How Does Your Garden Grow: Roses

You You Hello everybody certainly glad to have you back again for one of our regular get -togethers here in the old tool shed Gee the weather certainly has been getting nice lately, hasn't it? Well, it's a good time to start working outside and one of the first things to do as far as planting in your garden is getting your roses in so If you have some roses ready to plant or thinking of getting some because now is a good time to plant them I'm going to try to give you a few pointers, which I hope will be helpful Well to begin with it's a good idea to put on some good heavy gloves and Well, you'll find that's more advantageous with some varieties and others because there's so many different kinds of roses I want to show you these that I brought in though Got these from the florist Here are some really beautiful yellow and pink roses I Guess the the most common rose are the one that you usually get from the florist and grow in your rose garden is the hybrid tea rose Well, the hybrid tea was developed during the last century about the middle of the last century From the regular tea rose which gets its name because it it smell like tea That was crossed with the hybrid perpetual and from those To they develop this hybrid tea rose.

Well, they're all kinds of the different varieties classifications of roses Here is a climbing rose Alright probably should say rambler because the Ramblers and the climbers are somewhat the same they grow on long canes These have been trail trained up along the stick on one side and back down on the other side But they're very good for growing on fences or on a trellis alongside of your house Now the difference between a Rambler and a climber is primarily that the Ramblers have these smaller flowers like these Whereas the climbers are essentially the same thing, but the flowers are much larger Well, that's the way they distinguish them now the polyanthra rose is a small rose it's the Rambler type rose, but it grows in bush form then you've got the Flora bundas too that are just in between there where you get a lot of roses on one They grow in serve a little spray or cluster You know the history of the roses certainly very interesting it's one of the oldest flowers that we have and when I've been telling you about so many of the flowers that have been discovered or developed in the Over the last few hundred years It's interesting to note that the rose is one of the oldest flowers that we know anything about It goes back to the very earliest writings of man Oh the early Romans and the Greeks and the Egyptians had roses The Egyptians used to ship great quantities over them over to Rome for some of the Roman festivals now well Fossils of roses have been found so that that shows how old the rose actually is Well because it is so raw so old of course there are many Genera or Relations to the rose family because there's been more time you see Things are trees like the apple many of the fruits like the apple or the cherry and the plum the peach And the apricot they all belong to the rose family then some of our ornamental shrubs and trees like the well the the mountain ash the hawthorn Spirea or bridal wreath Belong to the rose family and many of the berries like raspberries blackberries and even strawberries all belong to the Rose family well, I To tell you the truth.

I've always been a little confused about some of these different varieties of roses I shouldn't say varieties.

I should say the various types or classifications Because the line of demarcation is so slight It's so hard sometimes to tell the difference between a hybrid tea and a hybrid perpetual Well the reason for that is that the rose of course I guess is a favorite flower of more people than any other flower And it's been more work done on it and it's such an old flower that this works been carried on for so many years that there've been so many crosses made between the various types of roses that well when you cross a polyanthro with hybrid tea you get You get a rose that just halfway between well, then it's hard to decide which it is Well, they've been crossed or hybridized back and forth so much that the the line of demarcation is narrowed down So it's very hard to tell many of them apart I called up some of my good rose grower friends and I tried to look it up in some of the books and See if I couldn't get that just all straightened out But when I got through frankly, I was more confused than when I started But anyway, you can remember that the hybrid tea is the rose most commonly Grown in the garden and a rose garden and also it's the most widely used rose As a cut flower that you get from the florist Well, if you have some roses or plan to get some and they're going to plant them I want to give you some pointers now I Have a package That I Get them from your nursery or if you ordered them, let's just open this up Get rid of this paper Roses are usually packed and shipped With the roots well protected so that they won't dry out and I'll show you just cut this string Oh See all this Opiece moss or straw packing material so that when you get your roses the roots should be moist then it's very essential to prune them and Particularly any damaged roots now.

Here's one that's broken.

So we'll cut it off Right up there close.

The rest of those look pretty good so now let's open up the top part of the rose here and incidentally These roses have been waxed that is the the top part the cane That's these branches.

They're called the canes have been dipped in wax to prevent them from drying out and dehydrating Well, here's a here's a branch that's needs pruning off Now if you're going to take these outside in the particularly in the hot sun It's a good idea to have a pail of water and if you're gonna plant a lot of roses you can get one of those Half sized ash cans with water in it.

