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Forensic Science for Rose Deaths?
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aHlwYXRpYQ==.9454f2a38bcd48a154021dd2f13b0c62@106 2678330.cotse.net, Shiva wrote: "Cass" wrote: Cass, I think I've just been too busy to take proper care of my plants. However--at the time they died, those bare roots had maybe five inches of growth at the most, and some had produced a bloom or two, so there would not have been much to cut back. And it could easily have been the combination of heavy rain and canker. That's what nailed us last winter - 20 inches in December. Combine that with canker, and it was ugly. And Sonia Rykiel, virused as hell, has thrived on neglect. Nice, smelly, quartered blooms. She has earned ground space. I might order another. Have you got any of the Romantica roses? Sonia has great old rose form and "meaty" substance, really holds up when compared with the Austins (but then, so does smoke!). I'm waiting for the rest of you to beta test them. That has worked much better for me with Austins. The several I bought the first round were not great, and I shoveled one that was a real loser. After reading about everyone's favorites, this year I bought Golden Celebration and Tamora. GC is a mega winner, constant blooms, very decent foliage (slight BS at the leafy base), good scent. They blow fast, but they flower constantly. So I'll do the same with the romanticas. Is this what some of the the old roses are like? The pretty floppy old form but they hold their blooms? They're all different. Many teas have a languid, limp-wristed look that is very appealing in the garden on a larger shrub. OTOH, Mons. Tillier doesn't droop much. They don't last long cut, but some are very beautiful and distinctive. Some hybrid perpetuals are on stiff, 6 foot canes. Noisettes tend to hang their flowers, but since so many of them grow to be 15 feet, that's a virtue. Here, a lot of the noisettes mildew, many teas are quite clean, and hybrid perpetuals are all over the board. But...BS isn't much of an issue here. however, in the bed where most died there are healthy, beautiful own-roots that I planted Fall 2002 that are doing wonderfully and never missed a beat, have bloomed their heads off, etc. They are Muncy Austins, Roses Unlimited hts such as Granada, and some Michael's roses. Penelope and Paul Neyron are the only "oddballs" in the group and are going great guns. Are the oddballs part of the batch of BR's, the remainder of which died? I don't understand. Sorry. What I meant was that it was my usual crop of modern roses--hts from the 1960s and up, floribundas and Austins. Penelope and Paul are older, and, what, a hybrid musk and a hybrid perpetual, respectively. By the way, the monster New Dawn is nestled between the dead Blue Niles and the dead Barbra Streisand, healthy as a horse and with about as many blooms. G All it has done is make great foliage, but this is its second year. Ah, proof of the benefit of diversifying your roses. I have two New Dawn seedlings, Penny Lane and Dixieland Linda. Both are reasonably clean and floriferous. If you don't have a lot of time to coddle divas, you might add a couple easy-growing blooming fools each year. Maybe you'll learn to love the ones you're with if you can't love the ones you want. I try to balance the ones I just can't live without ‹ stingy, rust-laden, mildew-soaked, botrytis-balled miseries ‹ with the Sunsprites of the world. Let's face it: there are roses you can't beat back with a bat. That *can* be good. So this is one big raised bed? What is the retaining material? Doesn't NC have a county extension that does free or cheap soils tests? What do you have to lose? Was soil imported for the bed? The retaining material is weeds at the moment! It isn't a formal raised bed, just mounded soil that stays put. There is a lot of ivy surrounding it thatI have to keep hacked back. It is in a protected area, between the house and a fence, and this house is on the side of a gradual hill that drains toward the back property line. The soil is great--heavy, black, but soft and diggable. I bought some of it and added aged manure and pine bark fines, the stuff that is bagged and sold as "soil conditioner." This is the bed the guy drilled holes in down into the sand under the hardpan. But it has a good 2.5 feet of great soil on top of clay. This neighborhood is old, so the topsoil has never been stripped. Years of good decayed stuff. When soil that good doesn't drain on a slope, there's not much you could have done. Bad luck happens, just like 100 years' winters. |
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