EP231- How To Get My Roses looking Great This Summer? Mastering the Art of Growing Healthy, Disease-Resistant Roses

In this weeks episode John answers a listener question where the listener has been struggling to grow roses for a number of years. 

Struggling to grow the perfect rose garden? You're not alone, and in this episode, we reveal the secrets to cultivating healthy, blooming roses with ease. Discover why selecting disease-resistant varieties is your first step towards success, and how proper location and soil enhancement can make all the difference. We'll guide you through the essentials, including the pivotal role of pruning to keep your roses robust and resilient against diseases like black spot and mildew. 

Dive into our discussion on the best methods to foster disease resistance, featuring effective tonics such as Uncle Tom's Rose Tonic and SB Plant Invigorator. Learn the nuances of different rose varieties—floribunda, hybrid tea, climbing, and rambling roses—and get expert tips on precise pruning techniques for each. We spotlight disease-resistant varieties like Irish Eyes, Arthur Bell, and Sweet Honey, and celebrate the laudable fragrance and endurance of David Austin roses. Whether you're managing patio or ground cover roses, our practical advice ensures your garden will be flourishing and fragrant in no time. Join us and transform your rose-growing challenges into triumphs!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

how's it going, everybody? And welcome to episode 231 of master, my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode is answering a listener's question and you know we're we're into kind of peak summer this week. We have, I'm not going to say a wonderful week's weather, but certainly a much better week than what we had got used to over the last while and, you know, a little bit of warmth at last, and not so much by way of rain, so that has been really welcome.

Speaker 1: 0:40

And this listener has been struggling with roses, has been struggling with roses for a number of years, and is asking, you know, what can be done to get them going. Now, I don't have a huge amount of information on this, so we're going to go back to the start and we're going to, I suppose, give all of the tips to having successful roses. And I suppose the first thing to point out is that you know, I don't know the variety, and what has happened over the last number of years you know, certainly the last 10, 15 years is that a lot of the varieties that are coming onto the market, that are coming onto the scene and that are becoming popular, are ones that are, you know, disease resistant, are fully disease resistant or certainly have a level of disease resistance. So they're they're less susceptible to, you know, to black spot and mildew and so on. And if you remember back, you know, if you went back, say, to your 30 years ago, there was certain varieties and they're just notoriously difficult, might have had great flowers, might have been beautifully scented, but they were notoriously difficult, especially in our wet sort of environment, to to keep right. And that was, you know, that was a challenge for people. So you often saw roses that sometimes look wonderful and then other times just looked horrible, and you know that that's. That's a big plus over the last number of years is that a lot of the varieties are becoming more and more disease resistant, and that means that, you know, generally speaking, most people can grow them without too much issue.

Speaker 1: 2:14

We'll go back to the point that we say for all plants, though if a plant is growing healthy and strong and vigorously, then it's much, much more able to defend itself. And you know this is a key point and this is something that we need to be striving for, you know, everywhere in our garden, but particularly in relation to roses. It's a really, really key point, because a vigorous, strong rose that's being pruned correctly will be able to fight off any sort of potential disease issues over the course of the season. So, as I say, I don't know the varieties in question here and I don't know the location in terms of you know what's the soil like or whatever. So just a few pointers.

Speaker 1: 2:56

First, if there's kind of two roses will grow in most places, except for areas that are really heavy soil or are, you know, waterlogged, really heavy ground. They don't like that. So if that is the ground that you know, that that you're in, then what needs to happen is you need to amend that soil. You know, by adding farm yard manure, maybe potentially sort out any drainage issue. But what you're looking to do is you're looking to get a more open, free draining soil but one that has moisture retention. So organic matter will be your friend, as it is in in most, you know, in most cases in the garden. And the other place that they don't like is shade. So if it's in a fairly shaded area, then that's potentially the problem. Now the shade is is two forms, I guess they like to get as much sun as possible. It helps the flowers and so on. But also you need to get you know it needs to be in an area where you're getting some air movement, because if it's in a really a really sheltered spot, even if it's in full sun, if it's not getting air movement through it, then potentially disease issues can come up as well. So one last week's episode we we heard paula talking about her roses in kilgar gardens and how they were. They were getting, you know, they were in, not exposed, but they were getting some air movement through there during an open area and that meant that she had very little disease problems and that's, you know, that's a key point.

