Hi everyone, my family and i just moved here to Fresno a month ago and this new house of ours has 99% no green. I don't have any experience in planting(and so is my husband) whatsoever, but i knew i wanted this house to look pretty. I have just seen my mother in law growing flowers and vegetables everywhere in her garden and the only thing i saw she has were the plants and a bag or miracle gro. So we went and bought miracle gro and gazenia, and one iceberg rose. my 2 kids and i weeded and planted and put miracle gro, then i watered it everyday. The iceberg rose looked good by the side of our main entrance door, so i planted it there since it said it will grow 4 feet, then my husband said, that would be nice for me, to see the flowers while i am in the kitchen, i will see them thru the window. Needless to say, having not read or researched or know more about where the sun is and the consitency of the soil and everything that matters.(by the way, none of the sprinklers worked too so my husband bought a hose with that wand thingy)and a sprinkler connected to a hose, and so, everyday, since i planted them, except for the last 4 days, i have been watering them overhead. When i noticed that they are starting to die, my friend told me no over head watering ever..So now i water them one by one trying to save them. But my iceberg rose is hopeless in the present area because it doesn't get sunlight and the ground is always wet. So, i thought i will transpalnt it today, or tonight when there is no more sun. I have weeded the area where i will transplant it, and kinda loosened the soil.. Do i mix in the super soil enrich planting compost in with the soil now?, or later when i am about to plant it? i also have ultra green plant starter.. IT said apply to the roots, so do i spray it on the roots? i also have miracle gro, garden soil for flowers and vegetables, do i mix it with the compost and the existing soil that i weeded and loosened? again.. now? or later when i am ready to plant? All it's flowers wilted and the inner leaves are starting to fall off and turning yellow.. i hope the root isn't rotten yet and i could still save it.. thank you very much everyone...:)

Hi, Liza. to ATP!


Your rose is likely drowning. We want these rose transplants to grow new roots quickly to become more self-sufficient. Your plant can't do that if it's always wet. When you move it, do move it into a sunny spot, water it in well (to the point that water sits on top for say, 5 minutes or so and then drains away, then just leave it be. Its roots will want to travel downward and outward in its future quests for water, but it will only do that if you let that top soil dry out. If after a few weeks you've had no rain and the plant looks wan with drooping leaves in the evening, then water deeply. You can add some compost and mix it with your native soil at planting time, but your plant is likely so stressed now that adding lots of nutrients at this time might just finish it off. I'd venture to guess that it needs time to recover and settle in a bit first before you feed it.


Hope this helps.

I am, sure in your zone that your transplant will need water every day but it needs drainage. Hopefully your new site will have that. And sun. Roses need sun.

Oh and don't get too alarmed when it drops all its leaves or wilts and looks like it is dieing. Supply good drainage and water well and it will recover. Do not fertilize after transplanting until it is growing well.

chelle said:Hi, Liza. to ATP!


Your rose is likely drowning. We want these rose transplants to grow new roots quickly to become more self-sufficient. Your plant can't do that if it's always wet. When you move it, do move it into a sunny spot, water it in well (to the point that water sits on top for say, 5 minutes or so and then drains away, then just leave it be. Its roots will want to travel downward and outward in its future quests for water, but it will only do that if you let that top soil dry out. If after a few weeks you've had no rain and the plant looks wan with drooping leaves in the evening, then water deeply. You can add some compost and mix it with your native soil at planting time, but your plant is likely so stressed now that adding lots of nutrients at this time might just finish it off. I'd venture to guess that it needs time to recover and settle in a bit first before you feed it.


Hope this helps.

Thank you Chelle, please bear with me because i want to make sure i understood everything perfectly clear before i touch my iceberg rose again.. I know i read that it is not the season to transplant roses at this time, but if i leave it there, then it will surely die.. So, after i dig a hole for it, don't mix the soil with the miracle gro garden soil and/ or the supersoil enrich planting compost? Just use the dirt that i dug from the soil? what about the spraying of the ultra green plant starter? don't do that either?

