Site Considerations:

Successful rose gardening demands three site-related conditions be present: an open, sunny exposure; good air circulation; and a deep, well-drained organic soil. All three are critical to growing high quality, healthy roses. The first two criteria are often impossible to correct unless you are willing to remove trees to allow more light into the garden, or to remove natural or artificial wind barriers to improve air movement in the rose garden. You are, however, easily able to change the nature and characteristics of your garden soil with soil amendments and the addition of materials and products that will improve the drainage capability of your soil. Roses will prosper if you plant them in a site in your landscape that gets full sun, is high and dry (they do best out of low-lying depressions in the landscape as both air movement and drainage are often problematic), and has a good organic soil that drains well.

Buy "Good" Roses:

Carefully inspect the roses you plan to buy. Select roses that have stout (thumb size or bigger) primary canes; an absence of weak, spindly canes; no signs of cane borers, cane canker, or insects (aphids, typically); and an abundant and undamaged root system (if visible, i.e. bareroot plants). If varieties that you want are not available locally, purchase those from reputable, established mail-order vendors, like Jackson Perkins, Pickering, etc. Utilize the several lists of recommended roses (including ours) for your region. Be aware that many of the "best" roses, including several All American Rose Selection Winners (AARS) have proven inferior in our and other evaluations.

Rose Growing:

We like to plant roses in early spring, before they have broken dormancy. This way the plant has the whole growing season to establish its root system. Protect the graft union on early spring-planted roses by mounding 6" or so of soil around and over it. This protects the canes from drying out and also moderates the soil temperature of the surface roots. This protection can gradually be removed as the temperatures warm and growth begins.

In our growing zone (USDA Zone 5), we routinely bury the graft union of grafted roses 2" below the soil surface to better the odds of winter survival. If the rose is bareroot, carefully spread out the root system uniformly on a supporting "cone" of soil to insure even and symmetric root growth. Do not add fertilizer to the planting hole or backfill; wait to fertilize until the plant is actively growing. Spacing between roses should be 24" to 36" inches for most Hybrid Teas, Floribundas, and Grandifloras, to insure good air circulation between plants. Large shrub and landscape roses require additional room, Miniature roses less (10" to 12" apart).

Pruning is an all-important early spring task that has a critical impact on determining the success of your roses. Just before roses begin to initiate growth in the spring, they need to be rigorously pruned. All weak, spindly, or deformed canes should be removed. The ideal configuration of a properly pruned rose is to select 3 to 5 of the largest (hopefully thumb-sized or bigger) cane, spaced symmetrically around the graft, and prune them to viable wood. Your shears should be sharp and sanitized (use a spray bottle filled with isopropyl alcohol). Prune individual canes to an outward facing bud, making the cut at a 45 degree angle no more than ¼" above the bud. Seal all cuts from pruning or deadheading that are 1/8" diameter or larger with grafting wax, rose sealer, or Elmer's Glue. People are amazed at how "brutal" our spring pruning is, but rest assured, the roses will benefit from it. If pests and diseases were a problem during the previous growing season, it is advisable to spray the pruned canes with a Bordeaux or flowable sulfur fungicide. A spray of dormant oil will suffocate any overwintering insect eggs.

We like to add a 2-4" layer of an organic mulch throughout our rose beds (remember to keep all mulch an inch or two away from the stems) in early spring while the roses are still dormant. In addition to moderating soil temperatures, retaining soil moisture and suppressing weed germination throughout the growing season, this mulch layer will reduce the incidence of fungal outbreaks.

Follow the fertilization schedule and disease and pest management guidelines listed below. These guidelines will be periodically updated as new products and techniques are evaluated.

It is important to assure that roses have a consistent and adequate supply of water throughout the growing season. We like to probe into the soil of our beds with a soil core sampler in order to bring up soil samples from the rootzone of the plant. This technique allows us to monitor soil moisture at a critical depth much more efficiently than the "finger" method. If your soil is a healthy, organic one with good moisture retaining properties, 1" of water acquired through rainfall or irrigation per week will typically suffice. If irrigation is called for, avoid wetting the foliage of the roses to minimize the proliferation of fungi. Underground drip-type or soaker irrigation systems are by far the superior method of watering roses. If underground irrigation is not feasible, do not use overhead (i.e. sprinkler type) watering. Every effort should be taken to avoid wetting the foliage of roses. The technique we employ is to wet the soil around the "drip edge" of the plant. Once the soil surface is sufficiently wet, you can adjust the water stream of your hose by utilizing a "breaker" to slowly soak the lower depths of the soil.