Speaker 1: 4:23

So, assuming location is reasonably good, you're in a relatively good soil, you're getting mostly sun, then what you're looking out for is, I suppose, pruning and then plant care throughout the year. And what we're looking for is we're looking for plants that are grown healthy, grown vigorously, because that is the key to, you know, across your whole garden. That's the key to having less pest and disease issues anyway. So pruning is the first thing. So when it comes to pruning, obviously we're in, you know, we're in June now and pruning will have been done on all your roses, or will have been done on all your roses, or should have been done on all your roses at this stage. So what you're looking for just to recap on that is you're looking to take out any dead, any dead branches of your roses and, like, when we're talking about roses here at the moment we're talking about, you know your floribundas, your hybrid teas, that type of rose, you know your bush roses, rather than climbers or rambling roses and we will talk about those in a moment as well.

Speaker 1: 5:33

So what you're looking to do when you're pruning is you're taking out anything that's dead. So any dead wood that needs to be cut back completely, cut back cleanly with a really sharp secateurs and a secateurs that's clean and hasn't been used. You know on other roses that were diseased. So really clean second hairs, sharp second hairs you don't want to damage when you're cutting. Cut off anything that's dead, anything that has what looks like disease on it. So you'll know that by stems that have black blotches on them, leaves that have black holes on them, anything like that, and damaged ones. So anything that has maybe got broken, got bent over in the wind or maybe with the flowers they got cracked, anything that has any opening for disease to get in, cut all of those off.

Speaker 1: 6:19

It's called the three Ds of pruning. It's taking off dead, diseased and damaged stems and, generally speaking, what you're looking to do is you're looking to reduce the plant. They used to be the old saying where you reduced it by a third before Christmas and then one third after Christmas, and then you leave one third and that's your growth for the year. Typically, people now will do one good pruning and typically they will do it after Christmas and you can be quite harsh with your pruning, but you're always going to be leaving one third of the plant, you know, basically at the end of a season and that's, as I say, for Floribondas and Hybrid teas. So that's the pruning part of it and that's important and it's important to do that every year.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Then husbandry all around the plants. You know, underneath any leaves that have fallen, you know, as the leaves have dropped off, any diseased leaves, if you allow them to just sit on the ground into the following year, then the disease spores are there and it's just the case of when the new leaves come, they will activate and they will, you know, reinfect the plant at that stage. So any diseased, any, you know anything that looks discolored, take it off, gather it up, take it away, don't you know you can burn it if you can, or just get rid of it off your site. You don't want want that because the spores of that will reinfect. So hygiene around the bed, keeping it clean, keeping it mulched, that's a really really good, positive way to do it At this stage of the year. You know, as I say, we're well into June.

Speaker 1: 8:03

Possibly, if your plants are not going well, it might take till next year to get these back right, but that doesn't matter, you're still working on it over the long term. And then the next big thing is to feed that plant. So a vigorous, growing, really strong plant pushes off and remains resistant, or becomes more resistant to pests and disease. One that's growing poorly, one that's weak, one that's not doing well, is going to be absolutely open to any pest or disease that's in the area. So that's the big thing.

Speaker 1: 8:36

So my go-to for any type of plant health is seaweed. So seaweed, liquid seaweed, granular seaweed. It really strengthens the cells of the plant and what you'll find is that it's not going to necessarily, you know, drive a whole load of floral growth, but what it will do is give the leaves a really high green gloss. And that high, you know that high green gloss is going to be sort of like a protective layer against any pest and disease. So seaweed is your friend. I would use that, you know, several times throughout the growing season, every couple of weeks throughout the growing season. And then, in order to promote the floral growth, you're going to need something with a high k in it. So even poultry manure is going to be useful to give, you know, a nitrogen boost and so on. We'll also have some element of k in it and, from a natural perspective, you can use banana skins high in k, but you can also use any good quality rose food will be high in in k in potash and that's going to drive flower growth and that's, you know, that's going to really help as well.

