I, too, transplant whenever. Some years I fertilize and other I don't. I plant my bands directly in the ground. I rarely mulch.

C 'mon you guys. confession is good for the soul

I do the same thing. I transplant whenever I feel like it, plant when I feel like it, Don't worry about an outward facing budeye, and even just planted red doulble knockout roses (5 of them) regardless of what people say about them.

Love your post!

OH NO????? The dreaded knockout? And u call yourself a roser? Lol. We won't tell.....

I don't deadhead. I only prune when something is in the way (and sometimes not even then). I may fertilize when roses are getting established (like in the last couple years) but not again for *years*. Some of my roses have never been fertilized. Mulch? Sounds like too much work. Again, some of the recent additions I've felt guilty about after reading these forums, and I've actually mulched them on planting. Others never have been. Spraying? Forget about it!!!!

I'm also about to commit the sin of planting Rosa bracteata. Sure it's thorny as all get out and suckers like a maniac, but hey that is exactly why I want it. A rose mountain just pushes all my buttons, and I don't care if no one but me likes the thorny beast. I think thorns on roses are pretty.;)

I also grow rugosas (and love them) and roses grafted on multiflora in an area with alkaline soil and alkaline water, and they don't get chlorotic, and I do nothing to prevent it. And I've been growing many ogrs for decades that supposedly require lots of winter chill in an area that gets very little. The roses don't appear to know that rule as they bloom beautifully anyway. So I'm planning on adding more of what does best for me. Gallicas, rugosas, albas, damasks, and species here I come!

Melissa

Awwww, guys. It's no fun if EVERYONE is a rosey rebel. :-)

I smiled as I read the responses to my post. I posted because I felt happily hardcore and defiant when the guy from DA reprimanded me for "summer transplanting". I grinned with nostalgic mischief as proceeded to repot 4 roses.

I thought of two more...

I plant all kinds of things with my potted roses. I've got a mat like creeping mint growing over the soil of Just Joey in a wooden barrel. I've trailing ivy dangling from my summer song. I've wallflowers in with Bridge of Sighs.

I let leaves and deadheaded flower fall where they may. Some end up in the compost pile and the rest help feed the worms in my pots.

Yes. That's right. Im a gardening gangster. Im hardcore.

Susan...your Brides Dream is lovely. I have tried this rose 2 times and lost it to winter. Do you protect? This is such a beautiful rose and I would love to grow it here in KY. Just for the record..I transplant roses when ever and have never lost one due to a move. This is a great post and I can`t wait to see more responses. Lesley

We're bad....We're bad...

It seems to me that most articles and books on gardening are written by someone living in Connecticut. Most of the advice doesn't exactly apply to my climate and soil in coastal South Carolina.

IMHO, gardening rules are mostly muck and mysticism.

So I transplant when I need to, spray at mid-day in the summer and use overhead watering.

Thanks, Kim, for mentioning your sand-perlite rooting mix. I'm changing my mix today.

I also transplant when I want to, and I overhead water.

I spray a fungicide as little as possible--but I do follow the "rules" for spraying when I do it--since the consequences could be dangerous! I do not spray bugs/critters.

I do not bother messing around with all the "extras" many other rose gardeners are always fiddling with.

Kate

Probably the worst rule-breaking on my part is that I use my garden hoe to cultivate weeds in some of my rose beds and just let the weeds decompose on site. I mulch over the dying weeds and I find the soil has improved tremendously in time.
Molly

What is sad is that all of the "rules" people hear about (most of which are carefully promulgated by local rose societies) many times keep people from being willing to try roses at all - "too difficult & fussy for me".

Jackie

What is sad is that all of the "rules" people hear about (most of which are carefully promulgated by local rose societies) many times keep people from being willing to try roses at all - "too difficult & fussy for me".

Jackie

I also planted some of those dreaded double Ko's...lol
shhhhhhhhhhh............

I like to plant baby bands straight into the ground upon arrival to our doorstep even in 90 degree heat...
Heck I have them planted before the UPS or mailperson
gets back in there truck...lol

I also planted some of those dreaded double Ko's...lol
shhhhhhhhhhh............

I like to plant baby bands straight into the ground upon arrival to our doorstep even in 90 degree heat...
Heck I have them planted before the UPS or mailperson
gets back in there truck...lol

Yesterday I planted my almost one month in a 1g band of Edmund Proust. It is the middle of summer, but we have a have cool layer of fog in the forecast for at least the next week with no high temps. I since it already had roots out of the pot, it was either pot up to a 5g and worry when it gets hot or put it in its spot.

And I am busy with the truck loads of slightly broken down used horse hay laying it on thick.

And my zone pushed currant set fruit this year!!

