Rose ‘Distant Drums.’ Introduced in 1984, this plant has full mauve and mauve blend blossoms in clusters. It grows 4-5 feet high and 2-3 feet wide. (Courtesy Tom Karwin)
Rosa ‘Memorial Day.’ A hybrid tea rose known for its strong fragrance and 5 to 6-inch-wide orchid pink flowers with over 50 petals. It blooms continuously from spring to early fall. (Courtesy Tom Karwin)
Rose ‘Dortmund’. This Kordes rose has glossy green foliage and blooms in large clusters of medium red blossoms with a white eye, bright yellow stamens and as many as eight petals. Gardeners can grow this rose as a shrub or a climber. (Courtesy Tom Karwin)
Rosa ‘Day Breaker.’ This rose has dark green deciduous foliage and lightly scented
double peach flowers with pink tips and orange overtones. It blossoms from late spring to
early fall at the ends of branches. (Courtesy Tom Karwin)
Rosa ‘Mary Rose.’ One of the outstanding English roses, named for King Henry VIII’s flagship. This is an upright, well-branched, bushy, repeat-blooming plant with double 3 1/2-inch medium pink blooms with great fruity/myrrh fragrance. (Courtesy Tom Karwin)
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Rose ‘Distant Drums.’ Introduced in 1984, this plant has full mauve and mauve blend blossoms in clusters. It grows 4-5 feet high and 2-3 feet wide. (Courtesy Tom Karwin)
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Roses are going dormant, so the fall season is the time for annual care for roses in the garden.
Today’s column outlines seasonal tasks for pruning and propagating roses in the garden, as well as preparing to add roses to your landscape.
Today’s image gallery
These photos feature roses from my garden at or near peak bloom. While a great variety of roses exists, today’s samples only suggest the opportunity that gardeners have to explore and enjoy the world of roses.
Pruning roses in the fall
Local rose grower Joe Ghio reminds us that Pearl Harbor Day, Dec. 7, is a good time to begin the annual pruning of our roses.
Many garden roses bloom in clusters from nodes near the terminus of the cane. For these roses, trim the spent clusters rather than cut down to the true leaf. The secondary clusters will still be blooming after the primary cluster has finished.
Gardeners intend the annual pruning to shape and thin most garden roses. Focus on removing dead, broken or diseased canes, and then cut the remaining canes just above outward-facing buds to the desired length. There are multiple sources of more detailed pruning advice; see “Advance your garden knowledge” below.
A radically different approach to pruning is shearing the plant to about 18 inches in height. This is done by lopping the canes straight across the top, using hedge shears or other tools. Several years ago, England’s Royal Horticultural Society concluded that this approach “produces better rose bushes than the classical method” in terms of bloom, growth, health and overall performance.
Shearing your roses is undoubtedly faster than detailed cane-by-cane pruning, especially if you have overgrown plants in your garden. It seems relatively brutal, but worth trying.
Climbers and ramblers call for a different approach to pruning. For these kinds of roses, the objective is to encourage horizontal branches, because they generate lateral branches producing lots of blossoms. Train the horizontal branches on a trellis or other support and remove canes that are growing upwards.
Climbers generally are repeat bloomers during the summer, so gardeners should deadhead them until the last group of blossoms has finished and then prune for shape.
Ramblers typically have one main flush of flowers in the summer, so gardeners can prune them after the flowers have faded. Ramblers are vigorous growers that can produce a mass of tangled stems. A popular variety is the Banksia rose, named after botanist Sir Joseph Banks’ wife. In late summer or early autumn, remove one-third of the older stems, cutting them to the ground.
Propagating roses
When your rose has finished blooming, it’s a good time to take cuttings to add roses to your garden or share plants with other gardeners. Propagating roses involves a straightforward process:
After a rose’s last flowers have faded, cut 6- to 8-inch-long pieces of flexible, pencil-thick new wood, removing the leaves except for a few at the top.
Fill nursery pots with 6 inches of dampened garden mix, adding perlite for adequate drainage.
Stick the cuttings into the pots, with at least two leaf nodes in the soil.