Speaker 1: 9:42

The other thing is, again, you. You have your roses chosen. They're, they're struggling at the minute, but you'll get them going for sure. But if you're, if you're new and you're looking to choose roses for the first time, then a couple of considerations as to what type of rose you're going to grow, and it's kind of broken up into into, you know, floribunda roses, hybrid tea roses, climbers, rambling, and then you have the newer ones, the ground covers and the patios and so on, and floribunda roses are probably the most popular at the moment.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Hybrid teas were the older style and typically they did come with sort of disease problems. They tended to be a much bigger flower and they're the ones that will be typically used for shows and so on. Exhibition, exhibition roses there tend to be more scented generally, um, and then you'll have one, one stem with one larger flower on it, so a bigger type flower, and then the floribunda tends to be your clusters of flowers, so several flowers off the one head, and they are the ones that you know you'll find now are sort of doing a lot better. But the I suppose the the thing with them is any of those, especially the ones with the bigger, really big flowers, if you've had, you know, the weather that we've had over the last while and they have started flowering, or if you went back to last summer when we had that really wet summer, if they're, you know, if they have these big kind of blousy flowers that are open and you get a lot of rain, obviously the flower is open and the rain goes into the flower and sort of stays there and then you get this, you know, kind of a rot setting in and generally the plant just looks like it's not doing overly well. Sometimes it can be grown well, but the flowers are just not able to, I suppose, put on the perfect show because of the of the moisture getting into them. But that's a, you know, important thing.

Speaker 1: 11:42

Particularly hybrid tea rows, they tend, as I said, they tend to be a bigger, a bigger bloom, and that more open flower generally scented better, all right, but, um, that bigger bloom can be a little bit more susceptible to capturing water and then and then turning into a kind of a mushy head, if you know what I mean. So what I'm saying there is, if you are starting from scratch, possibly look at the floribunda roses, where you have clusters of flowers. Again, they can be quite big, they can be open a little bit as well, but they tend to be less open than hybrid teas, and then you will have more, I suppose, disease resistance in especially some of the newer varieties. If you are starting, then you're going to a garden center and you're looking at roses. You know, just make sure that whatever you're picking up is especially clean. When you're picking it up you don't want to be starting with a problem. So make sure that they're spotlessly clean and and then work from there. So that's kind of you know, to get it going, to get the ones going, take off any, anything that's dead and diseased, damaged. Now you, that's going to be your routine every year for pruning, but if you haven't done it this year, do it now. Take off any flowers that are you know that are gone over. Give it a good feed. Make sure that it's not waterlogged Seaweed, definitely feed it with seaweed, and then you know, a good quality food with, you know, high level of pot potash and that's going to drive floral growth for the rest of the year.

Speaker 1: 13:11

As I say, a plant that's growing really, really well is going to be less susceptible to any diseases. There is some very good tonics out there. There's one called Uncle Tom's Rose Tonic. I think it was developed in the UK. The reports on that are really good. I've never used it myself but I know that people you know swear by it in terms of growing roses. So SB plant invigorator is another one that's quite good as well for again reviving making plants more resilient, more natural resilience, and then they're less disease susceptible.

Speaker 1: 13:44

So hopefully that helps to, you know, to get your roses going, and we'll have a look now at, you know, the other types of roses and and how you you go about, I suppose, pruning and and ensuring that you have good blooms because they are to be fair to the flower the summer for most people. I don't have roses here, as I have a new bed that we're doing at the minute and we were only saying the other day that we're going to put some roses into it. They're typically better, you know, planted in clusters of trees or fives or whatever, but this is a seating area outside circular area, so I think some nice scented ones there will really add to it. So that's what we were saying the other day and we're definitely going to do that. So, as I said, floribunda roses are, you know, generally speaking, the best ones at the moment. They're typically more disease resistant and some good ones.

