Your worst rose mistakes
Rosylady (PNW zone 8)
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
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Melissa Northern Italy zone 8
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agoRelated Discussions
What have been some of your worst gardening mistakes?
Comments (65)My worst gardening mistake was when I was just starting, and had inherited an old, mature garden. The mistake was to get a lot of books on roses, and read them, and believe what they said! It took me a while to learn that only LOCAL advice re the size, habit, health, & pruning needs of roses was of any use (most of the books I got were written in England or the US East Coast - both equally useless as to facts about how roses grow here, but gorgeous pictures, etc.). The books were so authoritative, and stated things as facts, period, without any qualifications (except for Graham Thomas, bless him, who always said that this is what this rose does where I garden, but I have heard that it behaves differently elsewhere...) that I was intimidated into believing them. Only after years of having some of my ancient roses identified by wonderful people on this forum did I realize that they were not freaks of nature, but behaved exactly as you would expect such a rose to behave in our climate... Knowing how ignorant I was, and wanting so much to take good care of the garden I had inherited, I also unfortunately took the advice of the ARS and others about the need for spraying constantly, but only for one or two years - it was just too silly, and too much work, and I gave up. Then all of the bees and butterflies, etc came back, and the roses were still happy. So, the main lesson turned out to be to trust your own eyes about what is going on in your garden, what grows & doesn't grow, and what you like & don't like, and don't take any advice unless it is LOCAL! Jackie...See MorePhotos of Your Beginnings, Tales of Your Past Mistakes?
Comments (18)This is my second major garden, and I learned a lot of the basics with the first one. I didn't have the forum with my first garden, but I did have my horticulturalist sister, a keen gardener herself, who gave me lots of information, encouragement, and plants. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of either of my gardens; words will have to do. Things I learned: My first garden was in the Pacific Northwest, and I learned to love the old once-flowering roses there. At first I wanted repeat-blooming roses, but the more once-bloomers I grew, the more of them I wanted. They don't work everywhere, but in the PNW they're fabulous. I have and love them here as well, but they come into flower right when it's getting really hot, and so aren't as well suited to local conditions as in Washington. So the other thing I've learned is to grow roses suited to your local conditions. I'm gradually allowing Bourbons into my garden here: they did poorly in my first garden because they didn't have summer heat, while here they're great. I learned to plan for succession of bloom, rather than roses that bloom all year long (this is still a characteristic of temperate climates): here this means, more or less, spring bulbs, lilacs, tall bearded iris, peonies and roses, clematis, lavender and buddleia, dahlias, roses again. I found out that roses are drought tolerant plants that can happily go weeks without water; in fact, I found out that a lot of plants are more drought tolerant than I had supposed. Western Washington and the Italian foothills are both dry in summer. A lot of my mistakes in my first garden involved not siting plants correctly: not exploiting walls for warmth; putting shade plants in shade, sun plants in sun. For some reason, right from the beginning I gardened organically and didn't use the various poisons available to help the gardener; and I also believed in mulch and soil improvement from the start. I've never seen any reason to change this approach. I started gardening as a non-pruner, and have slowly learned how to prune as I went along. I think this is the healthiest path of development. As Henry Mitchell said, often the best thing the gardener can do is nothing. My gardening philosophy is minimalist: I do only what I think is necessary, always working toward a garden that will be relatively self-sustaining (I still have an enormous amount of labor, don't worry!). My sister introduced me to the writings of Henry Mitchell, among other things, so I read about garden design and plant selection from the start. I think this helped me avoid a lot of mistakes I might otherwise have made. I've learned here in Italy to be very wary of doing anything that might provoke a landslide. About roses, I've learned to look at the whole plant rather than at the flowers, and to take size estimates with plenty of salt. It's really hard to get an idea of what a rose is like without seeing a well-grown specimen at first hand. This is also quite terribly true of flower colors: photographs are untrustworthy. Melissa...See MoreBiggest rose growing mistakes
Comments (34)Mmm. Not digging over and amending my crummy, sandy soil enough; failing to really feed the roses, and biggest no-no, not understanding that enough sun is essential in the generally sunless uk - I took 'roses for shady locations' way, way too seriously! Also buying roses in advance of planting plans - I did a large scale relocation this winter and as a consequence have trashed the lawn, and rehomed a number of beauties, just for lack of space. To this catalogue of errors, I have to add: buying sad sympathy roses - what a perfect phrase brightstar123. Basically, I have succumbed to every error going....See MoreBest and worst roses for your soil and climate
Comments (198)Carol: Forgot to commend you on your walking at -30 C or -22 F. Wow!! I admire that. Two years ago it got down to -20 F, I ran out for few minutes to dump my compost into the garden, with gloves & hat, and my hands were in pain when I got back !! I'm moving my compost pile closer to the house this year. Our temp will be -7 F, or -21 C in a few days, I'm praying that my kid's school will close !! I was walking for weeks daily in the summer, and didn't lose weight. But I lost 8 lbs. during flu-shot reaction: drank lots of fluid & slept a lot & zero exercise. So I'm doing the lazy way with smoothie (BIG THANKS TO KHALID) .. my pants are looser. I prefer the lazy way: sleep a lot, drink fluids via smoothie, see Khalid's thread on smoothie below: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/4221380/breakfast-smoothies-with-rose-petals-and-rose-tea?n=48 Lavenderlace: I have been admiring your Twice in a Blue Moon and Singin' the Blue .. really wish Roses Unlimited would carry that. I'm into blue roses this year....See MorePlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoflowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA
6 years agoVaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agofig_insanity Z7b E TN
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoSheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoVaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agoflowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA
6 years agonikthegreek
6 years agoVaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
6 years agoSheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
6 years agoSheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
6 years agoingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
6 years agoLisa Adams
6 years agonippstress - zone 5 Nebraska
6 years agoflowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agoK S
6 years agoLisa Adams
6 years agoSheila z8a Rogue Valley OR
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoflowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA
6 years agonoseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque)
6 years agoK S
6 years agonoseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoLisa Adams
6 years agoflowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoflowersaremusic z5 Eastern WA
6 years agoLisa Adams
6 years agonikthegreek
6 years agowitchygirrl6bwv
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoVaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agowitchygirrl6bwv
6 years agoPlumeria Girl (Florida ,9b)
6 years agoLisa Adams
6 years ago
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