The rose growing, flower cultivation, & gardening thread

Fellow CPFers!

It's that time of year: spring is well under way and summer won't be too far behind. The air is softer, warmer, mellower, and all around us there is more and more green: and bright colors too! Dandelions, daffodils, tulips, crocuses have all graced us (or me at least) with their presence. It's a wonderful time of year if you live in a place that has a bona fide winter (which I do).

Beyond general gardening and cultivation, my passion is rose growing. I would be hard pressed to say concisely what it is about roses, but I have always loved them--not so much the roses at the flower shop which seem too much like disembodied heads on sticks, but rather rose plants, especially those in bloom. But even when they aren't in bloom, I love rose plants of all kinds. There are so many different kinds of roses: climbing roses, shrub roses, old world roses, hybrid teas, grandifloras, and on and on, as well as wild roses almost everywhere including where I live. The history of the rose is fascinating and rich and well worth reading about if you are at all interested, and it intersects with several other strands in the tapestry of history. I would recommend Ortho's complete guide to roses as a one stop book on the rose, but there are literally thousands of books on roses.

Here is a picture of my first rose, a climbing rose called Leonardo Da Vinci, one of the Romantica Roses of the House of Meilland:



The picture is from a couple years ago, and it has grown since so that I have had to install trellise work from the railing of my porch up to the roof in the opening where it is growing. I got lucky with this one, as I didn't do much right in the way of planting it, and I didn't do any research about roses when I picked it out at a local nursery.

A good website on roses is www.rose-roses.com.

And I have Felco prunners and Bionic rose gloves, both of which I think were worth every penny.

So, OK, please share what sort of flower cultivation or any type of gardening that you are into (or your significant other, if you like)! I love almost all types of flowers and herbs and fruits and vegetables, and would love to hear about whatever anyone wants to contribute.

I'm just getting ready to throw in the vegetable garden here in SW Ohio. This year we'll have: a variety of peppers, garlic, onion, tomatoes, okra, eggplant, red sweet corn, carrots, fennel, basil , oregano, sage, rosemary, chives, and maybe more if I expand the plot.

On the ornamental side my wife and I both studied a lot of horticulture in college. She finished but I didn't due to travel for work. Throughout our property we have probably 20-30 varieties of perennials, annuals, woody & herbaceous plants. We've planted or are in process of planting everything from tiny crocuses to bald cypress and black gum trees.

Some of my favorites are the Nasturtiums (also edible), Trumpet Vine, Mimosa trees, wisteria, bottle brush buckeye, an assorted alliums.

We have a large 12'x20' compost pile where we toss all the leaves, twigs, occasional grass clippings, food scraps, etc. I run the tiller through it about 4 times a year to keep it mixed up. We never have trouble with critters and it's way back in the yard anyway. It's be good stuff because everything we plant and use it on grown like mad.

I'll try and grab some pics when it's sunny.

bitslammer,

Wow! Impressive! I wish I could do that much growing, but we rent right now, so I only have a very small area with an Eastern exposure--not enough sun for vegetables.

Tell me about how you grow garlic. When and how do you harvest? And what variety do you plant?

Also, I'd love to hear why the trumpet vine, mimosa trees, wisteria, buckeye and alliums are among your favorites. Particularly the wisteria. Tell me about it if you would!

And, do you have any experience with Holly?

At the end of last summer, I tossed a packet of wildflower seeds that I bought at KMart into my "faery circle". A couple of the seeds germinated and a few little flowers sprang up but nothing to write home about. Then in the fall, I planted some Jonquil bulbs. Then right before Christmas, I bought an African Daisy bush and planted that. Now...

The Jonquils have bloomed and passed... (you can still see the "greens" in front)... the African Daisies are STILL blooming... and the wild flower seeds have offered up a whole bunch of things that I don't even know the names of! I just recently found out that the yellow flowers are French Marigolds. They are starting to pass now too but there is something else that is getting ready to bloom. I have no idea what it is. I'll take pictures when they bloom. My poor little faeries... they certainly have been working hard!

Greta,

Nice! I love all flowers, but wild flowers are especially appealing for some reason. Perhaps it is precisely because we don't know their names or much about them, don't expect them, and thus are forced to just enjoy them in the moment, ephemeral, un-possessed, and beautiful.

Nice picture. I love yellow flowers. Yellow roses are lovely, but they are more prone to black spot, unfortunately.

I look forward to more pictures! I plan on taking some more myself in the next few weeks, and if any of them are decent, I'll post them here.

js said:

Greta,

Nice picture. I love yellow flowers. Yellow roses are lovely, but they are more prone to black spot, unfortunately.

Click to expand...