Speaker 1: 14:44

Within that there's Irish eyes is a really nice one. It's kind of an orange yellow flower, very good variety, and one of the really old ones, one that I remember from 30 years ago, 35 years ago, arthur bell. It's a yellow flower. That's a really good variety. Uh, pretty, disease resistant, really strong flower, you know, easy to grow, very, very resilient and tough variety and one that you know, does well all across ireland. So that's a good variety and there's loads of other ones. Then you have things like bonica is another new one, irish eyes I mentioned, you know, arthur bell. Sweet honey is another one, apricot kind of color. All of those are kind of good disease resistant varieties and if you are starting from scratch and you're getting one from scratch, that's something you should be looking for as kind of disease resistance.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Obviously if you have fragrances, you know, as a consideration then you would get those as well. You know, around my seating area I'm looking for fragrant ones and you know arthur bell probably is a good option there. But I look at some other ones depending on the color scheme or whatever. Hybrides, as I said, they're the more exhibition ones, bigger blooms, fragrant, but generally speaking they're. They're not all, because some of the newer ones do have disease resistant. But typically the, the floral bond is a better one to go with climbers. Then you typically won't have huge issues there.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Your pruning obviously is slightly different. There you're when you get them there. You know the. The pruning um of those is you get kind of tree stems and you direct them in the direction of the trellis or whatever it is that you're fixing it to, and they will grow out to kind of between six and ten foot and then you you hold them there on that, on your, on your structure, whatever that is, and you bring them into different directions and then you cut off anything that's grown outwards and you'll have your flowering, your flowers, all the way along those, those tree stems, and that's kind of your pruning every year. You're sort of retaining that shape of these tree stems with your little side shoots on it and that's kind of your pruning of those rambling roses. Then slightly more, slightly different, in that the climber has kind of woody or will eventually have kind of woody stems, strong woody stems that are less flexible than the rambling. One will have long stems That'll be more flexible. So they're kind of they can be nip, elated, you know, around arches and so on, maybe a little bit easier than than the climbers. So pruning on those is is different. Again, you know, on the on the climbers, you'll probably do, you'll do a prune early in the year but you might do another one in mid-summer to sort of tidy up some of that growth that's coming outwards. And, you know, retain your shape on on your climbing structure, whatever that is and that you know you kind of do two prunings a year on climbers, rambling roses. Generally speaking, you're gonna let them do their thing. Unless they're again growing off an arch or whatever, you will either bend them around or, if it's running out of space, you will trim them to whatever size that is. So they're kind of the types. Obviously you have the David Aston roses now which are hugely popular.

Speaker 1: 18:05

Typically, a lot of those, a huge amount of those, are disease resistant and a lot of them are scented. You know they're typically the best of the best within them and you know that's if you're starting from scratch. They're kind of the ones to look for Flower bundles, look at some of the special ones and so on. If you're in a small area, you can just go with patio roses. They'll stay really small, you can.

Speaker 1: 18:31

The pruning of those is, you know, less fussy. You can just basically chop the tops off them and shape it to whatever shape it is that you want and they'll flower away again the next year. And again you're doing that just after Christmas, between Christmas day and St Patrick's day. And ground cover roses are the same. They're not at all fussy about the pruning. You can just literally lock the tops off them and that will. You can create your shape there and it's a really easy pruning, nothing fancy or nothing complicated about it and uh, yeah, that's. That's kind of the different. You know the different types of roads.

Speaker 1: 19:08

We've covered roses before on the on the podcast and, as I said, they are probably the flower of the summer. But the biggest thing with them, if they're struggling with them, is to make sure that they're number one in an area that isn't waterlogged, that's getting a good bit of sun, that has some air movement through it. And then typically you know, once you're pruning properly and taking care of the husbandry and making sure that you're not leaving any dead or diseased wood on it, then you're going to be successful. So, yeah, that's that's kind of it. I hope that answers the question. Definitely, feeding is your and seaweed, as I said, is going to be your friend when it comes to reviving any plants like this and yeah, that should that should get you on the road to success. So let me know how you get on at the at the end of the summer, but then next year I think that's going to be your big one get your pruning right in the springtime and then going forward from there.

Speaker 1: 20:01

Lots of feeding, um, a few of you since I last recorded a few of you would have been at the, the buds and blossoms talk in in spink, and it went really well. And a lot of you come up to me afterwards and it was really great. It was great to see people and to talk to people. You know, obviously podcasting is behind the screen, behind a microphone, um, but I met some lovely people who have been listening to the podcast from a long time, for a long time, and I've never met before, and that was really nice. So thank you very much for that. And, yeah, the, the talk itself went down really well and, yeah, since then I've actually been asked to do, you know, some more talks around the place. So, yeah, it was, it was really nice and, uh, some the other speakers were excellent that day. The weather earned to pot a little bit. There was a bit of rain, quite cold on the day, but I think anyone that got to the talks really enjoyed it and uh, yeah went really really really well.

Speaker 1: 21:01

Next week's episode is an interesting one. We're going very much off topic. I won't tell you what it is yet, but it's very much off topic and a really interesting episode, again one that has been requested by a listener, but it's a guest interview and an interesting, really interesting subject for next week's episode. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening, thank you.