Friday, May 14, 2010

10 HOT TIPS on caring for your roses for busy moms! - Part 2

I’ve been growing roses for 4 years now. Not until last year when my rose collection started to grow big that I decided to formulize a system to cut down the time I spent on rose gardening. I hope you will find my tips to be useful and applicable in your garden too.

Roses at times can be pretty demanding on my schedule and this is because I care for so many of them.

There are times when helping my son with his school work or taking a walk with my kids to the playground seems far better deal than squatting and filling some dirt into my rose pots or breathing in the aroma of chicken manures (sigh!).

But I love gardening and I love my kids too. The tips below help me to enjoy both worlds.


HOT TIPS

If you have not read Hot Tips no. 1-5, click here.


Hot Tip No. 6: Put your gardening tools and rose fertilizer NEAR your roses!

There is no better place for your tools and fertilizer but near your roses. Where else do you need them, anyway?

Walking few yards away or making turns and trips to get to your tools or fertilizer can cost you precious time. Having them closely placed near your rose pots will make your caring routine more efficient and less stressful.


Hot Tip No. 7: Time yourself!

Self-timing is important.

When it’s the time of the week to feed your roses, then it really means feeding your roses.

It is not the time for catching caterpillars, inspecting holes on leaves, picking up snails, pruning and so on so forth.  Less time you dwell on is more time saved.

I allocate only 15 minutes of my time daily. Yes, 15 minutes! These 15 minutes are all there is to deadhead spent blooms, rake the dead leaves, put them into a garbage bag and water my roses – all of my 70 roses!

If I have to run, then I run with the hose, bucket and all. That is why I couldn’t stress more on how important it is to have the tools ready and handy. Time is valuable to me.

So when can I enjoy the blooms or do other stuffs?

When you get the job done pretty quickly, you will have plenty of time to do other stuffs, like taking photos and smelling the blooms. This is what I called delayed gratification. Spend more time to enjoy than to work.

If you have about 5-6 roses in your garden and religiously follow my method, you should not be spending more than 5 minutes daily on your roses.  This way, your roses are cared effortlessly. And that’s the idea.

Most of the time, the only daily rose gardening routine you ever need to do is watering.


Hot Tip No. 8: Scheduling

Bear in mind that basic rose care is watering, feeding and deadheading and your roses will happily flower for you.

Only if you are a gung-ho gardener like I am, then you will probably do everything else to ensure that your roses bloom continuously and marvelously in your garden.

Pruning, foliar feeding and pest or disease control can be scheduled within the week and be incorporated in your 5 minutes daily routine.

For example, foliar feeding can be scheduled on Tuesday, fertilizing on Thursday and pest control on Friday. The re-potting and amending soil can be done on Saturday or Sunday, once in every 3 months, when you probably have more free time at hand. I try hard not to schedule anything on weekends cause I like to rest or go shopping, but my husband seems to enjoy being under the sun so he does much of the work.

I don’t recommend doing all of the above in one sitting as it can be pretty taxing. But whatever it is, you determine what’s best for your routine and schedule.


Hot Tip No. 9: Drips or emitters for automated watering

Roses are a very thirsty plant, especially when you plant them in containers. Water can dry up pretty quickly. Roses can get drought stress easily on hot days or after a shallow or overlook watering.  

You may want to invest on drips or emitters for an automatic watering. You can use this not only for your roses but also for your other plants in the garden. You can save time on watering and save water too. This system is also good if you tend to travel a lot.


Hot Tip No. 10: Discipline

Last but not least is your self-discipline.

Yes, roses do need constant care. Roses are a forgiving plant but they also cannot stay neglected for too long. When it comes to roses, what you reap is really what you sow. You can’t be expecting continuous blooms without continuous care.


Author: Rough Rosa

6 comments:

SF said...

Hi, Thanks for the info. May I know what is foliar feeding? I usually water my rose plants twice a day, fertilise once a week and have not done anything foliar feeding so far. Is that necessary? SF

ROUGH.ROSA said...

If your plant is healthy, foliar feeding is not necessary but it has a lot of advantages. Foliar feeding is good because it's the fastest way for the tree to receive nutrients. It is good to keep leaves looking healthy & shiny and prevent pests and diseases. The only drawback is the application must be frequent, i.e once or twice in a week.

ROUGH.ROSA said...

Oh ya, you'r welcome and thanks for stopping by again SF!

James David said...

another tip:
Do wash all your garden utensils as they may carry virus which may spread to other plants.

ROUGH.ROSA said...

Hi James, that's very true! I have one set of utensils dedicated for roses, that way I don't spread unwanted things around. About washing, I prefer to just dip them in bleach solution, it saves all the trouble of washing and I can use them anytime, and from one rose bush to another. Just simply dip.

miruku said...

Vey well written, thanks for all the tips. I only feed fertilizer (home made) to my roses and spray soap water (to deter pest) on them once a week, on different day, but no foliar feeding. Is foliar feeding important for the plants to flower? Any particular fertilizer you use?