Bud Grafting Workshop

On August 3, 2013, 10:00 am to noon (rain date August 4), we will again host our annual Propagation (Bud Grafting) Workshop in East Providence, RI. Bud grafting is a simple process of surgically attaching a bud eye of a desirable variety onto a winter hardy rootstock, thus creating a duplicate plant of that variety. Past students quickly mastered the basic skills and were soon successfully bud grafting their own roses to take home. I begin by demonstrating how to harvest the bud eye, prepare the rootstock and all the other steps necessary to create a new rose bush. It’s fun and a lot easier than you think.

Rootstock bundles

Grafting is an ideal way to propagate a family heirloom to share with family members. I often tell the story of my parents purchasing Brownell roses directly from the Brownell Nursery in Little Compton, RI before they closed in the late 1960’s. Most of those roses my father planted eventually died except for the Rhode Island Red, an Everblooming Pillar that they bought in 1959. That robust climber was still growing in my mother’s garden when we sold the house after she passed away in 2010. Over the years I had propagated many duplicates of Rhode Island Red from that mother bush and passed them along to family members as a living reminder of our parents.

While there is no charge for the workshop, there is a plant materials fee – $7. per potted rootstock which you graft and take home.

Class size is limited. Email mike@rosesolutions.netfor more details.

Bareroot Roses

When we were looking for the rose ‘Fighting Temeraire’, none of our local nurseries carried it. The only place we could find this 2013 David Austin new introduction was at the David Austin Roses facility in the United States in Tyler, Texas. Mike ordered 2 of these fragrant, apricot climbers over the phone

Fighting Temeraire
Photo Credit: David Austin Roses

and even received a 10% discount with our American Rose Society membership! (Mike is old-school and likes to talk to the people he’s buying from.) The bareroot roses arrived last week and we can’t wait to get them planted.

Rose bushes are harvested as dormant plants in late November in vast fields in Texas, Arizona, and California where they have been growing for almost two seasons. The soil has been shaken from the roots – hence the term “bare root” – and the foliage mechanically removed. They are graded, labeled and tied in bundles of five or ten and stored in large climate-controlled warehouses until the following spring when they are distributed throughout the United States for retail sales.

Bareroot roses are much lighter than potted roses, thus saving weight and shipping costs, and this is how most mail order roses are sold. While local nurseries, including those specializing in roses, stock new introductions each season as well as some tried-and-true old favorites, it’s not possible for them to stock every variety. However, buying bareroot roses from reputable online and catalogue sources almost anywhere in the United States and Canada is an ideal way to procure unusual varieties that aren’t available locally as well as varieties that are rare and hard-to-find.

Since most casual rose gardeners are accustomed to buying potted roses at their local nursery, the idea of receiving a bareroot rose, naked of soil, may be a little daunting. Just remember, though, that all potted roses arrive at the garden center as bareroot roses and are potted up locally for sale throughout the season.

If you decide to order bareroot roses by mail order it’s best to buy them from a reputable vendor. The rose should be a graded as a #1 rose and it that should be stated either in the catalog or on the web site that this is the grade that you are getting. A #1 rose is a rose with 3 or more canes about the size of my thumb with a well developed root system.

Bareroot roses are shipped to arrive when you’re able to plant them within a week or so. Since it’s been colder than usual here in Rhode Island, Mike requested David Austin Roses ship on the first week of April which is another reason he ordered over the phone. Timing becomes important and most mail order plants are shipped on a Monday so they are delivered before the following weekend eliminating the possibility of them being stuck in a below-freezing trailer or warehouse over the weekend. The plants are hydrated prior to shipping and will be wrapped in plastic bags or the roots may be covered with wet peat to keep them fresh. Finally, they’re packed in sturdy cardboard boxes and sent on their way.

When they arrive on your doorstep they should be unpacked as soon as possible then placed in a large bucket of water for 24 hours in order to rehydrate the plant. If you leave them soaking longer than 24 hours, that’s okay, too.  When we get busy we’ve been known to let them soak up to week before planting them and we haven’t lost a bare root rose yet.

Once the roots have been rehydrated, you’re ready to plant the rose either in the ground or in a large pot that will accommodate the size of the rose and its roots for at least one season. If you’d like to know the steps for planting a bare root rose go to our web site, www.rosesolutions.net and read Mike’s article “How to Plant Roses.”

We are anxious to see “Fighting Temeraire” bloom in our garden this summer. We hope it lives up to its namesake, the iconic Joseph Turner painting hanging in London’s National Gallery. Hmmm, this could be another reason to go back to the UK next year.