Liza, do you have ordinary garden compost? In spite of miracle grows add campaign the very best thing you can add to your garden is compost, not miracle grow. Not saying miracle grow is a bad thing but not as great as it's claimed to be. Your rose is already going to be stressed from two moves. Too much fertilizer is a bad thing in these cases. Compost on the other hand enriches the soil naturally and never burns plants. It increases bad drainage issues and keeps soil that it to dry from drying out as fast. It averages soil acidity or alkalinity. In effect it just always makes the soil better for planting.

And that is for veggies, flowers, shrubs you name it. Compost is a gardeners best friend.

Newyorkrita said:Oh and don't get too alarmed when it drops all its leaves or wilts and looks like it is dieing. Supply good drainage and water well and it will recover. Do not fertilize after transplanting until it is growing well.

thanks for telling me not to get alarmed.. , actually yesterday,While i was in the forum about my wanting plant a ton of variety of vegetables, all i did was get out of the house to my front yard and back yard every hour and see where the sun is shining until 6 hours and where it doesn't get sunlight until late afternoon.. That was the time i've realized the area where my rose is didn't get sunlight.. not until like 5:30 ish in the afternoon. And so i already picked a spot for it where it will get full sun and it will not get hit by our sprinkler connected to a hose that i just set in the middle of the lawn when it's watering day. And since my friend told me that no over head watering ever.., i assumed it's the same thing with my keiffer lime tree too.. so when i turn the sprinkler on in my backyard(i don't have proper things to use), i made use of our ladder, pinned a bath towel on the side, and used it to cover the part where the sprinkler will possibly hit the leaves of the tree.. same ladder with the towel i used, marching around my garden to see how much shade it could give at 12 noon till, 1,2,3,4, in the afternoon, and which side gives the shade at what time.. My husband will install a drip system(eventually) , where ever it's needed:tongue_smilie: , just don't know when he could do it because he works long hours almost everyday, plus he has his side business blowing jewelry glass also, and so when he gets orders, then he has to do his thing first, then his days off, since we just moved here, he still has to do some rewiring and fixing all over the house.. soo.. i don't want to nag him.. But he does support my gardening adventure.. I actually told him the other day, cause he just came home with new flowery plants for me to plant, but it is in that area with the stomp, i told him he should stop buying plants first, until the drip system is done..

Newyorkrita said:Liza, do you have ordinary garden compost? In spite of miracle grows add campaign the very best thing you can add to your garden is compost, not miracle grow. Not saying miracle grow is a bad thing but not as great as it's claimed to be. Your rose is already going to be stressed from two moves. Too much fertilizer is a bad thing in these cases. Compost on the other hand enriches the soil naturally and never burns plants. It increases bad drainage issues and keeps soil that it to dry from drying out as fast. It averages soil acidity or alkalinity. In effect it just always makes the soil better for planting.

And that is for veggies, flowers, shrubs you name it. Compost is a gardeners best friend.

I have a big bag of Super Soil Enrich Planting Compost.. Will that be ok? Eventually i will do my own compost also..Hubby and i already checked out a compost barrel .. Anyway, here's a pic of the rose
As you can see, there's no more flowers, they all fell off, no new buds coming out, and the middle/ inner part leaves are yellow and dying.. So what about the ultragreen plant starter that i am suppose to spray on the roots to help the plant from shock? do i use it? or just use the super soil rich enrich compost?

I'd say you probably shouldn't use the Miracle Grow mix. It may have more nutrients in it than your plant can handle right now. If you ask a plant to make more top growth than the roots can adequately feed/supply it just compounds the problem and adds even more stress. I have no experience with the plant starter, I've never used it, so I can't advise you on whether it would help. Less is sometimes best when dealing with a stressed plant. They really just want to grow as nature intended; with some wet periods and some drier spells. Trying to figure out how much of each is best is just part of the learning process. Compost, as Rita said, is great! However, whenever possible I try to get my plant's roots growing into native soil first. Sometimes a plant will be lazy if it's over-supplied with goodies at the beginning and the roots will just want to remain right there...never going out on their own to get what they need. For annual veggies, this is okay and preferable because we want them to grow and produce as quickly as possible; shrubs and trees really need to stretch out those roots first for a long and productive life.

