Category: Roses

Question from the mailbag (heirloomgardener [at] aol [dot] com): I have about 30 rose bushes and most are struggling due to black spot. What should I do?

Answer from Heirloom Gardener: Regarding the black spot, I wouldn’t worry about it at this time of year. It won’t kill the plant, even if all of the leaves fall off. If you want to prevent black spot on your roses next season, start your maintenance in the spring. I spray dormant oil right before the plant leafs out which kills any over-wintering spores that cause black spot as well as insects, etc. If you spray it now, it will kill the plant. After the plant leafs out, I spray with neem oil that smothers the spores every two weeks except during the heat of summer when it will burn the leaves.

Related posts: Dormant Oil Application for Pest Prevention

Question from the mailbag (heirloomgardener[at]aol[dot]com): Are heirloom roses hard to grow?

Answer from Heirloom Gardener: In short, my answer is no, they are not hard to grow. I’m not sure why heirloom roses have a misperception of being difficult, when my experience has been the exact opposite. In fact, I wrote a whole post about how easy they are, How to Care for Heirloom Roses: No Chemicals, No Sprays and No Special Treatment Required. A short excerpt:

“Heirloom roses are wonderful because they grow with very little care. In response to a recent question, you do not need to use chemicals to grow these roses. If you are into organic gardening or low maintenance gardening, then old garden roses are the plants for you. Look for the following classes of roses: alba, moss, damask, portland, centifolia, and gallicas. Also, include in your selection species and rugosa roses.
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Most likely, the only one of these to be found in the average garden center is the so called beach rose: either rugosa alba or the pink single rugosa. Fortunately, they are easily available from specialty nurseries, such as: Antique Rose Emporium, Ashdown Roses, and Rogue Valley Roses. All three offer wonderful containerized own root roses. Rogue Valley Roses also has larger than normal roses for shipment.”

In addition, I wrote a related post, Six Trouble Free Heirloom Roses, which includes recommendations of particularly easy heirlooms: Rose de Rescht, Paul Neyron, Madame Plantier, Variegata di Bologna, Henry Martin, and Tuscany Superb. In that post, I wrote:

“The old garden roses are so easy to grow. In most cases, you can dig a hole, add in some compost, plant the rose, water it well for the first year, and from there its requirements are the same as other shrubs in your garden. What they lack in remontancy is made up with fragrance and profusion of bloom. Also, if you grow the Portlands and Bourbons, you can have repeat blooming shrubs as well.”

This weekend, I applied Dormant Oil to all of my roses. This is the best organic pest protection that you can give to your roses, as it smothers over-wintering insects and their eggs. As I wrote in a post last year:

“The dormant oil is horticultural oil diluted in water. Horticultural oil is available at most nurseries. As a dormant spray, the horticultural oil is less diluted than it is when its used after plants have leafed out. The importance of the horticultural oil for the organic rose gardener is that it suffocates many pest and their eggs before they become active as the weather warms up. It’s good as a control for aphids, spider mites, scale, sawfly, and thrips. The dormant oil should be applied all over the canes of the roses. The easiest time to do it is after pruning because all the unnecessary wood has been removed; but, if you will not complete your rose pruning until the leaves have already begun to emerge, do it now. The only brand that I know of is Bonide All Seasons Horticultural & Dormant Spray Oil.”

One of the unexpected responses to starting Heirloom Gardener is the questions I receive from readers about their gardens. Given how interesting I have found the inquiries, I thought I’d start sharing some of them with all of you. If you have a question for me, email me at heirloomgardener[at]aol[dot]com.

Question for Heirloom Gardener: I just read, and very much enjoyed, your series about pruning roses. Thank you. I’ve inherited a rose bush that is about 70 years old. It has some huge, gnarly growth at the bottom, from which is growing a horrible mess of old, twisted, and rubbing branches. The rose has been neglected for years, and what I have to deal with is a basic framework of very old growth supporting a mess of spindly young growth. So my question is whether this rose would be injured by being cut back to little more than its basic framework. I fear that such old branches might not like my demand that they be responsible for new canes again after years of playing a supporting role.

Heirloom Gardener’s Answer: You don’t want to shock the rose too much, so I’d prune it back over a two year time period. In my zone (6b), I would prune it back by one third in April. You may also remove one third of the canes from the ground. After it blooms in the summer, you can prune away any new growth. In the fall, bring it back to the height it was in the spring. The next year, repeat the process. Best wishes.

Heirloom roses are wonderful because they grow with very little care. In response to a recent question, you do not need to use chemicals to grow these roses. If you are into organic gardening or low maintenance gardening, then old garden roses are the plants for you. Look for the following classes of roses: alba, moss, damask, portland, centifolia, and gallicas. Also, include in your selection species and rugosa roses.
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Most likely, the only one of these to be found in the average garden center is the so called beach rose: either rugosa alba or the pink single rugosa. Fortunately, they are easily available from specialty nurseries, such as: Antique Rose Emporium, Ashdown Roses, and Rogue Valley Roses. All three offer wonderful containerized own root roses. Rogue Valley Roses also has larger than normal roses for shipment.
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Once you have the rose, planting is very simple. First, dig a hole a bit larger than the container. Mix as much organic matter into the soil which you removed as you wish. This could be compost, leaf mold, composted manure, Bumper Crop, or whatever else you desire. Plant the rose, tamp it down firmly, water, and mulch with more organic material.
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After planting, old garden roses can fend for themselves. The reason we still have these roses in our gardens today is because they are able to thrive even with neglect. People did not continue to cultivate them because they were unhealthy and hard to grow, but because they are easy to grow and full of beauty. Many of the old roses available are found roses that survived without any help until someone ‘discovered’ them.
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If you want to give them extra care, top dress them with compost once or twice a year. For more suggestions, and for those of us who can’t sit back and do nothing, there is a wonderful book on growing roses organically called Growing Roses Organically by Barbara Wilde.
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Pictured in this post from top to bottom are: Apothecary, Celsiana and Noisette.
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Related posts:
Six Trouble-Free Roses for the Home Gardener
Creating the Rose Garden with a Central Brick Path
The Rose Garden in Spring and Summer: Daffodils replace the Lavender Border
How to Prune Roses, Part I: An Introduction
How to Prune Roses, Part II: Old Rose Pruning Secrets
How to Prune Roses, Part III: Why Prune?
Index of Rose Photos