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MRS Meeting Report: March 9, 2002

March Meeting of the Maine Rose Society Minutes: Barron Center Portland Maine, 3/9/02 at 1PM

The March meeting of the Maine Rose Society was held at the Barron Center, Portland Maine with 8 members and 4 guests present to hear an excellent talk entitled Growing Roses:202, by John Mattia, accompanied by his wife Gerry. Growing Roses: 202 reached beyond basic rose growing to share John’s experience by trial and error, and extensive discussions with other rose growers, with members and guests of the Maine Rose Society.

Clarence Rhodes created a festive atmosphere for the talk by presenting chocolate roses on a stick, to members and guest, brought a plotted miniature rose Windsong with an amazing number of buds that he forced in a greenhouse getting it ready for next weeks Portland Flower Show, and flew helium filled pink balloons with the Year of the Rose 2002 logo printed on the side.

Growing Roses: 202 - Short Cuts Special Techniques to Grow Super Roses - by John Mattia.

John Mattia

Summarized and compiled by Jerry Cinnamon

Origins

John began growing roses in 1965 when his brother gave him two rose bushes. He planted these beneath a tree in deep shade and found that one died, while the other continued growing, without flowering. In August of the second year, he saw a spot of color on this plant from a distance and discovered a beautiful bloom as he approached the plant that he learned was named Peace. This rose started his passion for growing roses that continues today. He relocated his surviving Peace into a sunny location, and in 1978 he won Novice Trophy at the New England Rose Show with bloom from the original plant. From this experience, he learned that in growing roses “Location, Location, Location” - facing south and well protected from the elements was a primary key.

After trying many techniques of winterizing, John now believes that nature’s way is the best way for winterizing at his Connecticut home, with the understanding that “she rarely cooperates”. This works best if the plant is covered by a foot of snow on November 15 that stays until March 15. Mounding is a key to winterization of the rose when winter doesn’t quite cooperate, as we would like.

Cold Hardiness

A portion of John’s talk comes from a paper on Cold Hardiness by the University of Minnesota. John’s talk pointed to this excellent study, containing graphs and photographs of cold injured plants, found at http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/components/6594-04.html, and extended these findings with his experience.

Plants undergo three stages of cold hardiness, as illustrated in the graphs below and discussed in the text that follows. The stages of cold hardiness are 1) acclimation triggered late in the growing season by decreasing photoperiod as day lengths shorten, and as temperatures decline. These environmental cues induce physiological and biochemical changes in the plant that result in greater cold tolerance, 2) mid-winter hardiness when the plant has reached it maximum hardiness level, and 3) deacclimation occurs when there is a decrease in the hardiness of plant tissue in response to warming temperatures in late winter and early spring. Damage occurs to a plant in the Fall when temperature drops too rapidly for the plant to acclimate, or in mid-winter when the plant’s maximum acclimation is not sufficient to cope with minimum winter temperatures, or in late winter or early spring when the plant deacclimates in response to warm temperatures, after which the temperature drops rapidly again. Spring warm-ups followed by refreezing may harm the plant.

When a plant’s winter hardiness ratings are below the minimum temperatures which can be expected for a location, the plant’s canes will not be injured (Plant A). When hardiness ratings intersect the minimum temperature line, cane injury occurs.

The article contains excellent photographs of damage to the living part of the plant wall or Cambia caused by lack of cold hardiness. This is shown below as the brown area in the plant wall. For reference, thorns are visible on the outside of the cane that has been sliced open to reveal the plant wall (Cambia).

Cane section shows discoloration caused by freeing injury. Univ. Minnesota

The original article shows tip damage, dieback to snowline, and other interesting phenomena in photographs.

Trial and Error

Mounds and Voles

John has tried cones, trash cans with the bottom cut out, and soil mounds for winterizing. A soil mound is his current method of choice. He avoids bark mulch because it takes Nitrogen out of the soil as it decays. Voles will also like to live in the bark mulch, a warm sheltered spot, for the winter. You can recognize Vole activity by a network of tunnels around the plants that lead to holes at the base of the plant as the snow melts. Voles will eat the green part of the plant stem causing damage. As a note, Sari and I discovered Vole activity and networks in our garden just before John’s talk, but the first good rain destroyed the network. To check for Vole activity over winter, examine the ground just as the snow melts. John has placed 5-gallon plastic containers over the Vole entrance hole and placed a mousetrap under the container. The blind Vole comes out of the hole and wanders into the mousetrap. Voles will not live in soil mounds. If you do use mulch, wait for the ground to freeze first, so that they cannot tunnel through the frozen ground.