What are your temps like now?

(While I was typing this you posted a picture...to me, that plant looks just fine for a recent transplant!)

Liza, I don't know anything about lime trees but overhead watering is not bad for everything. The reason it is bad for roses is that it encourages fungal diseases. However, from your picture your rose looks great. Not to worry about the few yellow leaves.

I am not familiar with your brand of compost but it seems as if it would be fine.

There are a lot of right ways to grow roses and few absolute rules, because the roses always seem to be able to break the rules. One of the absolute rules is that roses don't like wet feet, so all of the comments above about the very real possibility that you are drowning your rose are spot on.

Fresno has a hot dry climate in the summer. Overhead watering after the temps have reached 85 degrees is actually very beneficial for your rose in that it helps the plant combat the high transpiration rate ... the loss of moisture in the top growth during the hot days of summer. After temps have reached 85 degrees black spot spores are inactive so you don't need to worry about that fungal disease which is the "why" of the recommendation not to overhead water roses. The key point here is "dry" climate. In climates that have high temps in a moist climate can have the same high temps, but they have higher disease pressure because fungus diseases love the moist climates.

A plant can only bring up so much water from the root zone and you will see the top growth wilting even with a well watered rose if the plant's top growth is losing more moisture than it can bring up to the top growth from the roots. Usually, that wilting will disappear overnight as the temps drop and the plant catches up. Overhead watering allows the rose to absorb moisture through the leaves. Also, by "washing" the rose, you are helping to avoid a spider mite infestation because they breed like fire in hot and dry conditions. Washing your rose regularly breaks the breeding cycle of this pest.

There is no need to amend your soil unless it is hard clay where the roots cannot expand outside of the rose hole or very sandy and will not hold moisture. If you put compost in your planting hole when you plant the rose, it will decompose and the rose will sink. If you follow nature's lead and put the compost on top of the soil, as it breaks down, it will feed the soil around the rose. Of course, mulching is part of maintaining a healthy rose in your climate and as the mulch breaks down, it, too, will feed the soil.

I garden in the same hot and dry conditions you have in your climate. If I am dealing with a stressed rose ... and a rose that has been drowning can be considered a stressed rose ... I would dig it up and plant it in a large container with well draining potting soil with no fertilizer amendments and just water it until I see new top growth. This gives the plant the chance to grow a new root mass. The first roots to rot are the feeder roots which pull moisture and nutrients up to the top growth and the food created by photosynthesis back to the root zone. My preference ... and we all learn what works in our climates and develop preferences ... is not to plant a rose into the ground until it has a solid root mass.

Do not fertilize until you see new top growth. That tells you the rose has grown new feeder roots and the root system is operating correctly. Then lightly feed it with a soluble liquid fertilizer weekly because the new roots can be easily burned by normal strength fertilizers. Make certain that your container drains well and lift it off of any hardscape or surface to insure that the container does not hold excess water. Keep the plant moist ... not wet and don't allow it to dry out between waterings.

In your climate, you can plant the rose in the fall when the temperatures are lower and there is less stress on the newly transplanted rose and your rose should have developed a healthier root mass while it was growing in the container.

When you prepare your new hole, do what is called a perk test. Fill the hole with water and ideally it should drain within two hours. If it drains faster, that tells you that you may want to amend your planting soil to slow down the drainage. Plain ol' cat litter will do the job. Again, test for drainage. If it doesn't drain within two hours, as long as it drains overnight, your rose will be fine. If it doesn't drain overnight, you need to make a bigger hole and deeper hole. You may have a layer of hardpan under the place where you are siting the rose and that needs to be broken up to get the desired drainage.