Place the pot in a plastic bag, seal it to maintain high humidity and put it in a sunny spot with some shade during the hottest part of the day. Open the bag every few days to check that the soil remains moist (not wet).
After about two weeks, the cutting will develop roots and new growth and be ready for a new home.
Propagating your plants is an enjoyable and inexpensive practice that yields new plants at no cost, qualifying you as a proper gardener.
Adding roses to your garden
Gardeners often begin adding roses to their garden by opening a printed or online catalog from a rose grower, or by visiting a local garden center to see what’s available.
A better approach to adding roses begins with identifying the location where you will install new roses. The area should receive six to eight hours of sunlight daily, and well-drained, slightly acidic soil rich in organic matter.
The next consideration is the type of rose that would be suitable for the location and the garden’s landscape. The world of roses encompasses several distinct kinds of plants, each with its own unique role in the garden. The following list focuses on height and width. For more information on types of roses, visit tinyurl.com/bdfvppx2.
• Hybrid tea roses: 3 to 6 feet tall; 2 to 3 feet wide.
• Floribunda roses: 2.5 to 5 feet high; 2 to 4 feet wide.
• Grandiflora roses: 4 to 6 feet high.
• Climbing roses: 8 to 15 feet tall; up to 6 feet wide.
• Shrub roses: 3 to 5 feet tall; 3 to 4 feet wide.
• Miniature roses: 12 to 24 inches tall; 12 to 18 inches wide.
• Ground Cover roses: 12 to 24 inches; 3 to 4 feet wide.
• Tree rose: 3 to 5 feet high.
• Old garden roses (Heirloom Roses): 3 to 6 feet high; wide spread.
• English roses (David Austin Roses): 3 to 6 feet high.
• Polyantha roses: 1.5 to 3 feet high; 2 to 4 feet wide.
Wild roses (species roses): For info on California’s most popular wild rose, visit calscape.org/Rosa-californica-(California-Wildrose). Rosa californica can grow 8-10 feet high and 10 feet wide. After trying to control it for a while, I eventually eradicated it from my garden.
Once you know where to add a rose, the suitable site and the appropriate type for your selected site, you are ready to find a rose with blossoms that appeal to your individual preference.
Advance your gardening knowledge
Roses are enormously popular garden subjects, so there are many sources of information to support the successful cultivation of roses in your garden. The premier online resource is the American Rose Society (rose.org), which has information about all aspects of roses.
Some of the principal rose suppliers present online descriptions of cultivars and videos on rose cultivation. Some useful websites are jacksonandperkins.com, heirloomroses.com and highcountryroses.com. There are others, of course.
For more targeted information, visit YouTube and search for your current interest, such as “propagating roses,” “cultivating roses” or “pruning roses,” among other options.
Mark your calendar
Reminder: the Monterey Bay Area Cactus and Succulent Society’s monthly meeting will be on Sunday at the Corralitos Grange Hall, 165 Little Corral Way, Corralitos. Free parking is available, and the building is ADA-accessible. The meeting doors open at 11 a.m. for a bring-your-own luncheon, and the meeting starts at 12:30 p.m. The November meeting will feature Steven McCabe’s talk, “New and Old Adventures in Dudleya.”
“Exploring remote locations to try to find new species and decipher relationships between species can often get researchers into challenging situations on the sides of cliffs or in sketchy boats,” McCade said. “I have braved rough seas, steep climbs and close encounters with dangerous wildlife as part of the process of naming five species new to science. While describing these adventures, I will also discuss the many endangered species of Dudleya (also known as liveforevers) and how to grow them successfully.”
Enjoy your garden, especially your roses!
Tom Karwin is a past president of Friends of the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and the Monterey Bay Iris Society, a past president and Lifetime Member of the Monterey Bay Area Cactus & Succulent Society, a Lifetime UC Master Gardener (certified 1999-2009), past board member of the Santa Cruz Hostel Society and a current member of the Pacific Horticultural Society and other garden-related societies. To review the archive of recent On Gardening columns, visit santacruzsentinel.com and search “Karwin.” Visit ongardening.com to review columns from 2012-2020 (and eventually) from the following years. Please send comments or questions to gardening@karwin.com via email.
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