PART 1
This past June, while working in the rose garden, I was called inside the house for a Sunday afternoon phone call from my 78 year old mother. We greeted one another with our usual banter, and she casually asked what I was up to that weekend. I explained that the roses had just gone into their first full bloom of the season, and I described the colorful scene for her. She responded by saying how much she wished I lived close enough to help her start a rose garden of her own. She and my father live in North Carolina where I was born and raised, but now I live in New York. She has always loved roses, especially yellow varieties, and although she maintains countless azaleas, camellias, gardenias, hydrangeas, and other shrubs and perennials, she has never grown the “queen of flowers.”
Even though she was just musing aloud, I said that if she really wanted to commit to growing them, I could write out instructions for selecting and planting roses, and talk her through the process if and when needed. The more she considered the idea, the more she liked it, so over the next couple of weeks we exchanged emails about it. The more we discussed plans for her new rose venture, the more I wished I could help her in person. So the next time we talked by phone I offered to take a few days off from work the following month, fly down to Winston-Salem, and help her get started with a bed of roses. Although July wasn't the optimal time to plant them, I told her it that since we would be planting roses from pots instead of bare roots, it would be all right, provided she could find plants in good enough condition at that stage in the season.
She was happy to take me up on the offer, and we agreed that to make the best use of the limited time I would have for my visit, she would ask her landscaper to pre-dig the especially deep holes that would be needed in which to plant roses, given the thick red clay that constitutes the soil in that part of the state. By having this done before I got there, I wouldn't have to spend all my time digging in the 95 degree heat, and instead could spend time visiting nurseries with her, showing her what to look for when selecting roses, what to avoid, and then bringing them home and planting them with her. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t have any manual work to do. I would still need to mix a giant batch of nutrient-rich loam using a combination of commercial garden soil, peat moss, composted manure, and Rose-Tone, to refill the holes dug out of the heavy red clay.
We also agreed that prior to my visit, she would spend some time visiting local nurseries and websites to get an idea of what types of roses she liked. She proved to be a very good student as she learned the characteristics of hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras, Austins, and other shrub roses. We spent some time on the phone and exchanging emails discussing the attributes of various cultivars whose names she wrote down and asked me about. I told her which ones I thought were good choices (quick to repeat, and relatively disease resistant), and which ones didn't live up to their billing (roses that shatter if you look at them cross-eyed, or resemble a Dalmatian due to blackspot). Of course, such characteristics vary among zones, microclimates, soil conditions, and even rootstocks, so all I could do was speak from my own experience, and look up their American Rose Society ratings. She came to understand that rose selection wasn’t just about choosing one’s favorite colors; it also involved considerations of bloom shape, petal count and substance, growth habit, and how a particular rose performs in different conditions.
She ended up with a "short list" (which wasn't all that short!) of roses she was interested in. I was familiar with many of them, either because I grow them myself or had seen them in local nurseries. However, I wasn't familiar with the ones that aren’t hardy enough to be sold in my zone, which is 600 miles north of my parents’ home. But since she’s good with surfing the web, I told her about HelpMeFind.com, where she could look them up, read descriptions, and see “real” photos of the roses on her list as opposed to a catalog’s “idealized” pictures that may or may not show a rose as it typically appears.
Since my mother became concerned that the local nurseries’ inventories might become picked over by the time I visited her in mid July, she decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and start purchasing some of the roses that we agreed would be good choices, from a favorite local nursery. Although I had originally looked forward to helping her select her roses in person, I agreed it made sense to go ahead and get them a few weeks before I arrived, provided she watered them every day and kept them in appropriate light.
I gave her some talking points to discuss with the individual who manages the rose section at the nursery she prefers, and advised her how to get assistance in selecting good plants. But I also tried to provide her with as much advice as I could think of so that she could select good plants on her own. It was an interesting exercise for me, because I had to articulate so many things that I just automatically take into consideration (or take for granted) when I select a rose, but had never articulated for someone else.
For example, I explained how to look for roses that don’t just appear bushy or floriferous when looking down at the top of the plant, but to look for roses that have as many canes as possible growing from the bud union at the bottom of the plant (which means picking them up, turning them around, and keeping track of the count and thickness of the canes when comparing two or more plants). I explained that all roses inevitably lose canes, and she wouldn’t want to purchase a plant that at first glance appeared to be well proportioned, but in fact had leaves and flowers stemming from only one or two good canes. I tried to describe what a heat-stressed plant looked like, the color and texture of a healthy cane, the condition of a good bud union, the difference between the white residue left on leaves from pesticides versus powdery mildew – things like that.
So off she went to the nursery, armed with the best advice I could think of. As it turned out, when she got there she discovered that some of the “first choices” on her list of preferred roses were no longer available, but some of the others were, and there were also some acceptable substitutes, so she returned home with six roses, including:
• Bishop's Castle
• Windmere
• Ingrid Bergman
• Octoberfest
• Peace
• Sterling Silver
She called me that night, very excited about her first purchase of roses, and I had the feeling she was getting “bitten by the bug” since she began talking about other roses she’d like to have. So I told her about Witherspoon Rose Culture in Durham, N.C., a nursery about 80 miles away from her. Although I had never visited there myself, it’s one of the better known rose nurseries in the state – indeed, in that part of the country. I sent her their web address, and a few days later she made the trip and returned home with four more roses, including:
• Midas Touch
• Dream Come True
• Chihuly
• Mister Lincoln
As the time drew nearer for my visit, I suggested that she and my father purchase in advance bags of garden soil and manure, a bale of peat moss, and a large bag of Rose-Tone for me to make the loam soil we would use to plant the roses with. I also suggested that when the landscaper came over to dig the planting holes, that they be dug 18 inches wide and at least 18 inches deep, but that a depth of 24 inches would be even better since the native clay soil would be very slow to drain. The landscaper agreed to the task, so they scheduled a date for him to dig the holes in a former flower bed that got ample sunlight. They also discussed the need for my parents to “call before you dig” to make sure no utility lines went through the area designated for the new rose bed.
When the utility inspector subsequently came out to examine the area, they discovered that the phone lines were buried directly beneath the intended rose bed – good thing they called! So he inserted some little flags and spray painted some lines on the ground to indicate where holes should not exceed 12 inches in depth. Fortunately the landscaper was able to work around these parameters, and dug 10 enormous holes a week before I arrived.
Our plan was coming together nicely – my mother had her roses, she had the soil amendments ready, and best of all, she had the enthusiasm and commitment needed to see it through.
