Can anyone recommend a book or guide to caring for rose bushes?
I have recently inherited a house with a few rose bushes (20 or so). I would like to continue caring for and nurturing them in honor of my mom & dad. Is there a simple guide or book to get me started.
I know very little about gardening; I can dig holes and do grunt work, but need the very basics to get me started.
by
rlapid2112
asked a year ago
What kind of roses are they? Depending on the type (hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas, miniatures, climbers, shrub roses, and antique roses, etc) there are different books out there. A good, basic starter that I found useful was "Roses for Dummies".
http://www.textbookx.com/detail.php?utm_source=Froogle&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=price_comp&affiliate=froogle&action=buy&upc=9780764552021&cond=exchange&price=3.99
I'm a big fan of roses, even started my own little garden at my mom and dad's before I moved out, but with so many different types, I'd be hard pressed to give you any detailed information without knowing what you have.
Questions about anything to do in a garden? Chances are that @shrdlu will be here in a snap... if she's not in her own garden ;)
I don't have any great wisdom, but I'd love to hear what some self-proclaimed experts have to say. I typically have had smaller flower bushes, excepting some irises, which I love.
@vinithehat: Not to be totally rude; I can google. Being able to google is not the same as a personal recommendation. There several people, who post frequently, that seem to have an abundance of knowledge on this particular subject. I value their input.
@gewoodworth: No clue as to species/type. I will look into "Roses for Dummies". I have not always found that series to be helpful, but I was angrier back then.
@arosiriak: That's exactly what I was thinking.
Also, for more info, I am in a desert climate.
@rlapid2112: As predicted, I cannot resist a gardening questions. I love roses; they're one of the most rewarding things you can grow, although some are much easier than others. Were records kept of which kinds of roses they are? I keep the tag for anything I plant, but have also inherited some that were here when I bought the house.
I don't recommend ANY book. Here is an excellent site for identification of your roses.
http://scvrs.homestead.com/typesofroses.html
I prefer the older roses, finding them more tolerant of swings in the weather, and also more disease resistant. You need good gardening gloves, and decent cutting tools. Most roses like to be pruned. Tea roses, and other hybrids, need to be dead-headed (cut off the blooms that are done).
I fertilize once a month. You may choose to do this less often. It's best to water roses at the root; wet leaves are more susceptible to blight.
There's more. I'll probably be back much later.
@rlapid2112: I think that being in a drier climate will help with the care (the blight that @shrdlu is talking about happens when the leaves stay too wet and a fungus develops). I also agree with @shrdlu that the older roses are more tolerant of weather, and in many cases insect and fungus attacks.
If you don't know what type they are, it may be helpful to find someone from a local rose club that can come out and look at them when they're in bloom to give you a good idea.
The dummy book, by the way, was really a big help to me for getting the basic info for how to take care of my roses, but I adapted what I did to what worked best for my roses.
@rlapid2112: If it's a desert rose, I recommend playing Sting to it weekly.
@gewoodworth: I will respectfully disagree on getting help from local rose clubs. Some of them are good. Some much less so. I was originally enchanted with the idea that there were local "Master Gardeners" until I found out what it took to become one. You go to classes. Yep. No grading, no assignments, you just attend. I've heard more bad advice from the MG folks, and I've actually found the most helpful folks over on Flickr.
@rlapid2112: You should also test your soil (unless you know the answer to this already). Try to prefer organic fertilizers; roses are especially sensitive to the build up of salt from the commercial ones. Is there winter where you are?
@shrdlu: it snows every 2-3 years. It does get below freezing in the winter. Also, the bushes are, roughly, 15 years old.
Looked at guide, then bushes. I believe they are Hybrid Tea.
@shrdlu: I meant more of a rose growers/specialist type club. You're right about generic gardening clubs (even MG which both of my parents are part of) are usually a bunch of people that like gardening. Not the best place to get info on specific plants.