Deadheading spent flower blossoms throughout the blooming season will guarantee continued and increased flowering. The farther down the stems that you prune, the better will be the quality of the successive growth and subsequent flowers. Always deadhead down past where the compound leaf changes from a 3-leaflet leaf to a 5-leaflet leaf, selecting an outward facing bud. Stop deadheading in mid-September to allow roses to set seed (i.e. rose hips) as natural physiological processes need to progress to allow the roses to prepare for the dormant season.

Hybrid Teas, Floribundas, and Grandiflora roses all require winter protection. Shrub roses, once established, typically do not require winter protection. Once the roses have been hit with a "killing" frost or two, we remove the remaining foliage and prune the canes to a uniform height, typically around 20". Pruning cuts are sealed and the bare canes are sprayed with an anti-desiccant. After a few good drying days, we mound up the roses with a 50%-50% mix of coarse sand and sterile compost. It is important to delay mulching until the dormant season is here to stay; typically around mid-November in our area. We purchase our compost locally at McEnroe Organic Farm Association in Millerton, N.Y. We "pour" as much of this mix as possible over the top of the roses letting it stack naturally in a pyramidal shape surrounding the center of the rose. It typically takes at least one 5-gallon pail's worth of mulch per rose. If your rose garden is in an exposed location and subject to winter winds, it is advisable to erect a burlap windscreen around the windward side of your garden. The winter mulch should be gradually removed in stages to coincide with the initiation of growth in spring and not entirely removed until all threats of late frosts and low temperatures are over.

Roses are heavy "feeders" and do benefit from timed applications of a "complete", organic fertilizer. We perform three feedings, spaced a month apart, beginning in early May (skip the first feeding on newly planted roses). We are currently using Espoma's Rosetone, which is available at most garden centers. We apply the fertilizer as per label directions and carefully incorporate it into the top few inches of the soil. Any quality, organic fertilizer will work, however, be aware that there are a lot of fertilizers that are labeled "organic" that are not wholly derived from organic sources. A good tip to determine if the product is organic is to add up the N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) of the product. If the sum is more than 20, the fertilizer most likely is not totally organic.

Once the roses are actively growing, usually by mid-May, we drench the roots of roses with biostimulants every two to three weeks. Biostimulants are non-fertilizer organic substances that are proven to promote fast development of fine absorbing roots and stimulate biological processes essential for growth and nutrient availability. We also spray all roses once a month with a combination of sea kelp and fish emulsion. Sea kelp is a natural growth promoter and contains trace elements, vitamins, organic nutrients and amino acids.

We utilize an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) approach to pest and disease management in the Shankman Rose Garden. By promoting a healthy soil, using organic fertilizers and biostimulants, selecting disease resistant roses, carefully and frequently monitoring for pests and diseases, and following a least toxic pesticide approach if intervention is warranted, the impacts associated with common rose pests and diseases are minimized. For instance, we aggressively deal with Japanese beetles in their overwintering larval stage in the turf, so adult beetle populations are typically very low. Those few adults that do manage to survive our biological control measures are easily picked off our roses by hand. Light aphid infestations can be controlled by spraying the flower buds and the undersides of the leaves vigorously with water. If insect infestations reach moderate or heavy infestation levels, insecticidal soaps, summer oils can be employed. For both insect and fungal problems, we recommend using a neem-based product, Green Light Rose Defense (available from the Green Light Company, San Antonio, TX, (210) 494-3481) or Shield-All II Fungicide (available from the mail-order catalogue, Gardens Alive!, www.GardensAlive.com). This new generation of botanical pesticides, made from extracts of the neem or margosa tree, has proven to be an outstanding product that handles all disease and pest related problems of roses. We are also very pleased with the results of using a strain of bacterium, Bacillus subtilis, as a biofungicide for disease control. This product is also market by Garden Alive under the name Serenade Solutions.