Questions & Answers

Q: I plan to enlarge my Roses Garden in the Spring, but can you suggest anything to help keep the Deer from eating the buds, they seem tobe able to enjoy them more than I can because they always eat them just befor they bud out.

A: There are several ways to try to keep deer away from roses. One is to sprinkle blood meal around the perimeter of the rose beds. This will generally keep bambi away from roses until there is a good rain and the blood meal washes away. There are also different chemicals available in garden stores, which keep bambi away. Ropel and Hinder are 2 such chemicals. As always the consumer should be aware that thses are toxic chemicals and they should be used and stored in a manner specified on the manufacturer's label.

Q: Why does my normally white 'John F. Kennedy' sometimes get pink polka-dots?

A: It's similar t o people getting freckles. At certain times of the year, and in certain weather, light colored roses will develop reddish spots. It happens not only to white roses blossoms, but to light
pinks and lavenders as well.

Spots may be caused by dew or moisture sitting on the petals when the sun is intense, as is often the case in the fall. The drops cause the pigments, even those normally not visible, to intensify in that spot - like a freckle - to protect the tissue from the sunlight. You could call it a kind of rose sunburn.

The dots seem most likely to appear when there are sudden fluctuations in the weather, such as cool nights followed by brilliant Santa Ana days.

You can avoid the problem, by picking the roses early in the day before the sun hits them, when the buds are about one-third open. The spots are most noticeable on fully opened rose blossoms that are several days old.

                   Varieties

Hybrid Tea
Large flowers generally borne one per stem, medium to tall in habit, long cutting stems.

Floribunda
Medium sized flowers often more compact in habit, medium length stems.

Grandiflora
Large flowers borne in clusters usually taller in habit, individual stems within each cluster are suitable or cutting.

Modern Antiques™
The flowers possess the nostalgia, fragrance and romance of the old heritage roses. But the plants are more naturally disease-resistant, far more compact in habit, and flower repeatedly throughout the entire growing season.

Striped Accents™
Very showy unique striped color combinations typify the flowers.The plants are different categories for every landscape use-small Shrubs,large Shrubs, flowerful Floribundas and spreading Climbers.

Shrubs
Free blooming plants with differing flower sizes and forms, broadly varying in mature size but of full bushy attractive habit,usually good disease resistance and hardiness.

Shrublets™
Shrublets™ are roses of varying habits which are never too big to tuck into restricted garden spaces.

Climbers
Roses whose long canes can be trained along fences or walls, variable in flower size, form and mature habit.

Rugosas & Foetidas
Species or near-species roses valued for their hardiness old fashioned flowers and fountainous habitsMany are available on their own roots.

Miniatures
Small flowered roses with proportionately smaller foliage,often very compact in habit, stems are also shorter but still suitable for cutting.

Polyanthas
Small flowers borne in very large clusters, usually compact in habit, medium-short stems.

                        Tip

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             Glossary

AARS: All American Rose Selection

Blade: the broad part of a leaf

Bract: a modified or reduced leaf that occurs beneath and next to a peduncle

Bud union: the swollen part of the stem where the scion of a grafted rose meets the under stock

Calyx: the protective cover of a rose flower, composed o the sepals

Cane: one of the main stems of a rose plant

Corolla: the petals of a rose flower considered as a single unit

Cultivar: a named rose variety exhibiting distinct and consistent features, indicated by single quotation marks

Hip: the fruit of a rose Inflorescence: the flowering part of a plant; a rose inflorescence may bear single or multiple flowers

Leaflet: the individual segment of a compound rose leaf

Node: the point on a stem from which leaves and buds emerge

Old rose: strictly speaking, a rose introduced before 1867, but more loosely used to describe any rose grown or introduced before 1900

Once-blooming: a rose that flowers only once in early summer and does not repeat

Own root: a rose propagated as a cutting rather than by grafting

Peduncle: a stalk that supports a single flower or flower cluster Petal: the showy, usually colored part of a flower

Petiole: the stalk by which a leaf attaches to a stem; also leafstalk

Pistil: the female reproductive organ of a flower, consisting of an ovary, style, and stigma

Prickle: the technical term for a rose thorn

Remontant: blooming more than once a season; also recurrent

Rootstock: the root portion of a plant onto which the scion is grafted; also under stock

Scion: a shoot grafted onto a rootstock; the "top" of a grafted rose

Sepal: one of the five individual, leaflike divisions of the calyx

Sport: a spontaneous genetic mutation, often resulting in a plant that bears flowers of a different color or with more or fewer petals than the original plant

Stamen: the male reproductive organ of a flower, consisting of a filament and anther

Stipule: a small, leaf like appendage that occurs at the base of the petiole

Sucker: a stem, usually unwanted, that originates from a rootstock