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How not to Grow Roses
Our Mistakes in
Growing Roses
We grow Roses,
but we often do it 'wrong'. The conditions here in South Australia are
rather harsh for roses. The rose is the national flower of England,
and
the climate in South Australia is much hotter and drier than
England's climate, but Roses can even be grown in Equatorial areas. I
have seen some good Roses in Mindanao in The Philippines.
It
is normally recommended that used cat litter should not be put on
the
garden. We use only the types of cat litter that break down, based
on
things like wood (Kat's Korner) Rice hulls (Max's), recycled paper
(Breeder's Choice) or similar types. When the cat's tray needs to
be
emptied, it just gets put around the Roses.
In
our shop, we get a lot of cardboard boxes come in. As many of these
as
possible are reused. If they cannot be reused, the cardboard gets
put
into the recycling bin, but some of it, for various reasons cannot
be recycled. This gets put round our Roses. It helps to suppress weeds
and probably slows the drying out of the soil in the summer.
To
hide the cardboard we put our grass clippings on top of it. This
combination of organic matter on the surface of the soil forms a
rich
A0 horizon to the soil and encourages Earthworms.
Apart from the cat litter,
cardboard and grass clippings we do not fertilize our Roses.
Another thing you should
not do with roses
is to have other plants growing among them. This is another thing
we do
wrong. There are several types of other plant in our rose beds,
including Belladonna Lilies.
In Australia, you need to
use grafted Rose
plants. If you grow them from cuttings the root system is not good
enough. At least that is what the experts say, but we do not know
anything about growing roses, so half of our Roses are grown from
cuttings.
Our pruning is more
conventional, but it is done over several months, starting in late
autumn, and finishing in early spring.
And our results?
Well, our rose plants have survived several years of drought where
the
water they get is very restricted. The flowers were hit hard by the
45̊
C (115̊ F) heat recently, but are coming back now. We get a lot of
compliments, and it is common for people to take one of the flowers
as
they walk along the road. Looking down our road at the general
impression of the front yards, ours is normally one of the colorful
ones. For a few slides of our Roses, Please See my Slide Shows: Roses and MoreRoses
We will continue to grow
our Roses
the wrong way.
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