About Basic Care

Planting Plans

by Sue Streeper

About mid December you will find bare root roses in the nurseries. December and January are prime planting times for roses. Here is what you should do to get them off to a good start.

First, buy your rose from a nursery that has taken good care of the plant before it becomes yours. The best source is a nursery that sells out of sawdust bins. You can also expect good results from mail-order bare roots from established rose companies who want happy repeat customers. Less satisfactory are the packaged rose plants sold in grocery stores, drug stores, or some chain stores with nursery departments. Roots are severely pruned to fit into packages, and dehydration often occurs if the package sits on the shelf for weeks.

Whatever the source of the rose, it will benefit from a lengthy soak, top and bottom, in a large trash can of water. It should have at least overnight to hydrate, and even a week is okay. Don't plant a dried-out plant.

The hole you dig for your new rose should easily accommodate its roots. You will need a hole at least 14 inches deep and 18 inches wide. Mix three parts of native soil with one part of something organic like well-aged compost or bagged humus from the nursery. In the bottom of the hole spread a cup of superphosphate and a half cup of sulfate of potash. Don't take a chance with bone meal which is too basic for our alkaline soils. Bandini packages both superphosphate and sulfate of potash in reasonable-sized bags. Walter Andersen has a complete line of all of the necessary fertilizers in many sizes. Over those chemicals spread a thin layer of your planting dirt to keep the roots from direct contact with them. Then put a mound of planting soil in the middle of the hole as a support for the rose plant whose roots you will spread over it.

Before planting the rose, make a new cut on each of the roots to stimulate new growth. Cut off any broken or too-long roots. On the top of the plant, prune back the stub of the root stock so that it is flush with the bud union. Cut off completely any spindly or broken canes, but wait to prune the good canes until the plant has shoots an inch or so long. Then prune to the best-growing buds with emphasis on the outside of the plant.

Once your plant is on the mound, fill in the hole with your organically-enriched soil. Pat down gently but do most of the soil settling by watering in the hole. Let your hose eliminate any air pockets in the planting hole. Make sure your rose is planted as high as possible. You need to have the roots covered, but the bottom of the bud union should be about four inches above the soil grade at the time of planting. Natural settling of the plant plus addition of mulch later on will make it hard eventually to keep the bud union where it belongs-in the air and not buried. Water your new rose every two or three days for the first few weeks.

You should be rewarded for your efforts with a vigorously-growing rose bush this spring. You will get some growth out of the original canes, but your best growth will come as "basal breaks," canes right out of the bud union. At the end of the first year at pruning time, hopefully you will have enough new basal breaks that you can prune away the original canes which were on the bare root plant. That's how your rose keeps renewing itself with productive new strong growth.

Don't feed your new rose until it has put out leaves, probably in late February or March. Then you can feed it along with your established plants.

Planting from a can. If you are planting in the ground a plant which you have previously grown in a container, here is a method which minimizes transplant shock. Dig the hole just a little larger than the plastic can in which the rose is growing, but to the correct depth.. In the hole, place an identical empty can, fill in the spaces around it with soil, and water to settle the dirt. In a couple of days, remove the empty pot, carefully take the potted rose (pruned) out of its container, and fit it into the perfectlysized hole. The rose won't miss a beat!

This article was originally published in Rose Ramblings, Vol. LXXII No. 11, December, 1999. © 1999 San Diego Rose Society, Inc.

Keywords: Planting, Basic, Planning, Buying,