Lime Sulfur and Tea Roses?

16 years ago

Well folks I'm in a bit of a fix. Last weekend I visited my mother in coastal Virginia (USDA Zone 7b/8a) and brought my sprayer with the intention of spraying her China and Tea roses with lime sulfur (an organic fungicide). Unfortunately, the roses were all leafed out. Completely leafed out in fact, as in lush and green. Lime sulfur burns foliage so I didn't spray the roses. Is this normal? Since when did roses become evergreens? As you can probably tell, I have little experience with these two classes of roses. The garden is organic. I know Jean TN sprays her roses with lime sulfur and she is in a comparable zone. So what should I do? Spray or not spray? Here is what I've got in the garden:

Duchesse de Brabant (Tea)

Marie d'Orleans (Tea)

Belinda's Dream (Shrub)

Madame Joseph Schwartz (Tea)

Cramoisi Superieur (China)

Moore's Striped Rugosa (Hybrid Rugosa; btw I wasn't going to spray this rose - those rugosa leaves being so picky about chemicals)

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Comments (5)

buford
16 years ago
My teas were leafed out until about 5 weeks ago. I dont' know if it was cold weather or deer, but they are mostly defoliated now. I sprayed them with LS.

I had other roses that had old or new leaves. I sprayed them all and nothing has fallen off yet. I believe I used the correct concentration (8 oz to 3 gallons) but who knows. I actually wanted the old leaves to fall off....
anntn6b
16 years ago
(Full out dormant strength LS is one cup LS per gallon of water for the LS that I buy at the Co-op). (And it reaks.)

Back when Jean in Nashville and I (in upper east TN) were comparing when we could get a LS spray in BEFORE the new leaves came out, her time was the week after Christmas and mine (colder) was the first or second week of January. After those dates, the new growth IS, and there's not a thing we can do about it.
LS will defoliate roses. I've used it dormant strength - two sprays- to force defoliation. But I am now rethinking myself and I've seen sunburn on the south side of exposed rose canes. So...maybe some of the roses need to keep their leaves to keep their canes (year and two year old) from burning in the sun with the more intense sunlight of February.

You could have used LS at one of the other dilutions. I haven't done that so won't make any recommendation.
But, yes, tea roses are among the many roses that can be evergreen. And, rose dormancy isn't really what we think it is. For many roses, dormancy is a slow down, not a drop leaves and go to sleep for winter thing.

Does this help a little to understand what a slightly warmer climate can do?
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I use copper and lime (once) while dormant, mainly because of the awful canker we get showing up in the spring, and I get anthracnose on other things in the garden/orchard. I still use Bordeaux (thus the lime), because my local Feed N Seed has the premix powdered and quite convenient. I think that helps for canker. Probably. I've done it so long, it's hard to say. I still get some canker, so it's not foolproof. Maybe I need to do more than one round, like for orchards. Hmmm :) Blackspot is still a definite problem in the spring, later, in my yard, yeah. I switch to Bayer once it gets bad enough, even though it's usually still cool enough for the heavy-hitting organic chemicals at that point. The Bayer takes the fewest sprays of anything I've tried (here), so I like that all around.
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Here is an excerpt from a Washington State University website about managing an orchard in alkaline soils. "If there are massive amounts of lime and other bases in the soil, you have what people often call "alkaline", or "caleche" layered soil, which is difficult to manage. It is difficult or impossible to get all the lime out of this soil, and you will have to live with high pH, along with the drainage problems, iron deficiency, and compaction that are often production problems. If you have one of these soils, you should use the most acidifying forms of nitrogen fertilizer (such as ammonium sulfate), as you may never live long enough to develop an acidity problem. Some growers have helped the trees get critical soil nutrients, espcially iron, by banding strong acids along the row. This may force the pH down in a narrow, shallow zone along the soil surface, allowing more iron to enter the tree through shallow roots." My house is stucco which is high in lime and I have alkaline soil and water. I do have azaleas and a rhody right next to the house (courtesy of the previous owner). Camellias are fine there, but azaleas and the rhody are permanently chlorotic. I use a 21-0-0 ammonium sulphate AND soil sulphur AND chelated iron there, which greens them up temporarily but I have to reapply them diligently. Yes, I agree that I might not live long enough to ever see an acidity problem develop:-( Masha Here is a link that might be useful: If you want the rest of it:-)
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Mixing lime with sulfur is suppposed to increase the fungicidal properties and it causes a chemical change that allows the sulfur to penetrate the leaf tissue. This mixture is extremely toxic to mammals and can cause eye injury and skin irritation so if you use it you need to wear good protective equipment. Rather than something like this, I've been debating whether to use this stuff for 30 plus years and have not really found a need to yet, I've found far less toxic ways to control the few problems I have. Black spot can be controlled with a mixture of 1 teaspoon of baking soda with a few drops of a light oil in 1 quart of water or mix fat free milk and water anywhere form a 1 to 10 to a 50/50 mix has shown results for different people and places. If either of these are sprayed early on every 7 to 10 days it should control Black Spot and present far fewer health problems for you.
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berndoodle
16 years ago
Question about the foliage: is it last year's foliage? Cuz if it is, it's going to drop off anyway in earliest spring and look a little ratty as it does. How to know? How large and leathery are the leaves. Tea leaves grow and grow until they drop. Are the stipules getting a bit cracked and aged looking around the margins? If the answer is yes to both these questions, the leaves you're spraying are last year's foliage. If spraying is required, spray away, recognizing that they are going to fall off no matter what you do and they are going to interfere with your coverage of the canes.

I faced this all the time with Teas and didn't like spraying them with lime sulfur for just this reason. Even after a dormant-strength spray, they don't drop their leaves. I didn't spray twice. It was just too hard to find the right conditions and time. Teas are almost evergreen. Like all evergreen plants, they will drop their leaves when they are good and ready...when the new growth pushes off the old and right after you've cleaned up the whole garden for the garden club.

Ann, about the sunburned canes...I wonder about sunburn from defoliation in winter. Seat of the pants I suspect it's lime sulfur damage. I've seen it myself on my own Teas. Since I stopped spraying, there's less damage on new canes. Also, I'm getting much more systematic about removing oldest wood as Step #1 in my pruning. Teas are very salt sensitive. I don't think they much like lime sulfur. I do think lime sulfur and oil is a good deterrent to mites and thrips, tho. I've considered not spraying the plants and just the mulch around them for that reason.
buford
16 years ago
Thanks Ann. I hadn't done LS in a few years, and the last time I did it, the spray was much more yellow colored and it smelled more strongly. I was behind schedule because I ordered a bottle of LS (couldn't find it in the stores) and it was on back order.

The instructions were a bit vague, but I thought I was following the strongest solution. Oh well.
jerijen
16 years ago
I've considered not spraying the plants and just the mulch around them for that reason.

*** Cass, I've actually done that, and it seems to me to be a good compromise.
I've never actually found a time of the year when my Chinas (or even my Teas) were even close to being defoliated
-- or when defoliating them by hand appeared to be feasible.

Old foliage does eventually disappear.
THIS year, we have had both screaming East wind and screaming West wind.
Most foliage that was ready to go is now gone, leaving behind new and mature foliage.

We don't have much in the way of mites or thrips, spray or no spray.

Jeri

Lime Sulfur and Tea Roses?

Comments (5)

buford

anntn6b

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buford

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