Meanwhile, Mike has a spot already picked out for one ‘Fighting Temeraire’ and will plant the other one in a large container. We’ll post pictures when they bloom.

Roman Holiday

St. Peter’s Square

Mike and I are going to Italy in a few months so we have been following the Papal election with great interest. We’ll be in Rome for 5 days and had planned on spending an entire day at the Vatican. When the surprising news of Pope Benedict’s retirement blanketed the news media, we eagerly focused on all the news footage and every photo knowing that we would be in those exact same places in a matter of weeks. We were fascinated with the quick renovations to the Sistine Chapel as it was modified for the election. We waited patiently, along with the massive crowds in St. Peter’s Square, for smoke to appear out of that little chimney. All this made us even more enthusiastic, if that was possible, for our first visit to the Eternal City.

Swiss Guards

One of the tours we’re especially looking forward to is the Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. I’m sure there are many disappointed tourists who were not able to view the spectacular murals on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel when it was closed during the Conclave.

Besides the Vatican, there is plenty for two visitors from New England to see in Rome. We’ll spend most of a day in Ancient Rome, visiting the Coliseum, the Forum and Palatine Hill. We discovered that Rome has a Municipal Rose Garden that is open daily from early May to late June while the roses are in bloom; it then closes for the year. (It may open again during the second bloom cycle, sometime in August, but this is not always the case.)  From what I can find out about this rose garden, it was built in 1931 and open in 1932. It was Rome’s first roses-only garden and has over 100 varieties. It’s opposite the Circus Maximus near Palatine Hill, although my understanding is that it’s on Aventine Hill.

Colosseum

We’ll let you know after we visit and will share some of our photos. We will also keep an eye peeled for small intimate gardens that are nestled into courtyards, churchyards, and tiny public spaces. In the past we have discovered these little gems by chance but now we are on the look-out for this sort of matchbox horticulture in our travels, especially in old European cities. If anyone knows of any special gardens we could visit while in Rome or Florence, please let us know.

Trevi Fountain

We will do all the “touristy” things when in Italy and take in the must-see sites such as the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. We’ll also visit the famous Borghese Museum with Bernini’s iconic marble statue of David and works by Caravaggio, Titian and Rubens. We’ll shop at the Campo de’ Fiori, a fruit and vegetable market that opens every morning. In the evenings, we plan to stroll about town eating ice cream – excuse me, gelato – and then have delicious meals in small cafes. We will be Romans for a week.

Now that the excitement generated by the selection of the new pope has started to abate, Vatican City and the rest of Rome will be back to normal when we arrive and we’ll have it all to ourselves – well, almost all to ourselves. We’ll post details of our Roman Holiday after we head off into the Tuscan sun towards Siena and Florence through the vineyards of Chianti onto the second leg of the trip.

Ciao.

Blizzard of 2013

Last week, on the 35^th anniversary of the “Blizzard of ‘78,” Mother Nature socked us again with the “Blizzard of 2013.” If you lived through that great snow tempest of 1978, you’ll recall it snowed for three days with accumulations of 2-4 feet with drifts up to 8 feet. It shut down the entire state for a full week, but throughout that epic storm power was never lost.

We had plenty of notice for this year’s blizzard. We wondered if the weather men’s predictions would be accurate, since we remembered that last year on the same weekend in February, every local TV and radio station was predicting heavy snow. Mike and I were scheduled to present a lecture on that weekend, but because of the weather forecast, the event was cancelled. We woke up that Saturday morning to find that nary a single snowflake had fallen. As Mike’s father used to say, the storm had suddenly “turned left and gone out to sea.” This year we were again scheduled to present a lecture, and again it was cancelled. This time for good reason.

Since this year’s forecast for extreme weather was so certain, we checked the batteries, gassed up the snow blower, and even remembered to disconnect the electric garage door opener in case we lost power. Then we hunkered down, making sure we had milk, bread, popcorn, wine, good books and movies. Friday night we listened to the wind howling, blowing snow sideways and tearing a large limb from our neighbor’s maple tree. Then the lights went out.

While this year’s blizzard dropped less snow (we had about 18” with drifts up to 3’), than the Blizzard of ’78, the real threat was the loss of electricity – much of RI and MA was without power while the temperature plummeted to single digits. We lost our electricity about 10 pm Friday night and woke Saturday morning to temperatures inside the house in the low 50’s. Mike spent several hours clearing the snow and I surveyed the back and front yards, taking pictures.

Our roses created an almost surreal winter landscape with their canes poking through the snow, a dramatic departure from what the gardens look like in June. Since snow is an excellent natural insulator, it provided additional winter protection to the winter cover we had already applied a few months ago. The landscape was completely white with the only color from the garden art Mike created two years ago and hung on the side of our shed – a lonely reminder that spring will come eventually.