Too close together? tree rose thriving in zone 5? Rock mulch? EGADS!

I water overhead exclusively, and fertilize as long as I can not worrying about antiquated rules on frost dates.

I'm also guilty of all of the above. Except for the double knock out roses. Not going there sorry. I plant my baby banded roses straight into the ground as soon as they arrive no matter what the temps and they're doing great thank you very much. I don't mulch. I have my own compost pile in a corner in my yard where I put all of our scraps and just take from that to place around my roses. I don't spray anything. I don't even have a hose in my yard. I just scoop out a bucket of water from our pond and use that to water my roses. In years past when we've had a drought i've used rinse water from my washing machine to water my roses. And they've all taken off like crazy. I put banana peels straight onto the ground around the base of my roses. I don't dry them out or cut them up. Just chuck them around the base. And my roses love it!

I've taken roots from roses that I thought were dead and replanted them without any sign of a stem whatsoever and now have 2 foot tall new growth! Can't beat that with a dead rose cane. @->-

Well let's see...at least half my 750 roses "aren't supposed to grow" in zone 5, including many HTs, floribundas, and teas. I plant way too close even for my zone, with maybe 12" centers for the HTs, and it works just fine if you like roses to intermingle. I mix in all kinds of other perennials around the roses, and I plant spring bulbs in every square inch where there isn't another plant. Of course I don't prune my roses down to nubs at the end of fall and cover them in styrofoam (yuck), but we all know that's a bad rule begging to be broken.

The biggest "rule" I've broken, that others advise against on GW, is "don't weave or twine your climbers into a fence". I realize the reasons against it, that it makes pruning more difficult, but all the fences and arches and lattices in my yard have these lovely 6" wide spaces between the bars. That's just the right height to tuck a vertical climber sideways when I notice it reaching for the sky, and being a lazy gardener I'd never be successful at tying up my climbers the "right" way because I would never have the right materials at hand when I need them and would forget to go back deliberately. If it can't be done on a random walk around the garden, it's mostly "too much work". I've never had a problem with my method of interweaving the canes sideways, perhaps because with zone 5 we have to prune down a fair bit of the existing canes for most climbers most years, so it doesn't become an impenetrable tangle like it does elsewhere. Also, the canes come out pretty easily from 6" wide bars in my experience.

Fun thread!

Cynthia

Companion plants are just living mulch, I think, and I love them. I wish I could grow four o'clocks like I used to (like Jackie's), but the darn quail out back love the seeds and eat just about every one of them. Then of the few seedlings that do come up, the quail eat those, too. They're worse than chickens, but funny as he**, so I feed them even though they wipe out half my seedlings. Anyway, I never disbud new roses--ever. And they're fine even in this inferno. As far as transplanting any time I want to, if I were to try it on a 105 degree day, I'd have to dig a hole for my 67 year old self as well as the rose! Otherwise, I'm pretty lax about transplanting. Also, in the desert you have hoses, lots of hoses...they're your right hand man. Diane

Nippstress/Cynthia said: being a lazy gardener I'd never be successful at tying up my climbers the "right" way because I would never have the right materials at hand when I need them and would forget to go back deliberately. If it can't be done on a random walk around the garden, it's mostly "too much work."

Now that sounds like my style of gardening! Do you suppose its something in the Nebraska water, Cynthia, that continues to affect an ex-cornhusker like myself?

In addition to my earlier items, like Nanadoll, I never disbud.

Kate

AND....I buy from the dreaded Hortico.....and have good experiences with them!! Fuzzy pic of Sandra renaissance.

Lesley, sometimes I throw some bark chips over the base. Glad u like her. Wish it was fragrant .

Hi Susan4952,

I am curious about your statement, ".I buy from the dreaded Hortico..." Are they infamous for sending poor quality roses?

I just checked Hortico's website. They seem to have a small but nice selection of OGRs.

Reem

This post was edited by reemcook on Thu, Aug 1, 13 at 14:17

Disbudding? Not a hope. In the first place the whole reason we end up impulse buying roses is the tempting blooms and buds waving at us. Secondly how is the rose gonna earn its place on my crazy garden if it doesn't perform.

I'm not about delayed gratification when it comes to blooms.

