Caring for English Roses

Posted on by jeanmariemorelli.com
English Rose, Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl , English shrub rose bred by David Austin

This post focuses on modern shrub roses bred by David Austin, a premiere rose breeder who introduced over 190 cultivars in his lifetime. Known as English Roses, these plants are crosses of old garden roses with modern hybrids. ‘Old Garden Roses’ originated before the 18th century. Examples  of OGR include Gallicas, Albas, Bourbons, and Damask. Unfortunately, these incredibly fragrant roses only bloom for a couple of weeks once a year.

Modern roses include hybrid tea, polyantha, and floribunda, shrubs and climbers. Most modern roses are repeat bloomers in six-to-eight week cycles. Many of the hybrid roses are prone to disease and require a stringent spray regime to keep them healthy. Modern shrub roses have been bred from old fashioned roses with the added features of disease resistance, repeat blooming and a wider range of colors. These roses have a more natural form of arching canes with many flowers whereas hybrid teas and floribundas have a stiffer form. Long-stemmed florist rose are usually hybrid tea.

English shrub roses come in all different forms from peony-like full blooms to simple single petal flowers. Other shrub roses include all the rugosa roses, wild roses like our native Nootka rose and many others. I don’t have time here to do these roses justice!

Cultivating Roses

Provide good drainage and fertile soil with plenty of compost. Six hours of full sunlight will allow the roses to flower fully. Water weekly at the base of the shrub. Mulch to conserve moisture.

Deadheading is the term for removing spent flowers. Removing the first flush of blooms not only encourages more blooms but also helps to shape the shrub into a graceful form. I use Felcos #2, but any by-pass clippers work well. Sharpen the blade and then and sanitize it with hydrogen peroxide or alcohol. Always clean before starting to prevent the spread of disease. If you note disease where you need to prune, wipe the blade frequently. Removing the spent flowers prevents the development of rosehips and seed formation. Resist the urge to prune immediately below the spent flower; this results in dieback, stubby dead stems. Pruning at a leaf with 3-leaflets results in dog-legs—many spindly short stems. Instead, look for a thicker stem and make the cut just above a leaf with five leaflets. This encourages robust flowers on longer stems, perfect for cut flowers.

Even though English shrub roses are disease-resistant, they can still suffer from black spot. This fungal disease spreads by splashing water. Irrigate at the base of the plant and handpick diseased leaves and dispose of them. Make sure their is plenty of air circulation. If you need to spray, Safer brand has a fungicide. In the autumn rake and destroy all fallen leaves. If autumn is not getting gradually colder with light frosts, monitor the rose. If it continues to flower into October, stop deadheading and allow rose hips to form; the enzymes and hormones might trigger a dormancy response. By early December, strip the leaves to force the rose into dormancy. If we suddenly get slammed with an arctic blast, it is better for the plant to be dormant. Pruning is best done in February—something for another post.

Learn more about these roses with a free download from David Austin Roses: English rose handbook

Groundcovers for Sustainable Gardens

Posted on by jeanmariemorelli.com
Cascade Oregon Grape, a native groundcover
Cascade Oregon Grape, native groundcover

Sometimes called ‘living mulch’, there are many reasons to choose groundcovers, from covering challenging slopes; to reducing garden maintenance and water consumption; to simply knitting together the landscape. They offer excellent solutions to landscape challenges but groundcovers are not maintenance-free.

Woody Groundcovers

A popular native woody plant is Kinnikinnick, Arctostaphylos uva ursi. Another is Cascade mahonia, Mahonia nervosa. Other standard choices are Taiwan Bramble, Rubus calycinoides and  Pt. Reyes Ceanothus, C. gloriosus.

Emerald Carpet or Creeping Taiwan Bramble, a drought-tolerant plant

As these plants get established they need regular weeding, especially to prevent perennial weeds from getting a foothold. Fertilizing with compost or dry organic blends encourages the plants to grow. Mulching with woodchips or arborist chips reduces the need for watering. Cover bare ground with 2-3 inches of mulch, but don’t bury the crowns (where stem meets root) or go back after and brush mulch away from the crown. The very fastest groundcovers, especially those planted closer than the recommended spacing will not need much additional mulch. But slower groundcovers like Kinnikinnick or bearberry cotoneaster (C. dammeri ) will need more mulch in about three years.

For  woody groundcovers to look their best, prune once or twice a year. Prune back leggy stems to make denser coverage. (The principle is the same as tip-pruning house plants or perennials. It works by removing the plant hormone or auxin in the stem’s tip that maintains apical dominance.) Also, if your goal is a carpet effect, prune out vertical branches.

Herbaceous Groundcovers

These plants are not as tough as woody plants. If the foliage forms dense mats often this shades the soil and prevents weed seeds from germinating.

The smaller the foliage the more work to keep out grass and tiny weeds. If your garden is on a city lot then tiny foliage can work, just plant smaller groupings. There was a time when many people planted  chamomile or woolly thyme as small lawns, however they require regular weeding. If you plant lots of annual flowers that readily reseed themselves, herbaceous groundcovers with tiny foliage will take much more work to maintain because they will easily harbor germinating seedlings.

Natives include evergreen coastal strawberry Fargeria chiloensis, inside-out flower, Vancouveria hexandra and redwood sorrel, Oxalis oregana,  and stonecrop, Sedum spathufolium. Non-native groundcovers include many Epimediums, and Geraniums. A low maintenance herbaceous groundcover for shade is hardy geranium or Geranium macrorrhizum, especially the magenta pink ‘Bevan’s Variety’ makes a dense mat of foliage that is deer-resistant. It does require a little water during dry summers.