They'll hold good many more we'll just prune these back a little both the roots and I think I'll wait till I get outside and Prune the top back.

We'll put it right in there now I'll take a couple of roses along and we'll go right outside and plant them Hey, they're certainly done up well and sort of a very heavy tinfoil type of paper Well, those roots look in very good condition so I'll put them right in the water And I'm gonna take these outside where you can see from right where you are How to plant them, but first I have a message of interest here for you Well now we're ready to go outside and plant these right in the garden Well, here we are out in the rose garden There are a couple of rose bushes here that have been winter killed and I Just thought it'd be a good time to replace them.

Well, you see this one is just completely dead.

It's all dried up and brittle and I guess pull the Right out and you can see there's there wasn't much of a rut on that one to begin with Wasn't very it wasn't a very good plan Well now the important thing to remember when you're replacing a dead rose bush or Planning one to begin with you want to be sure to dig the hole big enough and deep enough That is so that you can put the new bush in there the new rose bush and spread the roots out Towards away from one another rather than crowding them in together I'll show you just what I mean here Let's get one of these out Take a look at those roots again There's one that needs to be pruned off gotten damaged You always want to have a nice clean cut On any of the roots that have to be pruned off and not broken and sort of a ragged in Now you see if you spread the roots out and have it deep enough so that it's just about as deep back just the same depth in the ground that it was when I was growing in the nursery and well, you can tell you can see the dirt line usually right on the rut there very plainly and Just want to make it the same depth when you replant it Well before you fill the hole in completely it's good idea to water it and put enough water on at least a half a pail Or more for each plant And let it soak in get all the air pockets out of there You want to have the soil nicely broken up and prepared so you're not filling it in with a lot of big lumps That aren't going to settle down.

Well, and when you fill it in the rest of the way When you show you something now just take the dirt and fill it up around the plant Pile it up just as you see I'm doing here and leave it there for probably 10 days or two weeks at least or until some of the leaves start coming out the plant rose bush starts growing and that protects the Bottom part of the canes from drying out particularly around the graft And you want to prune the canes back about halfway of course that'll depend somewhat on the condition of the rose plant Of course you want to prune off any dead or dried wood and here you can see that coating of wax I told you about and when you're pruning you want to prune right where there's a new shoot coming out facing outward because then your Plant will become bushier as the new shoots grow Oh It's good idea to pick up all the pruned or the cuttings It's good idea to put them right in the bucket to begin with rather than throwing them on the ground and that saves picking them all up and some of those things are you have lots of thorns in them and they The less handling you have to do well the less chance of getting thorns in your fingers but I might go through and that other rose bush there and needed a pretty badly and Then the next thing is to cultivate around the roses you should do the whole garden won't have time for it right now, but Fix this up around this one rose bush a little There any clumps of grass or weeds there we try to pull them out and get the roots out instead of just turning them under Well now that we have Well, here's the here's the time -lapse picture of the rosebud.

You'll see them bursting into bloom this and several others, but I Think I'll just keep quiet for a few minutes and we can all sit back and watch the pictures and listen to the music Here are some more pictures that I want to show you this is Jean Pfister.

Well, his full name is see Eugene Pfister He's been very active in the American Rose Society and it's been just about everything including its president But Jean is quite a hybridizer of roses and develops new varieties You can see first thing he does is to remove the calyx Then he removes all the petals from a rose that he wants to hybridize And of course hybridizing is crossing one rose with another that is taking that taking the pollen from the stamens of one rose and dusting it on the stigma of another and then planting the seeds that develop and seeing what kind of a new variety you may get well, Jean takes a pair of tweezers and removes the stamens in this manner And you notice how he pulls them away from the center But of course this should be done before the little pollen bearing anthers on the end of open Because you want to make certain you don't get any of the pollen from the this same flower that is from the Stamens of this same flower under the stigma you want to get the pollen from some other rose and then Develop a new variety in that way Well, he dips those tweezers and alcohol just to sterilize them and here's a sterile brush and he's taking the pollen that he's collected from another rose and just dusts it on all of the Stigmas there And then he sterilizes that brush again because when he goes to hybridize another Rose he wants to make certain he hasn't got any of the pollen left over from previous hybridizing job Then he puts this little cellophane bag over and labels it keeps track of which roses Have been used in making this cross And then after a few months The seed pod is developed as you see here and when they're ripe and mature and sort of turned red and Well, you can tell when they're ripe Just cut them open.

