The Garden Doctor:
A rose by any other means

[Photos: John A. Starnes Jr.] The Valencia, hybrid tea, 1989. It is possible to get big, gorgeous blooms with a lot less hassle.

By JOHN A. STARNES JR.
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 13, 2002

Spring is here, and so is the ''Year of the Rose.'' Low-hassle growing is in, and fussing and pesticides are out.

We are all so busy with jobs and kids and school and trying to squeeze in some downtime, too, that growing humankind's favorite flower shouldn't be one more source of worry and hassle.

Hey, I'm mental about roses and have 170 or so, yet feed them just once each spring and summer, water them three times a month and prune them once a year. And my landscape clients' rose gardens are just as low-maintenance. Yours can be, too.

Congress and the American Rose Society have it right: Both august bodies have declared 2002 as the "Year of the Rose." So it is fitting we start off the new growing season with a few simple steps that can help take the fear and loathing out of growing roses, and boost your confidence along with the health of your roses.

Monsieur Tillier, tea rose, 1891

Graham Thomas, English, 1983

Rosa laevigata, species, 1759

Growing roses is like raising kids: There are lots of opinions about how to do it. But most folks I know, myself included, don't enter rose competitions to win blue ribbons, so they don't need huge, picture-perfect blossoms. They just want the fragrant charm and classic elegance that healthy roses add to any landscape. Who doesn't enjoy picking a lovely (and free) rose bouquet fresh from the garden to grace the dinner table? Since more of us are taking a dim view of wanton pesticide use, low-hassle rose-growing also reflects the desire to be gentler to the environment.

While I strongly prefer growing "own root" roses instead of grafted roses because of their overall toughness and longevity in our harsh climate, many of us already have some grafted roses surviving in gardens but are weary of fussing over them with sprays and such. In both situations, feeding the soil with rich organic nutrients will help both types of roses achieve maximum vigor to ward off the diseases we've all fought vainly in the past. By not using pesticides, we can invite beneficial creatures into our gardens that eat the "bad bugs" that love to munch on roses. Who hasn't seen ladybugs pigging out on annoying aphids?

From late April through early May is an ideal time to feed the soil of your yard, including a garden of roses interplanted with perennials that attract beneficial critters. You couldn't pay me to use a systemic "rose food" that puts poisons into the soil -- then the roots, then the sap of the roses -- partly because I love to brew rose petal-and-mint tea fresh from my garden, and partly because systemics can kill ladybugs and lacewings as they eat poisoned aphids.

Instead, call a local feed store supplied by the Manna Pro Corporation and order a 50-pound bag of "menhaden fish meal," which contains a perfect balance of sea minerals and the major plant nutrients, including a slow-release nitrogen that roses love. Two cups of it sprinkled around a small rose bush, or 4 to 6 cups for a monster rose bush such as Fairmount Red, Complicata or Mr. Nash, will provide each bush all the nutrients it needs for steady, healthy growth all summer. Scattering "Ringer Lawn Restore" all over the garden will do wonders to fight blackspot and powdery mildew by adding beneficial micro-organisms.

But if, like me, you love your roses, you may wish to give them some extra treats to further nourish the soil and them. One cup of epsom salts, 4 cups of alfalfa pellets (cheap in 50-pound bags at feed stores), 2 cups of "Calf Manna" (also from a feed store) and 4 cups of fresh horse manure from a local stall per bush will give your roses the equivalent of a decadent Roman feast. They'll thank you with even better growth and health. Just sprinkle these organics all around the garden so that the perennials will benefit, too, while sparing you the hassle of feeding each bush individually.

Or indulge in the convenience of "Mile Hi Rose Feed" from a local nursery. While it isn't as cheap as bulk feed-store items an organic landscaper buys, it is a remarkably complete and balanced organic fertilizer your roses, perennials, annuals and vegetables will lap up. The 40-pound bag is the cheapest way to buy this often overlooked yet superior soil food.

Late April or early May is also a great time to prune winter-killed canes. At this time, exhibitors also refine the structure of each bush to produce those huge, award-winning blooms we've all seen. But if you are swamped with life, you can copy the British studies where the bushes were hacked back ruthlessly by half with pruning shears or electric hedge trimmers. The roses in the studies got just as many big, gorgeous blooms with a lot less hassle (and a lot less bloodshed from tangling with all those thorns).

If your repeat bloomers have gotten too big and lanky, feel free to copy Victorian era rosarians who simply whacked their bushes back by one half or more after the June bloom phase -- well-fed roses will then grow back lower and denser and with oodles of slightly smaller blooms. If you have monstrous, once-blooming roses that threaten to swallow your home, wait till late June or early July when they have just dropped the last of their petals, then nuke them with your loppers to perhaps waist height. They'll use the balance of summer to regrow a more compact network of branches that will bloom next June. Pruning them hard in spring or fall will rob you of that June display you waited all winter for, so don't!

Rather than spray your roses all spring and summer with preventive blasts of poisons that can sicken or kill insects and even house pets, you can let a natural ecological balance get established over a couple of seasons. Each spring, my garden is teeming with critters. Little brown sparrows and good bugs munch away on that first plague of aphids on the new growth. Later, the teensy, nonstinging Trichogramma wasps that moved in begin to take care of aphids for the rest of the summer. Insecticides would thwart this wonderful natural process and make it unwise for me to inhale that intoxicating perfume too deeply or brew that lovely tea. If Diazinon and Orthene will kill so many creatures I don't want either in my herb tea or up my nostrils.

A new rose garden won't have many allies living in it, so use a sharp spray of water from your garden nozzle to blast aphids and spider mites onto the driveway or mulch. A lot of folks now rinse their roses off early every morning to dislodge the spores of powdery mildew. You can't get much more easy and nontoxic than water from a garden hose.

So that's pretty much it. Each spring, feed the soil, keep it mulched, give it a good weekly soak, hold off on the poisons and treat yourself to armloads of cut roses every week to encourage more growth and bring the beauty and especially the fragrance into your home. There are many different ways to grow roses, but this "Lazy Man's Organic School of Gardening" is an easy, cheap and safe approach. If you don't have any "own root" roses, treat yourself to a few in this "Year of the Rose."

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