Iceberg is a tough rose. It's a rose that LIKES to grow, so there is a very, very good chance that you can bring your rose back to health and have a glorious plant for your garden.

Here's a link to an Ezine article on HelpMeFind written by Kim Rupert who also grows roses in a hot and dry climate. You can pick up some tips on how to prune the rose to avoid disease.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gard...

I have made plenty of mistakes in learning how to grow roses well, especially once I moved to a new climate. One of the greatest things to know about roses is that when they are happy, they grow like weeds.

Smiles,
Lyn

chelle said:I'd say you probably shouldn't use the Miracle Grow mix. It may have more nutrients in it than your plant can handle right now. If you ask a plant to make more top growth than the roots can adequately feed/supply it just compounds the problem and adds even more stress. I have no experience with the plant starter, I've never used it, so I can't advise you on whether it would help. Less is sometimes best when dealing with a stressed plant. They really just want to grow as nature intended; with some wet periods and some drier spells. Trying to figure out how much of each is best is just part of the learning process. Compost, as Rita said, is great! However, whenever possible I try to get my plant's roots growing into native soil first. Sometimes a plant will be lazy if it's over-supplied with goodies at the beginning and the roots will just want to remain right there...never going out on their own to get what they need. For annual veggies, this is okay and preferable because we want them to grow and produce as quickly as possible; shrubs and trees really need to stretch out those roots first for a long and productive life.

What are your temps like now?

(While I was typing this you posted a picture...to me, that plant looks just fine for a recent transplant!)

Thanks Chelle, but again that area does not get sunlight until 5:30ish in the afternoon and like i said, the ground is always wet, even when i refrained from watering it for like 3 days now.. and the flowers all fell off and yellow , seemingly dying leaves starting at the center of the bush.. Plus i failed to mention earlier that the vent for the dryer is at a 9 o'clock angle to the rose,maybe a foot away, to where when the dryer is in use, you can see the leaves of the rose swaying, so it is obviously getting hit by the dryer air coming out from the vent.But i am so excited right now, because i went out there and started working on the area where the stomp is, digging and pulling out as much roots as i can(ivy roots), so i can plant my red geranium, it is so noticeable that the soil there is so healthy compared to the other areas surrounding the house. It is almost charcoal black in color and moist and i saw 2 earthworm,(i actually took them and put them in my temporary composting bin). i'm sure there's more of them underneath,, so, i am now thinking of replanting the rose there, and i don't have to use any of the enrich composting soil, or miracle gro because the soil there obviously is naturally fertiled from years of leaves and barks decomposing in the ground. Neglecting that area from the former occupants for years and years will actually benefit my plants now..i think The problem there though is, the giant olive tree was chopped down but it is still alive and so if i plant the rose there, i wonder if the chooped olive tree will just steal all the nutrients other plants should have? it was crawling with ivy before and my son and i cleared as much as we can, and today dug roots out as deep as we can,

chelle said:I'd say you probably shouldn't use the Miracle Grow mix. It may have more nutrients in it than your plant can handle right now. If you ask a plant to make more top growth than the roots can adequately feed/supply it just compounds the problem and adds even more stress. I have no experience with the plant starter, I've never used it, so I can't advise you on whether it would help. Less is sometimes best when dealing with a stressed plant. They really just want to grow as nature intended; with some wet periods and some drier spells. Trying to figure out how much of each is best is just part of the learning process. Compost, as Rita said, is great! However, whenever possible I try to get my plant's roots growing into native soil first. Sometimes a plant will be lazy if it's over-supplied with goodies at the beginning and the roots will just want to remain right there...never going out on their own to get what they need. For annual veggies, this is okay and preferable because we want them to grow and produce as quickly as possible; shrubs and trees really need to stretch out those roots first for a long and productive life.

What are your temps like now?

(While I was typing this you posted a picture...to me, that plant looks just fine for a recent transplant!)

oh, and it's probably in the 90's out there right now..