I buy from the dreaded Hortico, too,and I've never had a problem with their roses. Plus, I've gotten some very different ones that are otherwise unavailable in this country or even from other vendors in Canada, such as Bernstein-Rose, Blue Bayou (I think Palatine might have this one now), Royal Bonica (not Bonica), and my favorite new rose, Augusta Luise. Here is a pic of Blue Bayou, the bluest rose I've ever seen Diane

Ah, Kate - nice to hear from a kindred spirit lazy gardener. I totally relate to your philosophy - I too water when I feel like it, plant bands directly into the ground when I feel like it, and transplant when I feel like it (but I try not to feel like it too often...). A no spray yard is a lazy yard, and I prefer to let the good bugs do the work I don't want to do - like, oh, eating other bugs, though I must admit to swallowing the occasional fly against my will. Rather than the Nebraska water, I prefer to chalk it up to the midwestern wide open spaces and the accompanying relaxed attitude that goes with it.

I thought I'd drop a short explanation to Reem about the hesitation many of us have about ordering from Hortico. I've not yet done so, but what I gather is that if they send you what you've actually ordered, the plants are healthy and grow well. The trouble I hear from many many posters is that they list things on their website and let you pay money for something that isn't remotely available, then are slow at best to refund your money or admit that the item is out of stock. They're also fairly notorious for sending the wrong plant for some of the more unusual roses, and again not being a very straightforward source of information about any irregularities. I think the happy customers are the ones that ordered things that they actually have in stock that are correctly labeled - the trouble is that there's no way of knowing when that's not the case ahead of time. Since they do sell a lot of roses, that can mean a lot of happy customers. Given that what I want to order from them are the unusual roses they list, I'm cautious and will order from someone else if I can. Again, I'm only summarizing reports, not speaking from direct experience.

Cynthia

Diane, that is beautiful!!

I've been a self proclaimed rose heretic for a long time. I break all the rules. Sometimes it's an experiment just to see what happens. Other times it's accidental or out of necessity for some reason. And I always like to push the envelope. My society president gives me a hard time about it all the time but he does agree that I seem to get good results with it. Generally when I give rose talks I present the "rules" first with the reasoning behind them. Then I go on to explain how I've chosen to do it and the results. At least that way they get both sides and can decide for themselves. I think the whole thing about gardening is experimentation. That's what makes it fun and interesting for me. And so many things that are so called rules are climate specific. You have to figure out what works for you in your own conditions That takes time, patience and a willingness to break out and do your own thing. Sometimes it's a disaster and sometimes it all works out fabulously but most of the time it in the OK realm. You never know until you try though!

Why thank you, Susan. BB is quite unusual, I think.
Back to Hortico...I think the bad rep may have been earned in the past, and the company may have improved a bit. My good gardening friend here in Idaho also orders from them, quite a bit in fact, and hasn't had a problem. I also found that the last round of bareroots I ordered in March from Hortico were quite large, and in spite of a long, long trip out here, and hangups at the Canadian border, the roses arrived in good shape and took off growing fast. Diane

Me too, Diane. But don't tell on me! Lol. This thread is so totally cute.
And Seil, I also take satisfaction when I break the rules and have a great result. I have my share of disasters ...but probably would if I followed the rules. I have to thank all the knowledgeable people on this forum for giving me the foundation for the most beautiful roses in town. BB is on my list for next spring.

And so many things that are so called rules are climate specific. You have to figure out what works for you in your own conditions

I think that is the key. If I planted a band directly in the ground, I'd have a dead rose, no matter how much I babied it, in a week. I've learned that in my climate, in my soil, a rose needs to have a solid root mass of some size or it simply will not take off.

I have transplanted a rose during triple digit temps and know it can be done, but I had to baby that rose along until it's root system was working well enough to take care of the plant. I don't want to do that one again.

My worst rule breaking, which I've done twice, is to leave a rose ..not a band ... in a bucket of water for several weeks until I got around to planting it.

I don't prune every rose every year and I deadhead when I am working in that part of the garden.

But there are some rules I don't break because of my climate. I always wash down my roses a couple of times a week to prevent spider mite infestations and I always dis-bud my roses after the first curculio shows up until the end of June to keep them from breeding in my garden.

With my high summer temps and dry climate, I don't need to worry about spraying.

I give the roses a deep watering once a week. I should give them more water during the week, but I don't always get around to it. They are happier with the extra water.

As I get older and the plants get more mature, I can and will be lazier. The roses tell me which rules I can break.

Smiles,
Lyn

Prescriptions (rules) can be ignored once there is knowledge, understanding, experience and/or intuition that comes from these (all of which members of this forum generally have in abundance). Rules do work a lot of the time, but it takes understanding to realize which ones apply to your situation and which don't. For what it's worth, I don't mulch, disbud, keep companion plants at distance (everything's all hugger-mugger, like Jackie's garden), or follow any complex fertilization regime (and I'm sure there's a few more...).

I enjoyed rereading the thread this morning. The moral of the story seems to be that you should only ignore a "rule" knowledgeably. Meaning we must gain as much gardening knowledge as possible so we know when rule doesn't apply to our individual situation.

