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Forensic Science for Rose Deaths?
dave weil observed after I blathered:
Cass wrote: wrote: Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.) I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root. What has been different this year is: 1. LOTS of rain. 2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May. I wouldn't think either factor could have been involved, since, as you say, other roses subjected to the same conditions are thriving. It sounds to me like a case of drowned roots. If the bare roots were planted in March and the rains immediately started and didn't stop for months, then the bare roots would have never gotten the chance to breathe (literally) and grow properly. Established root systems would grow far deeper and more extensive and could probably thrive in such conditions. However, a one month old plant doesn't have any roots deeper than about 2 feet, and at that depth *all* of the soil would be sodden. You make a good case for for drowning as the most likely cause. I didn't find the exact numbers, but it looked like inches of rain each month, April, May, June and July were way above normal. http://www.weatherequipment.com/forecast.htm But Shiva said the bed drains, so I was taking her word for it. And.. I'm still surprised that she didn't see signs of stress in the established plants in the ground. If, in general, the subsoil gets even wetter than the topsoil because that's where all the water drains *to,* how do you explain that? And, even large roses tend to have the vast majority of their root system in the top 2 feet of soil. None of that changes the likely cause. Oh, and I never put bareroots right in the ground. I lost 7 or 8 one year due to dessication from high winds in March. Now I baby them until they are big honkin 5 gallon plants. I can control water and drainage until they're ready to take it on their own. If a pot isn't draining, I knock the rose out and repot in different topsoil in a larger pot. |
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