You don't want to cut right through you don't want to cut them in half or you're apt to Cut many of the seeds Just kind of cut it enough to break it open Then you can get the seeds out of the center Here's one right here several of them those little apples are roses apples are kind of tough sometimes And then gene plants his seeds and expanded mica Makes a good planting medium to use Just puts them in about a quarter of an inch deep places them around spaces them well apart Keeps that in his greenhouse and it's not long before he has a lot of little rose plants And they'll develop and you can see if you've developed a new rose.

It's worthwhile trying to continue to propagate Well, that gives you an idea of hybridizing flowers roses And how to develop new varieties or how new varieties are developed if you don't want to try it yourself but I want to show you something else about grafting flowers because most of the Roses that you get for your garden are grafted.

It's kind of fun to do it.

You can put various varieties on the same rose Routes stock if you want to but then something else suppose you've gotten some roses for some very special occasion a wedding anniversary and You want to keep them and more or less perpetuate them.

Well, you can grab those by taking One of the roses before it's withered in fact it's a good idea to do it as soon as you get them while they're still nice and fresh and right Right at the leaf axle right here at the node of each a little leaflet.

You'll see a bud Now some of them may be different sizes and you want to select one that's just about the size of this one then take a pocket knife and We'll just skin this off now cut Oh About three -quarters of an inch above the bud.

Just take a thin layer of that bark right down past the bud about three -quarters of an inch below it and Now we're going to graph this onto a root stock Now the best root stock or grafting these buds is a wild rose Root stock it's usually I think Rosa Manetti is used and the I'll show you just how to make this graph now.

It takes your pocket knife and about four or five inches Up the cane you make a horizontal cut through the bark Oh about halfway around but you can do this on other roses that you have growing out in your garden too and Then from right in the center of that Make a vertical cut Oh down about two inches and then carefully Fold that bark back just stick the knife in And work it back very gently so as not to tear that the bark And you have to do it both sides And When you have that work back and the bark peeled back sufficiently so that you can take this bud And slip it right down from the top underneath The two sections of bark You'll find it'll slip right in there very easily Then take some Raffia some green raffia paper that you can get from most of your garden supply stores Or if you haven't got any you can use ordinary that adhesive tape and bind that around Above and below leaving just a little bud sticking out And then this should Know I should I might say this shouldn't bloom this year for you it might however But ordinarily it Should bloom next year Now there there's that bud grafted right on there And there are several things that you can do some people take and bend this top part of the cane over Just to kind of half break it and that discourages all the growth from going up into the wild rose and More of the energy of the plant will be diverted toward this bud and you'll have a new shoot coming out Then next year next spring You should cut back the top part of that rose Completely leaving just the grafted bud Well that gives you an idea on grafting and now another message of interest for you, and I'll be right back again to Show you how to do a cane graft Well now there's another way that you can grab roses to the bud grafting I think is used more Widely but you can take a piece of cane I'll just take this cut one and make a diagonal cut right through it so Make it as straight as you can So that it'll be about an inch and a half to two inches long.

Well you do the same with another With what you want to graft on here.

You could take one of these roses that you have from the florist Of course, it's best to do it when it's not in full flower like that.

It's just some new top growth and You have another piece of rose that fits right on there and take some of your raffia paper and bind that very tightly Well, this is a this is a more difficult type of graph to make it is done But I would recommend that you do the bud grafting.

That's that's much easier And your chances of success are much higher.

But this is another type of graph that I wanted to show you Now I have a little booklet that I Like to tell you about it's one that's put out by the American Rose Society you see the The men's garden clubs all over the country carry on a rose testing program There are about 80 clubs in 80 different cities around the country and they get the various growers that are bringing out new varieties To ship them sample or some of the new rose plants when they're first brought out and then these various men all around the country test them and they rate them for hardiness and color and Fragrance and a lot of other things and they all report back they test them for two years If you want to get a the results of those tests the American Rose Society makes up this little guide for buying roses Where they've compiled the results of all those various tests But you're done by the leading amateur growers all over the country And you'll find that this is very helpful to you and getting new roses because the ones that are rated high here Certainly should grow for you in any part of the country Then they also put out a little guide for beginners on growing roses that have many helpful hints and these two little leaflets are free if you'll just send your name and address into the American Rose Society at Columbus, Ohio, they'll be glad to send them to you and I know that you'll find them very helpful.

I Guess our time is just about up now Be sure to come around for our next regular get -together here in the old tool shed and I'll try to have some more helpful hints for you You