I've always been reluctant to join a gardening society. The primary reason being that I garden intuitively despite the fact that I read as many technical gardening books I can get my hands on. Being a cheerful American in Ireland doesn't help. Do you guys know how much the Europeans poke fun at us? Especially if you're cheerful and have a tendency towards "chatty".

I recently discovered another avid rose grower in my neighborhood. I knocked on her door trembling like a 15 year old on her first date. The woman had no interest in talking to me past my initial generous praise (her roses were drop dead, " I wanna stab you in the toe out of jealousy" gorgeous)

I fantasize about meeting another local gardener. We could trade secrets and cuttings. We could drink fresh herbal tea from my garden or wine on my rose patio oasis.

What I have is all of you lovely folks on this forum. Thanks a million for being my gardening buddies!!! I don't post often but I read the threads all the time.

Catspa. I didn't see you post. You expressed what I wanted to express but far more elegantly :-)

Wow, I feel like an old square now. I follow many of the rules.. Perhaps I need to rebell and become a rose outlaw:)
Maude

catspa - "hugger-mugger" - I love (truly) that term! It exactly describes my garden.

Last pic from me, breaking 2 rules (the roses broke both of them all by themselves!):

This pic is of only 2 (two) plants - on the left is an ancient Duchesse de Brabant, and then it blends into and merges with an ancient Cecile Brunner on the right. The rules the roses broke? How big they got, and that they were happy for over 100 years growing together, instead of carefully kept apart so that (horrors!) they would not touch each other.

i'm brand new to roses - don't know enough to know if i'm breaking rules or not.

why is everyone so against the knockout roses? a few of you mentioned planting them "despite what people say"... what do people say. there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with them - i don't think they are the prettiest rose out there but why such a bad wrap?

Familiarity breeds contempt, Jessiegirl. In many cases, you only find Knock Outs at the expense of everything else. If it wasn't Knock Out, it would be something else everyone loves to hate. Kim

Kippy-the-hippy,

About 10 years ago, J&P sent bare root roses to me in July. I live in Las Vegas and the only roses in my yard were planted by the professional landscapers a couple of years prior. Being new to gardening, ordering on line, and assuming responsibility for the mistake, I could toss or plant them. Well, I let 10 Crimson Bouguet soak in water with a little B1 for two days and into the ground, full sun they went. It was 103 degrees plus daily.

Those roses are still thriving in that island bed; (my ex lives there and my daughter 1/2 of the time). In fact, they are very healthy and beautiful. I believe the key was keeping them hydrated; I never let them dry out. I broke a rule of not planting bareroots beyond President's Day. Yes., I was an outlaw... By circumstance. Now I just call the different things I do pushing the envelope a bit :)

Lynn

Lynn, I had friends who lived in the Antelope Valley here in California, years ago. Penny moved her roses around as often as she did her furniture, ANY time of year, no matter how hot or cold. That climate is probably about the closest to yours than most others represented on this forum. She knew intuitively to keep them well hydrated and she never lost one. She taught me over thirty years ago you can torture the crap out of most roses as long as you keep them wet enough. Kim

Love this thread!! And that picture of Blue Bayou is AMAZING, Diane!! I never knew such a rose existed.

I suspect that all the folks here who are great gardeners are also wonderful cooks ;)

That's funny Jim! I also love planting baby bands straight into the ground upon arrival. Of course I do make sure they are watered well first, and no I don't care if it's 90 outside! It's just too much fun and too much like opening a present on Christmas day! Never lost one like that yet!

Kentstar,

Our climate's just work well for planting baby bands straight into the ground.

I water well after there planted. Actually I start watering
while they are half planted into the soil so it soaks the roots real good.

Rabbit, thank you for the lovely comment on Blue Bayou. I'm going to pass it on to the photographer, my equally amazing 15 year old granddaughter whose summer job is to follow me around photographing every flower I point at in the garden. Thanks for your help, Clare. Nana

Does going out into the garden, completely oblivious to the fact that you forgot to brush your Afro, and walking around the garden looking like Don King count?

If so I broke a gardening rule this morning.

My neighbour looked as me strangely as we nattered over the fence drinking our morning cuppa. I didn't twig until 2 hours later when I came in to grab another cup of coffee and caught my reflection in the kitchen window.

It's fortunate I have no neighbors to observe some of my gardening attire--or lack thereof. I have been known to go out in my underwear.

And I am in rubber shoes, moustache, coffee, and cigarette Can get pretty bad in the summer....and I am FEMALE. Lol, you guys! So funny!

Floridarose, depending on your age and physique, that would not necessarily be a bad thing.
And, OMG, don king? Lololol