Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
With very short notice this week we had the first of our bare-rooted roses arrive.
This has caused a bit of chaos because all our citrus trees arrived as well, but it is nice to have them both in stock. It is only a small part of our rose order, so if you have a pre-order with us and have not had a call, your order might not be complete yet. The rose bare-root season is running later than usual because of the warm sunny days we had coming into the last few weeks of autumn.
Bare-rooted roses are grown and planted out in the ground in fields where they are able to grow quicker and with less care than pot-grown stock. The drawback to this is that for the health of the plant, they should not be dug out until they have gone dormant in winter, and the warm sunny days slowed this down.
Most roses today, whether bush, standard, climbers or weepers, are grown as budded stock. That is when a small bud of the desired variety of roses is inserted onto the stem of a vigorous rootstock plant. After the bud has had time to join onto the stem, the stem is cut back to just above the inserted bud, causing the new bud to shoot into the leaf and grow, taking over the existing plant. This gives you a more vigorous, uniform, healthy plant, true to the variety that the bud was taken from.
Most of the roses we sell are two years old, meaning they are two years old from the time the bud was inserted into the rootstock plant. This gives time for the new union to strengthen and develop some structure before the customer takes them home to plant. This is a far better option than a one-year-old plant, where, if not nurtured carefully, you can find that the bud union can come apart as the branch develops and puts stress on the joint.
When you purchase a bare-rooted plant, you need to always keep the roots damp, as your success rate of planting will diminish quickly if they are allowed to dry out. Once you get them home, they should be planted straight away or have their roots covered temporarily until you are ready to do so.
Roses like plenty of sun and good air movement around them, so choose a garden that has plenty of both and you will eliminate about half the problems that can sometimes come with roses. Both bush and standard roses should be planted at least 1.5m apart. This will give you just enough room to work around them as they mature.
When you are ready to plant your rose, the soil should be dug over and broken down into a fine crumbly structure. Incorporate a bit of compost as you go, building up a slightly raised garden bed. Dig a hole large enough to accommodate the roots without bunching them all together. Leave the roots spread out, backfill the hole and work the soil in and around the roots until completely covered, leaving the colour change on the stem at ground level. This is the mark the plants were buried to when they were growing in the field before lifting.
Once they are planted, you need to prune your roses back to good, healthy, outward-facing buds and remove any spindly unwanted branches. Your bare-rooted roses may look like they have been pruned when you purchased them, but they have only been chopped back for ease of handling, so they still do need a tidy-up. Standard roses will require staking at this point, but bush roses are fine to go without. Water the new plants in with a good soak, then in spring, sit back and smell the roses and enjoy what you have created.