Sustainable Rose Garden

A Reader in Rose Culture

Pat Shanley, Peter Kukielski, Gene Waering

• Publisher: Casemate Publishers
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781612000428
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

"A fascinating and informative book for anyone who loves roses but wants to avoid spraying them with toxic chemicals." — The American Gardener A winner of the World Federation of Roses Literary Award, this work brings together experts from around the world to inform gardeners about developments in the new—irresistible yet long overdue—trend toward creating environmentally friendly yet enduring rose gardens, with "sustainability" as the key. The Queen of Flowers, the rose—by Presidential declaration America's National Floral Emblem—was initially left behind as "green consciousness" and the concept of sustainability took hold among the gardening public. But the rose is now making up for lost time. From the workshops of breeders—both in the United States and abroad—a new generation of disease-resistant and low-maintenance rose varieties has emerged in the last decade to fill popular demand. In this book, you will learn how to make your own sustainable rose garden. With 38 lavishly illustrated articles and descriptions of the best new (as well as old) rose varieties designed for the sustainable rose garden, this is a must-have book for today's new generation of avid but environmentally conscious gardeners. "Finally, we have a book that addresses the notion of growing roses in an environmentally friendly manner... Nothing about sustainable rose culture has been presented as well as it has been in this book."—Pacific Horticulture Society

Soil and Water and Roses

DAN MILLS

One thing that all rose lovers can agree on is that we want our roses to bloom and rebloom as much as possible throughout the growing season. Most of our modern roses and many of our OGRs are quite capable of repeat-blooming with consistency as long as their basic needs are met. These needs include adequate sunlight, air, water, and mineral nutrients. It is our job as growers to first provide a planting site with full sun and good air circulation, and then make up for inadequacies in water and nutrients as the growing season progresses.

As pointed out in the ARS Consulting Rosarian Manual, nearly all water and nutrients taken up by roses come from the soil. Therefore, it makes sense for us to try to understand the nature of our native soil and then try to manage it to provide our roses with the needed water and nutrients as efficiently as possible.

This is an especially challenging task for most of us living in the Central and North Florida area because our native soil is so sandy. Soil scientists have determined that the ideal soil texture for growing roses is 60% sand, 20% silt, and 20% clay. Most of our soils in Central and North Florida are 80 – 90% sand. This means that water and dissolved nutrients drain out of the root zone too fast.

One consequence of this excessive drainage is that we have to water and fertilize more frequently than if we had a more ideal texture. Another consequence is the added pressure put on local water supplies and the quality of ground and surface waters.

JUST ABOUT EVERY STATE MAINTAINS SOIL TESTING LABORATORIES AND OFFERS SOIL TESTING SERVICES AT NO CHARGE AS PART OF THEIR AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION PROGRAM. FOR INSTANCE, THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA EXTENSION SOIL TESTING LABORATORY WILL TEST YOUR SOIL AND TELL YOU YOUR SOIL’S PH, THE FERTILITY LEVEL OF PRINCIPAL NUTRIENTS, THE LIME LEVEL OF YOUR SOIL AND WHAT NUTRIENTS YOU NEED TO ADD TO YOUR SOIL. CHECK WITH YOUR EXTENSION SERVICE TO FIND HOW TO PREPARE SAMPLES AND GET AN ANALYSIS. THERE ARE ALSO NUMEROUS PRIVATE PROFESSIONAL SOIL TESTING COMPANIES.

—EDITORS

So the obvious question is, What can we do to improve our native soil’s water and nutrient retention capacity? Before an answer to that question is offered, let’s first take a brief look at the make up of a good garden soil and get an idea of how its various components interact to help provide the needs of plants.

COMPOSITION OF A GOOD GARDEN SOIL

A good garden soil for growing roses consists of approximately 25% water, 25% air, 45% inorganic material (often called mineral material), and 5% organic matter. In view of our tendency to think of soil basically as a solid, it seems rather remarkable that the top several inches of good garden soils are actually about half water and air by volume. This fact alone makes it clear that water and air are very important in proper soil function.

Water is essential to all living organisms within the soil and to all plants rooted in it. Water keeps plants turgid and is a vital component of photosynthesis. This is the process whereby plants make their own food by utilizing the energy of sunlight to convert CO₂ and water into carbohydrates. Water also transports in solution from the soil virtually all of the mineral nutrient...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Drawings
• Flowers
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Growing Tea Roses
• A Close Look at Tea Roses
• Hennessey Revisited: Sustainability, or The Accidental Environmentalist
• Rose Poems by Emily Dickinson
• Historic Disease and Pest Control among Roses
• Rose Studies: Watercolors and Drawings Documenting the Genus Rosa
• Tea and Roses
• Earth-Kind® Rose Trials — Identifying the World’s Strongest, Most Beautiful Landscape Roses
• Charmed by the “Thereness” of My Roses
• Beautiful Foliage, an Important Design Element
• Secret Garden Musk Climber
• Rodents versus Roses
• The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden’s Dual Mission of Disease Resistance and Protecting ‘Eva’
• The Roosevelt Island Rose Garden
• Health in David Austin’s English Roses
• Mankind’s Second-Oldest Occupation (Cont’d.)
• The Birth of a Rose Garden
• Soil and Water and Roses
• Notes from the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden
• A Life Filled with Roses
• The Pillar Rose
• Report on Kordes® ADR Roses in the United States, 2010
• Sustainable Gardening Practices at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden
• Memoirs of a Condo Rose Grower and Composter: Containers for Roses
• Talking about My Work with Roses
• The Days of… Chickens and Roses?
• Garden Valley Ranch Compost Tea Program
• An Accidental Sustainable Rose Garden
• The Historical Significance of ‘Knock Out’®
• Probiotic Rose Growing
• Etiquette of the Rose Rustle
• It’s Only Water!
• Fire Ants versus Molasses
• Sustainable Rose Growing and the Breeding of New Roses: The View from India
• Sustainability Genes: Breeding the Blackspot-Resistant Rose
• A Century (or Two) of Hybrid Musks
• Contributors
• Credits
• Footnote