Plants don’t have to form low carpets to be a groundcover. Distinctive foliage is a good reason to mass plants together. Under conifers the western sword fern is attractive. Larger perennials like Corsican Hellebore, Helleborus argutifolius make a bold statement. Pools of ornamental grasses offer ribbons of texture that can ripple in the wind.

Goumi in my garden

Posted on by jeanmariemorelli.com

One of my favorite permaculture shrubs is Goumi, Elaeagnus multiflora. This multifunctional plant is easy to grow! The fragrant tiny yellow flowers bloom in April, followed by astringent and sweet fruit by the end of June. In 2018 I ordered plants from One Green World and they recommend planting two varieties, so I planted two Sweet Scarlet and two Red Gem. The former is more robust with dense foliage that hides the fruit from the birds whereas Red Gem has a more open framework, with less foliage and is more productive. If you have limited space and prefer to cook the fruit with a sweetener, then Red Gem is a winner. I mostly eat the fruit raw and share the crop with birds. For the sweetest flavor wait until the fruit is a deeper red.

The genus Elaeagnus is recognized for having a symbiotic bacteria, Frankia that grows in the soil and fixes nitrogen from the air, making it available to the plant. I prune Sweet Scarlet several times a season and use the leafing branches as compost.

Goumi, an Asian native has been cultivated here for at least one hundred years. In Japan it is known as natsugumi. The fruits of this shrub are high in lycopene I wrote a more thorough account here

June 2024 Garden Chores

Posted on by jeanmariemorelli.com

The garden is a riot of blooms bursting with color. Let’s take a look at English garden roses, one of my favorite. Goumi, the earliest fruit in my garden has a sweet-tart flavor that I love to nibble. The garden is alive with bird songs! Robins in the garden are fun to watch as adults seek out worms and their fledglings beg for food.

By now in the vegetable garden, the cool season crops are producing and warm season crops are in the ground. Before the month is out we will be preparing for the winter garden.

Edibles

Tomatoes: Begin training indeterminate tomatoes. Train a couple of main stems. When new shoots form between the main stems and a leaf, pinch out these suckers. There will be less fruit but they will ripen sooner. Remove some foliage if it is excessive but leave some to protect the fruits from sun-scald.

Vegetable Pests: Watch for signs of leaf miners on spinach, beets and Swiss chard. The larvae form tunnels between the layers of leaves that look like yellow trails and pockets. As the fly larvae metabolize the plant they deposit black frass. Hand pick the leaves and trash them. Don’t place them in compost!

Swiss chard leaf with yellow spot indicating leaf borer within.
Leaf miner maggots visible on top left. The top layer of leaf was peeled back to reveal these fly larvae.

Garlic: Harvest scapes ( curvy shoots with flowering head) Stop watering when leaves start to turn yellow. Harvest when only 4 leaves are still green, or the bottom 1/3 of foliage is yellow. For longer storage, cure (dry) garlic with the tops and roots for several weeks, allowing nutrients into the bulb. Cut tops and roots leaving as much skins to protect garlic bulbs.Prevent the spread of garlic rust fungus by starting with certified disease-free bulbs, rotate crops and use a mulch of arborist chips to prevent rust from establishing in soil.

Asparagus:  Mature fronds can get top heavy and fall, sometimes snapping at the base. For attractive plants in an edible landscape stake individual plants or prop up with bamboo. For asparagus in rows place a metal t post at each end and run jute twine between the posts. To keep the plants together weave the string between plants. In the fall when the shoots die to the ground, the jute can go into the compost along with the dead asparagus.

Fruit Trees: Thin fruit, and watch for signs of fungal disease that spreads by splashing water. Use neem oil spray or sulfur powder. Look for and destroy tent caterpillars. Patrol for slugs and snails.

Winter vegetable garden It can be confusing to newbie gardeners that just as the summer solstice arrives, we begin sowing seeds for winter harvest! Sow brassicas  including winter cabbage, kale, and purple sprouting broccoli. from mid- to late June. If you miss this window, buy vegetable starts at the coop next month. Purple sprouting broccoli is the most successful winter broccoli with its small and numerous shoots. Early July is time to sow the following: carrots, beets, Swiss chard, kohlrabi and radicchio. (Crops for late fall harvest grows through the autumn equinox and then growth slows almost to a standstill.)

Ornamental Plants

Deadhead Rhododendron. By gently snapping off the flower cluster, seeds won’t form, instead we allow the shrub’s energy to be directed into growing foliage and starting next year’s flower buds.

Perennial Flowers: Some late summer and fall- blooming perennials, pinch back now for sturdier and shorter stems. Remove the top 1/3 of the following plant Asters, mums, beebalm (Monarda),  and Joe-Pye weed.

Fungal diseases are exacerbated by rain. Powdery mildew is not one disease but a symptom.Caused by different fungal diseases, the symptom is white circular patterns with a powdery texture, becomes gray or brown over time. The disease is more than cosmetic; it inhibits photosynthesis. It can overwinter in buds and also on dropped infected foliage on the ground. Humid weather and crowded conditions that cause stagnant air encourages fungal growth. Neem oil or sulfur can be effective when used  at first signs. Safer brand Fungicide is another option.

Winter Injury: By now many plants have recovered from the winter. Evergreen shrubs that dropped foliage are now leafing out. Old stands of red-hot-poker that completely died to the ground with many rhizomes turning to mush are now leafing out. All these plants require monitoring, removing dead wood and watering during dry spells.