I got married with yellow roses and daisies in my bouquet. The yellow roses for friendship... as I married my best friend.. and daisies because they are wild... but strong. You can find them growing on the side of the road... you can mow them down in your yard and they will pop back up the following week... they survive... and thrive through adversity and the worst of conditions. I have a daisy and a yellow rose tattoo'd on my leg... with my husband's name. Oh... and we just celebrated our 26th anniversary...

js,
Have you tried the epson salts routine with your roses? We alternate about a quarter cup of epson salts into our regular fertilizing routine. It acts as a sort of hormone and the roses always seem to respond with increased growth and flower production.

Roses are my wife's favorite cutting flower and the bulk of our plantable property is covered with them. That leaves a 6' by 10' bed for my favorite garden project - tomatoes and herbs. I put my tomatoes in about a month ago, covered them each night, and they are now 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall, covered in blossoms. Lots of herbs are in as well, but tomatoes occupy the bulk of my precious little vegetable garden. I'll have fresh tomatoes in another month and can usually continue to harvest into early November.

shakeylegs,

No. I've never tried the epson salts routine. I've never even heard of it, actually! Thanks for mentioning it. I'll look into it. Right now I use two types of fertilizer and very vigilant watering and inspection for mold or blackspot or pests. I occasionally use Rose Tone in the soil, and a crystal type fertilzer added to water on a regular basis. I hate to use pesticides and fungicides, but I will do it if the situation calls for it. I find that it pays to protect against massive invasions of insects or fungus, especially when the leaves are young. Some years I never use insecticide, and only use fungicide once. Other years I use these a bit more. But even then, I try to be as conservative as possible. I just hate to see a fungus or insect swarm totally ruin all the buds or leaves. Both of my rose plants are disease resistant, especially my Sea Foam bush rose, which supposedly can thrive even with no care whatsoever, but resistance isn't the same as immunity.

We are blessed with some soil borne diseases as well as a neighborhood gang of rose midges. We will spray with neem oil a few times a year and fungicide only if things get out of control. The epson salts seems to strengthen the plants, boost growth, and overall health.
St Patrick does exceptionally well in our climate and possesses a beautiful yellow/lime color.
http://www.rose-roses.com/rosepages/hybridteas/StPatrick.html
The JFK rose is another beauty that thrives here.
http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=1.1935

Armed with a C2 Q5 and my camera, I poked my head out the side doors and snapped these quickly. Roses and tomatoes are just getting into the swing of things.





In grade school many years ago, we were administered a career apptitude test. My top match was farmer. I laughed then. But the results were probably quite accurate. I sure enjoy nurturing the garden.

js said:

bitslammer,

Wow! Impressive! I wish I could do that much growing, but we rent right now, so I only have a very small area with an Eastern exposure--not enough sun for vegetables.

Tell me about how you grow garlic. When and how do you harvest? And what variety do you plant?

Also, I'd love to hear why the trumpet vine, mimosa trees, wisteria, buckeye and alliums are among your favorites. Particularly the wisteria. Tell me about it if you would!

And, do you have any experience with Holly?

Click to expand...

Cool. I was hoping this thread took off. We have some really smart people here all over the planet and I wanted to here what people in other climates are able to do.


To start here's a general pic of my back yard. I was fooling around with some HDR (High Dynamic Resolution) photo software which could be it's own whole thread. I'm lucky to have a large yard. My property goes all the way back to the light tan shed in the background. My lot is something like 75'x385' and we have a nice mix from full sun to full shade to grow things in.


Since last year we've added more landscaped areas, the garden is now larger and (hopefully) deer proof with the addition of being screened off. In another year or so the Mimosa on the left of the garden will likely over shade it so we'll have to move the garden around a bit, or leave it as the Mimosa actually provides a gentle screen type shade instead of a blanket.


Here's what I like or why I've chose what we have. First off heavy preference is given to deer resistant plants. We also like wildflower/self propagating plants. We also like to vary up by planting light things in shade and dark things in sun. We've also done the assorted wild flower seed packets as they are pretty care free and fun. My wife actually catalogued each variety that came out of those so now we know what they are.

• Alliums – We have both ornamentals and edible garlic varieties. I like them because of the globe shaped blooms and relatively care free growing. On the ornamental side we have the Gladiator and Globemaster types here as well as the Allium schubertii variety. Deer hate all Alliums it seems. Guess they don't like onion/garlic breath???
• Mimosa - fast growing tree, very interesting blooms, great screen like shade due to the fern like leaves. Actually considered invasive in SE states.
• Wisteria & Trumpet Vines – I don't like a bare looking fence so both of these good trainable climbers are fun to grow. We have the common orange trumpet vine as well as a dark crimson variety. These are being trained on cottonwood and locust trees as well as the fence.
• The Bottle Brush Buckeye is a really neat shrub variety of buckeye with striking vertical blooms. Like other buckeye plants it's poisonous and therefore deer proof. Mine also has lighter colored foliage so it's nice to see that contrast in the shade. Great photo here: http://www.ca.uky.edu/hla/dunwell/AesParv1.jpg

Here are my backyard, Gladiator Alliums, and Wisteria respectively. Click for larger view.

bitslammer,
I'm envious of your large back yard. I spent many grey summers visiting my first wife's family in northern ohio (Grafton, near Elyria) and I remember the wonderfully spacious yards surrounding most of the homes. Having grown up in California, I'd never seen so many large, unfenced yards. Most California yards are fenced and usually of modest size.