Garden Art – Winter Roses

By suppertime on Saturday, the house had gotten very cold and it looked like it was going to be a three-dog night. We were bundled up in bed like two caterpillars when the lights finally came on late Saturday night. The power was only off for 24 hours but seemed a lot longer than that. We’ll have to wait until spring to determine what damage, if any, was done to the rose bushes by the weight of all that snow. The real lesson learned here was how vulnerable we were without power in the middle of the winter – modern technology didn’t keep us warm. But our roses, like us, are hardy and we all survived the Blizzard of 2013.

Flower Show Season 2013

Graham Thomas

Winter arrived with a vengeance last week with sub-zero night-time temperatures we haven’t seen in southern New England for a couple of years. Since the third week of January is historically the coldest time of the year, this should have come as no great surprise. But it did!

February Daffodils

Despite this, the first wave of rose catalogues arrived in the mail last week awakening the gardening spirit with a sure signal that spring is right around the corner. It’s also a reminder that February is the month when Flower Shows spring up like the daffodil spears poking out of the soil that we discovered in the front garden yesterday.

RI Flower Show Arrangement

Each year Mike and I look forward to the Rhode Island Spring Flower & Garden Show in Providence. We enjoy the display gardens, the beautiful and creative flower arrangements, the informative lectures, and Mike really likes the pungent aroma of pine bark mulch that fills the hall. It’s also a plus for us that it’s a local show; driving into Providence is easy and parking is usually plentiful. Our lecture this year is on Saturday February 23 at 2:00 pm when we will present the program “David Austin’s English Roses for New England Gardens.” If you love the old-fashioned form and fragrance of David Austin’s English Roses, then don’t miss this program. If you don’t have a copy of our book, Roses for New England: A Guide to Sustainable Rose Gardening, we will have them available after our lecture.

Carding Mill
Photo by David Austin Roses

Prior to the lecture, at 12:30 on Saturday, we’ll be conducting a demonstration on basic rose care – “Rosology 101” – that explains the steps needed to grow beautiful roses. As a bonus, Mike usually demonstrates how to prune roses. We’ll be presenting this demonstration on behalf of the Rhode Island Rose Society and will have membership forms available if you would like to join. If you can’t make this demonstration, visit the RI Rose Society booth (Booth B) on the 3^rd floor where you’ll find a wealth of information on everything roses. Society members will available throughout the show to answer your rose questions.

At the 2013 Boston Flower & Garden Show, held at the Seaport World Trade Center, we’ll be introducing a new program, “Discovering Sustainable Roses,” on Friday, March 15 at 2:30 pm. The focus is on modern, sustainable roses – sturdy attractive plants that can hold their own in a pesticide-free landscape. Our PowerPoint program identifies varieties that are easier to grow, winter hardy, far more disease-resistant, and bloom longer. In fact, we have a garden full of them at home and use that as a model.

My Girl

February and March are the perfect times to start thinking about gardening and choosing roses to plant. We hope to see you at the Flower Shows in Providence and Boston this year. For your convenience, I’ve listed below other spring Flower Shows you may want to visit.

2013 Flower Shows:

February 21 – 24: Rhode Island Spring Flower & Garden Show, Providence, RI

February 21 – 24: Connecticut Flower & Garden Show, Hartford, CT

March 1 – 3: Vermont Flower Show, Essex Junction, VT

March 2 – 10: Philadelphia International Flower Show, Philadelphia, PA

March 7 – 10: Portland Flower Show, Portland, ME

March 13 – 17: Boston Flower & Garden Show, Boston, MA

March 23 – 24: Seacoast Home & Garden Show, Durham, NH

2013 – A New Year Brings New Adventures & New Opportunities

The Thinker in Rodin’s Rose Garden

As the new year approaches, we’re looking ahead with eager anticipation to 2013, to continuing to build our rose programs as well as experiencing another European adventure – this time to Italy. Since I’m a great list maker, I’ve long since started my Great List for 2013. And as I list away, I enjoy reminiscing about what we’ve done and where we’ve been in 2012.

Tree Rose in Paris Churchyard

#1 – Visit More Rose Gardens

When you travel, you never know where you’ll find roses. When we were in Paris last May, they were everywhere. We found small intimate rose gardens tucked away in small parks, in old churchyards, behind Notre Dame Cathedral, (not to mention the Rose Window in Notre Dame) at Giverney in Monet’s garden, and a real beauty at Rodin’s Museum.