@rlapid2112: I'm gonna have to stop giving advice then. I don't really have any experience with the hybrid teas. All I know is that they have really nice, large blooms, and typically only bloom once a season.
I stayed away from them because I wanted more frequent blooms, and because of some rumors I'd heard that they took more time to care for than I had to give while I was working and going to college.
@gewoodworth: Thanks for your input, its much appreciated :-)
@rlapid2112: Hybrid tea roses are the most recent roses, and although our esteemed colleague says they bloom only once a season, this is ONLY if the grafted root stock has taken over after the tea rose was killed off (due to over pruning, freeze, disease, etc). Very few hybrids are on own root stock; nearly all of them are grafts. Light freezes are nothing for most roses. If these are all 15 years or more old, they've been fine so far, so no worries.
Lucky you, BTW. It's raining, and too cold, so I'm doing inside things.
Hybrid teas need to be pruned. Every bloom needs to be cut off. In some varieties, the branch itself will die back if you do not do this. The rose will be fine, but not very attractive. I'd bet that at least one or more of your bushes is Double Delight (one of my favorites); it's been around for a few years. It's very pretty, and very fragrant. Are there blooms yet?
@shrdlu: Good to know about how that all works. Sorry for my previous misinformation. Didn't realize that about the root-stock taking over led to blooming only once per year.
Question: if the root-stock takes over, wouldn't that result in a different looking flower?
@shrdlu: Yes, they are blooming. I have trimmed a few, but am doing it ham-fistedly. I will look into proper trim methods now using the lmgtfy.com from @vinithehat.
Here's a nice site on hybrid teas.
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/rose/hybrid-tea-rose/
Goodness, even Wikipedia's got a decent page on this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Tea
I see they have a link for Mister Lincoln. I can assure you that flower is either a bad photograph, or not Mister Lincoln, which is a deep red (and very fragrant).
Here's some fun trivia. The fragrance of a rose is often linked to the color, and true purples (such as Ebb Tide) are very fragrant, while some of the pink roses have very little scent at all. Yellow roses often have no scent (but I love them).
@rlapid2112: Proper trimming is discussed in the link for bhg.com, and I will also tell you that it's really TOUGH to prune roses in such a way as to harm them permanently. Just don't take them too close to the ground, and fertilize them after you've done it.
I've trimmed large shrub roses with a hedge trimmer (and nearly given my city boy neighbor across the street a heart attack). Have no fear.
@gewoodworth: Root stock is often chosen for its similarity to the hybrid being grafted to it, although you find that Doctor Huey is quite common.
Really interesting link I just found on GardenWeb (another good site) about root stocks.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/roses/msg03163308372.html
[Edit] Okay, I'm quitting for a while. Back later.
@rlapid2112: See, and you thought I wasn't being helpful.
@shrdlu: wow to this - http://www.justourpictures.com/roses/misterlincolnf.html
@rlapid2112: Oh dear. BTDT. We had a very warm week in February, and then the next week it was subzero at night. I lost several roses (as did almost everyone I know). Roses, unlike many other plants, don't respond to the lengthening of the day, but to the soil (and air) temperature. They all started to leaf out, even though I TOLD them to go back to sleep. I lost a Gold Medal, Gentle Giant (huge, fragrant, pink), a Lace Cascade, two Joseph's Coat climbers, and a Fire 'N Ice (for which I'm saddest). I replaced the climbers with Forsythia. That's the third set there, and I'm done. I didn't really care about the Lace Cascade (a white climber), and have replaced it with a Polyantha rose, Ballerina. I am replacing the Gentle Giant with another Ebb Tide, and I have a new Gold Medal too.
I love Spring.
@shrdlu: It's gorgeous here; light breeze, sunny, & 80°. Gotta visit a client, so no rose-work until later.
@shrdlu: I just "dead-headed" a few stems. Also, aggressively trimmed some wandering stem/branches.
Better Homes and Garden is a great place to start. http://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/roses/basic-rose-care/
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