Garden Help

[fuzzyred]

So, my dad recently helped me dig a new patch in my garden, and I planted a rose bush in there. It was a Valentine's gift from my mom and spent a couple months in the house. Part of it is green and healthy, but a lot of the stems are brown and dead looking. I don't know what to do to save it. Do I leave the dead parts there? Or do I trim them down the ground in hopes of making the healthy parts stronger? I don't do much gardening, and I'm sure sure how to keep roses healthy, so any advice is greatly appreciated.

Comments

[mama_kestrel]

See if the brown stems are flexible. If they bend easily, they're just dormant. If they snap off, they're dead and should be cut back. Work carefully, though; a branch can be dead at the end but still green closer to the base.

If you're still getting freezing nights or snow where you are, cover your rose with something to protect it in bad weather, because new transplants are delicate. An old blanket works well.

Good luck and enjoy your rose!

[fuzzyred]

Thanks for that advice! I will check on it tomorrow, if the weather cooperates. Hopefully it is still salvageable.

Umm... That's kind of hard to say. We seem to be over the freezing nights and snow here this year, but my grandma usually says not to plant anything until mid-May. A quick google search reveals that the last frost around here is typically between April 12-20, so I think I'll be alright. I will be keeping an eye on the weather though. It has a habit of being kind of wonky.

Thanks! I appreciate the advice, and I'm hoping to have a very green and healthy garden this year. :)

[stealthsystem]

Mama Kestrel gave the advice we were going to give. Our granny used to cover her roses every winter. Trimming back the dead parts will make the rose much more healthy.
Good luck!
Ford
PS: I swear our granny could plant a rock and make it grow! We wish we had that kind of a green thumb!

[fuzzyred]

Ooo! Having a second opinion in agreement makes me feel even better :D My dad has roses and I think he usually covers his in the winter, though I haven't covered the existing ones at my place yet. Maybe I will do it this winter, since I have a new one now on top of the ones that were already here. I will also be keeping my fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow so that I can trim the rose back and help it stay healthy.
Nice to meet you Ford!

Oh yeah, grannies are awesome. Three of my four grandparents had (and one still has) quite a way with plants. I'm nowhere near that good, but I am trying.

[wyld_dandelyon]

My advice is to water it regularly (daily even, if it gets no rain) for at least a month before pulling on the brown stems. Let the roots do their thing and the plant get used to where it is, and then prune away anything that isn't green and has no new buds.

I generally pile autumn leaves as high as I can on my roses and then rake them away in the Spring. The leaves are a nice, cheap mulch.

[fuzzyred]

Alright, that's a good suggestion, and easy enough to do. I was watering it every couple days in the house, which might not have been enough, so it's a little rough looking, but I'm game to try watering it regularly outside for a month or so and see what happens. On the plus side, the green bits look really green, so I have some hope that it will be happy and recover. And if there are still brown bits after that, I look check them and trim them then.

Oh, that's a good idea. I don't have a whole lot of leaves in my yard, but I do have three lilac trees, one of which is massive, so I still get a decent amount.

[wyld_dandelyon]

It's very hard to keep a rose alive inside, I think it's more lack of sun than anything else, really. I'm impressed that you kept it alive for a couple of months!

I figure the leaves are free and not attractive to people who might want to steal or break things. I go and gather them from the piles our city encourages people to rake into the street so they can gather and remove them easily. In the spring, they get dug into the ground in garden spots or turned into the compost pile.

[fuzzyred]

Sun was probably a factor, and I don't think I watered it enough off the start, plus you never know how well they get watered in the store. And just over two months; I'm pretty happy I kept it alive that long. :)

Oh nice. Our leaves have to go in yard waste bags for collection. Free compost is a good thing to have :) I also didn't know about burying leaves in the garden, I pulled all of mine out when I did the first weed of the season.

[wyld_dandelyon]

Autumn leaves that have overwintered as mulch melt into compost (in a pit or in situ) pretty quickly, especially if mixed with some green leaves. Be careful not to put whole weeds into the ground like that, of course. You can also add ash if your campfire was all untreated wood.

I do those things purposefully but haphazardly. It is possible to research what nutrients each of those things provide, test the soil, and amend with a more scientific outlook.

Oh, and if you're in the city or near a big road, bone meal is an amendment that can bind to lead and make it less available to the plants growing in a plot, so long as the lead isn't too high. Well, it will bind if the lead content is too high, but not enough. I lucked into a lead testing and amending study associated with a nearby college, and was happily told that the lead content of my garden area isn't too high for food gardening. The alternate plan would have been to seal off the existing dirt and build raised beds over it and buy soil. I was glad not to have to do that!

[fuzzyred]

>>Autumn leaves that have overwintered as mulch melt into compost (in a pit or in situ) pretty quickly, especially if mixed with some green leaves. Be careful not to put whole weeds into the ground like that, of course. You can also add ash if your campfire was all untreated wood.<<

This is excellent information to have, thank you!

>>Oh, and if you're in the city or near a big road, bone meal is an amendment that can bind to lead and make it less available to the plants growing in a plot, so long as the lead isn't too high.<<

This is also extremely fascinating, though I don't believe I have a lead problem in my area. (Although I'm not certain. There might be one.)

>>Oh, and if you're in the city or near a big road, bone meal is an amendment that can bind to lead and make it less available to the plants growing in a plot, so long as the lead isn't too high.<<

Yay for being able to plant food directly into the ground!

[wyld_dandelyon]

Actually, you could just dig autumn leaves into the ground directly too. I read about a woman who needed better gardening soil in her garden at the top of a hill, and she just brought fallen leaves up and composted them there, saying that leaves are a lot lighter per bag than dirt!

[fuzzyred]

That is really good to know! And soon to be relevant, since the seasons are about to start turning again.

(Sorry for the terribly delayed response, my spoons evaporated on me for a little while.)

[wyld_dandelyon]

No problem re timing of reply! Good luck with it all.

The city encourages people here to sweep leaves into the street for collection, but they have no problem with me mulching roses with huge piles of leaves, and I often gather from the street piles in the autumn.

[fuzzyred]

That's a great way to do things.

We have to put ours into yard waste bags here (big brown paper bags essentially) so using the neighbours leaves isn't quite as feasible. Although I don't think anyone would have a problem with me raking their yard and taking the leaves for myself, if I asked.

If I do use leaves as mulch, do I leave them above ground over winter and bury them in spring, or do I bury them right away?

[wyld_dandelyon]

I make a big pile around each rose plant, as high as I can get it to stay put (or as high as I have time for raking and gathering, anyway). The pile compresses over the winter, of course, but it helps protect the roots from the cold. Then in the spring I rake the leaves (or most of them, anyway) and put them into the compost, along with weeds which I've pulled and broken or cut.

If you have to spend money on those bags, you might find that some neighbors would be happy to have some of the bags emptied and returned for re-filling? Depends on the neighbors, of course. And most people are happy to have somebody else rake their lawns.

You don't want to be digging things into the ground too close to a rose plant, especially in the fall--you don't want to damage their root systems. But they're very happy to have already-composted leaves tossed on top of their roots.

[fuzzyred]

Thanks for the tips about rose bushes and leaves and composting! I singularly failed to do that this year, but it is definitely something I'm going to keep in mind for next fall. :)