected. Rain is good because of the
volume, but you can also fill the hole with water and watch what
happens.

The easiest way to correct drainage on a flat site is to mound the
soil. My brother's lot is perfectly flat, with fabulous rich black clay
soils. Just to be safe, we've created mounds about 10 inches high to
plant in. I've seen the same tactic used all over Pennsylvania, and I
bet you can see it in MD. The mound is very gradual - say 4 feet in
diameter for a big big rose like an 8 foot climber. In your case, you
would mound the entire bed above the level of the lawn. When you add
mulch on top, you've got a gradual rise about a foot higher than
surrounding ground. Sorry to say, that would be two, maybe three yards
of soil in your case.

--
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Cass
Zone 9 San Francisco Bay Area
http://home.attbi.com/~cassbernstein/index.html