Roses at Notre Dame Cathedral

Notre Dame Rose Window

Monet’s Lily Pads at Giverney

Not everything goes according to plan. When we visited La Roseraie de l’Hay outside of Paris, we were pleased to find what we’ll remember as one of the best rose gardens we have ever visited. But when we went to Kew Gardens outside of London two years ago, we found that the rose garden had recently been renovated. There was nothing to see except newly planted roses that had a terrible infestation of aphids. Luckily that train trip wasn’t a loss because we were able to enjoy the rest of Kew Gardens as well as a quiet lunch in a quaint café near the train station.

Newly planted roses at Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens

#2 – Plant New Roses

We’re always on the look out for new, disease-resistant varieties which means the more places we visit and the more we read, the more varieties we add to our “wish” list. We saw ‘Leonardo de Vinci’ in Montreal and a huge mass planting of ‘Rodin’ (the rose) at the Rodin Museum. We read about the disease resistant Fairy Tale roses from Kordes and may try a few. We’re thinking about ‘Cinderella’, a floribunda that’s light pink and looks like an Austin rose with cupped blooms and ‘Brothers Grimm’ that has an orange yellow bloom with lots of petals. From our David Austin Program we saw photographs of ‘Lichfield Angel’ and ‘Fighting Temeraire’ and know we’ll have to plant them in 2013. And then there’s the new Meilland hybrid tea ‘Francis Meilland’ which is reported to be very disease resistant. We plan to find out when we test it here in New England next summer.

Leonardo de Vinci

#3 – Spend More Time Enjoying Our Rose Gardens

Sometimes we’re so busy working in the garden that we don’t take the time to enjoy it.  Kind of like “don’t see the roses for the trees” syndrome. When we plan a special “Open Garden” event or invite friends over for a mid-summer glass of wine, then we have the chance to really “see” the beauty of the garden. Occasionally, on a warm pleasant summer evening, we walk through the garden before dinner and that’s when we’ll see the amazing little things we missed during the day. We’ll catch a spray of swollen buds cracking color about ready to burst into bloom or a rose that hit perfection 10 minutes before and is ready to be photographed. Or we just sit on the bench in front of the rose garden and enjoy the moment.

Giverney

#4 – Travel to New Places

New places provide fresh opportunities and new adventures. We’re on the lookout for gardens, garden centers, restaurants, museums, and historical places just waiting to be explored. This year we’re going to Italy. Besides the museums and piazzas and the food, we’ll be looking for rose gardens, especially the little gems that we know are hiding in small parks, church yards, cemeteries and who-knows-where.

Mike and I wish you a happy and healthy New Year and encourage you to create a year full of memories that will last a lifetime.

Rose Lectures & Workshops for 2013

The gardens are winterized, tools cleaned, and everything else stored away until spring. The 2012 season is officially over just in time to post our 2013 lecture and workshop schedule. (Look for the complete schedule here on the blog on its own page listed above the masthead as well as on our website, www.rosesolutions.net ). While we always enjoy the 4-month break from garden duties, we always welcome a new season of lecturing throughout New England and beyond making new friends and visiting old pals.

In 2013, we return to the Rhode Island Spring Flower & Garden Show in February where we will present the program “David Austin’s English Roses for New England Gardens.”  And in March we again travel north to the Boston Flower & Garden Show with a new program, “Discovering Sustainable Roses,” developed to match the show’s theme, Seeds of Change.

In late March we head over to Windsor Connecticut to present a lecture titled “Pesticides and Garden Safety” to the American Rose Society’s Yankee District’s Consulting Rosarian School. This began as a special one-off presentation we created last year for a group, explaining, in layman’s language, garden pesticides and how to safely employ them. (At the end of the lecture we make a persuasive case for avoiding pesticides completely and planting sustainable varieties instead.)

The following day we speak twice on “Selecting Sustainable Roses” at the Connecticut Master Gardeners Symposium in Manchester.

Then in April, we lead a 2-hour workshop called “Rose Gardening Made Easy” for the Barrington (RI) Community School. This program covers rose gardening from soup to nuts and demonstrates how easy growing roses can be.

In June, you will find us at the Rhode Island Rose Society’s 15^th Annual Rose Show in Wickford, RI, presenting an abbreviated version of our most popular program, “Rosology 101.”

In between all of these events we have accepted a host of invitations to speak to garden clubs and other organizations throughout New England. At each event we bring copies of our book, Roses for New England: A Guide to Sustainable Rose Gardening to sign at the end of the program.

Check out our schedule for specific dates, times and locations as well as additions to the schedule as the year goes on.  We’ll be on the lookout for you.