RoseBlush1 said:There are a lot of right ways to grow roses and few absolute rules, because the roses always seem to be able to break the rules. One of the absolute rules is that roses don't like wet feet, so all of the comments above about the very real possibility that you are drowning your rose are spot on.

Fresno has a hot dry climate in the summer. Overhead watering after the temps have reached 85 degrees is actually very beneficial for your rose in that it helps the plant combat the high transpiration rate ... the loss of moisture in the top growth during the hot days of summer. After temps have reached 85 degrees black spot spores are inactive so you don't need to worry about that fungal disease which is the "why" of the recommendation not to overhead water roses. The key point here is "dry" climate. In climates that have high temps in a moist climate can have the same high temps, but they have higher disease pressure because fungus diseases love the moist climates.

A plant can only bring up so much water from the root zone and you will see the top growth wilting even with a well watered rose if the plant's top growth is losing more moisture than it can bring up to the top growth from the roots. Usually, that wilting will disappear overnight as the temps drop and the plant catches up. Overhead watering allows the rose to absorb moisture through the leaves. Also, by "washing" the rose, you are helping to avoid a spider mite infestation because they breed like fire in hot and dry conditions. Washing your rose regularly breaks the breeding cycle of this pest.

There is no need to amend your soil unless it is hard clay where the roots cannot expand outside of the rose hole or very sandy and will not hold moisture. If you put compost in your planting hole when you plant the rose, it will decompose and the rose will sink. If you follow nature's lead and put the compost on top of the soil, as it breaks down, it will feed the soil around the rose. Of course, mulching is part of maintaining a healthy rose in your climate and as the mulch breaks down, it, too, will feed the soil.

I garden in the same hot and dry conditions you have in your climate. If I am dealing with a stressed rose ... and a rose that has been drowning can be considered a stressed rose ... I would dig it up and plant it in a large container with well draining potting soil with no fertilizer amendments and just water it until I see new top growth. This gives the plant the chance to grow a new root mass. The first roots to rot are the feeder roots which pull moisture and nutrients up to the top growth and the food created by photosynthesis back to the root zone. My preference ... and we all learn what works in our climates and develop preferences ... is not to plant a rose into the ground until it has a solid root mass.

Do not fertilize until you see new top growth. That tells you the rose has grown new feeder roots and the root system is operating correctly. Then lightly feed it with a soluble liquid fertilizer weekly because the new roots can be easily burned by normal strength fertilizers. Make certain that your container drains well and lift it off of any hardscape or surface to insure that the container does not hold excess water. Keep the plant moist ... not wet and don't allow it to dry out between waterings.

In your climate, you can plant the rose in the fall when the temperatures are lower and there is less stress on the newly transplanted rose and your rose should have developed a healthier root mass while it was growing in the container.

When you prepare your new hole, do what is called a perk test. Fill the hole with water and ideally it should drain within two hours. If it drains faster, that tells you that you may want to amend your planting soil to slow down the drainage. Plain ol' cat litter will do the job. Again, test for drainage. If it doesn't drain within two hours, as long as it drains overnight, your rose will be fine. If it doesn't drain overnight, you need to make a bigger hole and deeper hole. You may have a layer of hardpan under the place where you are siting the rose and that needs to be broken up to get the desired drainage.

Iceberg is a tough rose. It's a rose that LIKES to grow, so there is a very, very good chance that you can bring your rose back to health and have a glorious plant for your garden.

Here's a link to an Ezine article on HelpMeFind written by Kim Rupert who also grows roses in a hot and dry climate. You can pick up some tips on how to prune the rose to avoid disease.

http://www.helpmefind.com/gard...

I have made plenty of mistakes in learning how to grow roses well, especially once I moved to a new climate. One of the greatest things to know about roses is that when they are happy, they grow like weeds.