My then father-in-law had a fine vegetable garden. He rarely watered due to the rain and humidity. I couldn't believe it. Here in the Bay Area our soils are full of clay and the warm dry afternoons demand frequent watering.

On a side note, I'd be interested to hear what tomato varieties are popular with CPF gardeners. Due to my limited space, the cool, sometimes foggy nights and very hot summer days (into the 90's and 100's), beefsteak varieties generally struggle in my yard. I tend to do best with medium to cherry sized indeterminate tomatoes. My favorites are Sungold, a yellow cherry size, Carmelo, a delicious red medium sized french market tomato, and Black Krim or Black Prince, intensely flavored medium sized dark purple beauties.

When I have the space, there are two beefsteak varieties with which I've had great success. Polish Giant is a potato leaf variety that grows as tall and wide as I can build the cage (the last one grew over the 6' backyard fence and collapsed the cage by year end) and is the most prolific producer of any tomato variety I've ever grown. Where Brandywines have given me 7 to 10 nice tomatoes a season, Polish Giant produced over 100 fine pink, large and sweet mellow monsters. The other great beefsteak I've encountered, though less prolific, is Aunt Ruby's German Green tomato. Large, green slicers with a sweet, slightly spicy goodness.

Man, there is nothing like a ripe tomato fresh out of the garden!

One of my many Venus flytraps:


My Tillandsias:

I'll have to snap some pics tomorrow, we have over 400 rose bushes. My wife is a consulting rosarian and we grow and show roses all over the northeast. We just recieved 40 new bushes last week "FANTIN-LATOUR" We only order from Heirloom. We also got a dozen "SUPER DOROTHY" so I guess now we'll be over 450 bushes, :sick2: We have a ton of Graham Thomas and you can smell our house from blocks away on a day when the roses are in bloom. :thumbsup:

My mother is 84 and also a consulting rosarian. She was involved with roses for over 60 years. She also won tons of awards for flower arrangements. When my father was still living, they both were members of the Rose Society. My father joined after he retired, and growing show roses was the best time of his life. I understand the passion for plants and roses.
I have a few roses, but I grow plants that require less maintenance
I will list some of what I grow later.

Oh man am I jealous Asdalton!

Those flytraps look incredible. My sundew and pitcher plants are thriving, but I'm killing flytraps right & left. I'm sure it's soil related from what I've read on the net. I also scorched a few by forgetting to get them out of the sun. :mecry:

Am I correct in seeing that you're growing yours in a styrofaom cup? I guess I've gotta mix up some new sand/soil mix and try again.

I'm also a fan of bromileads but we don't have the right climate here.

bitslammer said:

Oh man am I jealous Asdalton!

Those flytraps look incredible. My sundew and pitcher plants are thriving, but I'm killing flytraps right & left. I'm sure it's soil related from what I've read on the net. I also scorched a few by forgetting to get them out of the sun. :mecry:

Am I correct in seeing that you're growing yours in a styrofaom cup? I guess I've gotta mix up some new sand/soil mix and try again.

I'm also a fan of bromileads but we don't have the right climate here.

Click to expand...

Carnivorous plants are tough to grow in general. If you don't do a minimum set of specific things, the plants will die and nothing else you do will matter.

Rules of thumb for Venus flytraps:

• Use a drained container (holes in the bottom) made out of plastic or glazed ceramic. Deeper is better. The pot in the photo is from Ikea, which is the only place where I've been able to find drained, glazed ceramic pots.
• Soil should be plain sphagnum peat moss, or else peat mixed with washed perlite. Long-fibered sphagnum is also acceptable. I have learned from experience that sand can be trouble! It often contains impurities such as salt, even if you wash it first. Avoid sand.
• Water must be pure: rain water, distilled water, deionized water, or reverse osmosis water.
• Leave the pot sitting in a dish of water, but don't use deep water for extended periods. Flytraps do not like to be as wet as pitcher plants. This is the reason why you want to use a fairly deep pot.
• Keep the plant in a bright location with at least 3 hours of direct sunlight each day. Use partial shade if the climate is dry and hot.

I hope this helps.