Every year I forget that November means roses. Roses are so tough once established that even in hot and dry Novembers they generously bloom.
Roses were originally a wild plant, and feral roses are an Australian weed. We've bred them in glorious colours, and cross-bred them to bloom in pots and some even in the shade, but they still have that wild toughness. A rose bush will live hundreds of years, and the stock on which a rose is grafted will shoot and bloom even if the bush seems to vanish in a bushfire.
All you really need to know about roses is: more tucker + sun + watering + pruning = more roses.
These hints will also help:
1. Know your rose. Does it need sun? Will it bloom in the shade or on a hot patio? Will it stay small or does it want to climb a tree? Will it bloom all year, all spring summer and autumn, or just once, gloriously, in spring? Read the label, Mabel. It will tell you all you need to know. If you are a novice, keep the label to remind you what your rose needs.
2. If the flowers lose their petals after a day or two and the leaves are small and pale, your rose is hungry. Feed it.
3. Roses need nitrogen and phosphorus to stimulate root growth and speed up flowering, and potash for frost, drought and disease resistance, plus calcium and trace elements. The best rose food is compost. Otherwise buy "rose food" and scatter thinly on top of mulch every hot month, and water in well.
4. Mulch feeds roses, keeps soil moist, and the weeds down. Avoid grass clippings or any mulch that stops a light sprinkle of rain getting to the soil.
5. If the leaves grow black spots, try the recipe below. Most new varieties are black-spot resistant. Mix nine cups of water, one cup of full-cream milk, and 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda. Spray under and over the leaves every three days for 21 days, then every fortnight.
6. Prune a hybrid tea in early spring: cut back every branch by about a third, with each cut just below an outward-facing bud.
7. Prune any other rose by snipping back as far as you want AFTER blooming, or prune a stem each time you pick the flowers.
8. Picking stimulates new growth. A gift of roses makes people happy.
9. Deadhead spent flowers so the bush doesn't put all its energy into ripening rose seeds in the hips, unless your rose variety gives decorative red hips in winter.
10. Absolutely no-work roses include rambling roses that clamber along a fence. They won't need pruning, or spraying, and after three years won't even need feeding and watering either.
11. Plant groundcover or "landscaping" roses or floribundas for lots of flowers. They won't give long-stemmed roses but look pretty in bud vases.
12. Iceberg is the world's most popular rose: no scent, but bright green leaves and blooms almost all year, great in pots on patios or the climbing form up a pergola. The world's best roses are Papa Meilland and Buff Beauty. Every other rose lover will disagree.
13. SOME roses flourish in the shade. Look for "shade tolerant" on the label.
14. Try thornless roses by the garden path, or snip off the thorns: they won't regrow.
15. If you want long stems in a vase, go for hybrid teas. Hybrid teas are the rose that most people imagine when they think of roses.
16. If your cut roses in a vase are wilting, place the stems in 5cm of boiling water till cool, then cut off 5cm of the stem. A really droopy rose won't recover.
17. Cut roses perk up and last longer if kept in the fridge overnight.
18. Don't put a vase of roses by a sunny window.
19. Bung a dozen 30cm hardwood rose prunings into a bucket of damp sand in winter. Most will grow.
20. Head to the garden centre now to find the rose you fall in love with while all are blooming. Then buy two.
This week I am:
- Admitting I planted parsley far too early: nearly every plant is going to seed. Spring's main planting time is November 1 onwards, even if we get an early hot spell. Note to self: remember this.
- Welcoming day lilies, which will bloom and bloom, each flower lasting only a day.
- Not seeing single snail, but admiring a fat blue-tongued lizard who loves eating snails.
- Watching a hillside turn gold with native everlastings. Remove the weeds and cattle, and the wildflowers spread like kangaroos.
- Realising that Possum X has eaten all the loquats and new loquat leaves (he's welcome to them). This means he has left my Jonathon apple tree alone ... so far.
- Hearing the cicadas sing and frogs croak; I do love late spring.
- Calling anyone with an ancestor connected with Araluen for the Finding Family - A Walk, A Talk And A Cuppa expedition. Clare and Sue from the Araluen Valley History Group have finished the huge job of mapping the two Araluen cemeteries. Join the History Group for a walk and talk around the cemeteries on Sunday, November 24, 2024, and for morning tea at the Federal Hall. Let know them you'll be coming, so there's enough cake. Cost: $10 donation. Book at araluenvalleyhistory+enquiry@gmail.com