Smiles,
Lyn

Thank you very much Lyn, i hope you read my reply to Chelle because i think i discovered a very fertile ground to transpant the rose. If not then would you please read my reply to her and let me know what you think (only if you have time ) I am liking the idea of just replanting it back to a bigger pot and maybe shovel the soil from the stomp, altho i really want it placed where the stomp is at it faces the road and i think it will be very beautiful in there when it grows and blooms along side my red geranium I want it to be the focal point of my front yard.

Yup... it's in the 90s this week and you will probably continue to stay in the 90s and low 100s well into September. I am not certain when the temps in the Valley start to cool down for fall, but I live in the northern California mountains and it can stay in the 90s and 100s through October because the Valley temps climb the mountains, but then again, it's the mountains and can cool off earlier.

You are right to be worried about the olive tree. I don't know if they have a dense aggressive root mass that will cause problems. Species roses are what are called forest edge plants and can handle some shade and some root competition, but for the most part roses don't like too much root competition. If there are a lot of tree roots near the surface of the soil, you will have root competition. The feeder roots of roses can be found within the first 6 inches of the soil.

Iceberg is more shade tolerant than most roses, but it still needs no less than 4 hours of daylight. It is light colored (white) and does not have a lot of petals. A rose that is light hungry will grow tall and leggy while it reaches for the light.

There are twos reason you may not be seeing any new buds, since the previous blooms "dropped off". The first is that repeat blooming roses do not always bloom continuously, but bloom in flushes. The second is that if you did not dead head the rose and allowed it to form hips, the plant "thinks" it has completed its primary function of continuing the species and has set seed and doesn't need to bloom any more. If you see any rose hips on your rose, I think you should just nip them off and not allow them to ripen and this sends a signal to the plant that it has to start and produce blooms to attract the pollenators to help fertilize the bloom so that the plant can set seed and complete the plant cycle. That is why we dead head the roses.

Smiles,
Lyn

OK... we were typing at the same time. Yes, place the container where you think you want to plant the rose. That's one of the best ways to find out if a rose will like the site you have chosen.

Use a commercial potting soil for your container. They are designed for good drainage. Native soil may not drain well enough when used in a container. When you take it out of the pot to plant the rose, you don't need to remove the potting soil and can use the native soil for the planting. If you dig the hole now and then backfill it a bit, you can observe how fast that olive tree tries to invade the hole. That will tell you a lot about whether or not it's a good idea to plant the rose there.

Smiles,
Lyn

RoseBlush1 said:OK... we were typing at the same time. Yes, place the container where you think you want to plant the rose. That's one of the best ways to find out if a rose will like the site you have chosen.

Use a commercial potting soil for your container. They are designed for good drainage. Native soil may not drain well enough when used in a container. When you take it out of the pot to plant the rose, you don't need to remove the potting soil and can use the native soil for the planting. If you dig the hole now and then backfill it a bit, you can observe how fast that olive tree tries to invade the hole. That will tell you a lot about whether or not it's a good idea to plant the rose there.

Smiles,
Lyn

Great (additional) advice, Lyn!

The following lines are an added bonus!

"...If you dig the hole now and then backfill it a bit, you can observe how fast that olive tree tries to invade the hole. That will tell you a lot about whether or not it's a good idea to plant the rose there."


(All I could think of was -before placing the rose there, try to kill off the tree or remove the entire stump.)


I cut down a sapling and promptly placed a rose next to it. Guess what? The tree won't quit! The rose is growing well, but I'm still fighting the tree.

Chelle.......

That sounds like a good discussion for the rose forum. Some roses love to scramble up trees

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...

Smiles,
Lyn

Good idea, Lyn, but in my case it's the wrong type of rose and a doomed Ash tree. (EAB)

If the rose we're discussing here were a Climbing Iceberg rose, it might simplify things a bit, eh?

[The pictures in those links are amazing! ]

Dang ... Sorry about that. I generally think of Iceberg, Cl as something to use on an arch rather than a tree climber, but who knows ???? I haven't grown it.

Smiles,
Lyn