Old Pots Never Die

John keeps his old pots for reuse. He normally cuts plastic pots up the size to remove a plant. By taking the bottom out so that the side only remains, you can also use these to hill up a newly planted rose. Circle the plant with the pot side (bottom cut out) and fill it with soil to cover the canes - this prevents canes from both drying out and possibly sun burning during the period in which the roots are becoming established. John also uses a slotted lawn chair to place over the newly planted rose. This gives partial shade that also prevents drying out - in this way you do not need to hill up so high to cut down on drying out.

Periodically in his talk John interspersed slides of roses, the first was “Nicole” introduced with Johns caption of the “Best Floribunda Out”.

Boxed Roses

Boxed roses have a bad reputation among rosarians, but this is often how we all bought our first rose on an impulse buy. Box roses may dry out as the season moves into June, so buy them very early and take them home and store in a dark cold place such as the garage until you can plant them. Water them every 8 to 10 days, and plant them as soon as the ground thaws out. John showed slides of a visit to Jackson and Perkins where beautiful bare roots roses were taken into the processing plant, and the majority of the roots cut off to put into the box. This helps in shipping, but not in growing. Wax on these roses are also placed on at the factory is place there to keep the canes from drying out during transportation, and affects only the first year canes. By next year new canes grow without the wax.

Homemade Labor Saving Tool for cleaning beds in the spring

John showed a homemade tool to pick up leaves from the base of plants without bending over. This consists of a rectangular block of wood with nails driven through it, backed by another block of wood with a handle attached. The handle lets John reach to ground level where he spears the leaves with the nails. The device looks something like the illustration in this exploded drawing.

John Mattia’s Labor Saving Device for Picking Up Garden Debris

Thoughts on Fertilizing

John uses Brand X 10-10-10 or 5-10-10, and does not use designer fertilizers. Here the three numbers are the major or macronutrients Nitrogen (N)-Phosphorous (P)-Potassium (K). He says that “roses, like people, intake only those nutrients that they need”. When asked about micronutrients, John indicates that normal intake of leaves and grass clippings that have been incorporated into the soil through time add these here in the Northeast. If you are dealing with soil fill or are growing roses for competition then maybe you need to pay attention to the micronutrients. John fertilizes three times a year, in early May, early June, and early July. This works for the average grower, whereas individuals growing roses for competition will fertilize on a more frequent schedule and later into the season. Normally, you should not fertilize in August so that any new canes have time to acclimatize or “harden” before winter sets in, so as to prevent cold injury discussed above. Exhibitors may fertilize later but need to take extra care to prevent injury.

John checks pH twice a year, and adds lime when the pH falls below 6.0, although most books tell you to do so when pH falls below 6.6. He sends his soil out to the extension service to check where he finds consistency based on sending sample to variously laboratories, but finds that handheld meters sold for home use can be off by a whole pH number. Since lime takes 6 months to work you add lime at the end of a season for next years effect.

As additional thoughts on fertilizing, Johns says that there is no such thing as a special rose fertilizer, and that all are broken down into the NPK basic elements to be absorbed by roots.

John’s Secret Ingredient

The secret ingredient is home made compost. John buys 50-foot sections of 2 x 4 inch fence and cuts this into 12.5foot lengths from which he forms circular bins, placing an old carpet on the ground to keep out tree roots. He dumps organics into the bin, running the lawn mower over leaves to break them into smaller pieces for bacteria to attach. He avoids food waste as it attracts varmints, but adds leaves, lawn clippings, and pine needles. In the second year he turns the material into a second bin, and in the third year he uses the compost. This is simple and not much work for a large value when compared to commercial product. The compost adds richness to his roses, and the micronutrients needed.

Burning Root Hairs

The growing tips of root hairs can be “burned” by fertilizer unless you wet the soil well before applying fertilizer. To both understand and avoid “burned” root hairs a bit of understanding of the process by which plant take up fertilizer is in order. First nutrients are absorbed at the growing tips of root hairs by a process that includes that of osmosis. If the soil is dry when fertilizers are applied there is a heavy concentration of the nutrient inside the plant and a lesser concentration outside the plant. This will draw both water and nutrients out of the plant and starve the rose. By watering the plant before applying the fertilizer you create a more balanced situation between the plant and soil. Then when you apply fertilizer you create enrichment in the soil, followed by movement into the plant where the plant puts the ingredient to work in the process of growing.

“ Elina” - is currently the best show rose in New England. This is one of John’s interspersed slides of good roses.

Why Plants Grow Old and Suckers Occur

John has developed theories and thoughts on why plants grow old and suckers occur. Well growing roses have many root hairs, and variability in the original rootstock has a lot to do with this. John grows his own rootstock and finds that one-third has exceptionally well developed root hairs, one third is average, and one third is substandard. If you have a plant that is doing poorly, and you dig it up and find poor root hair development, it may well not be worth the effort to work with, and a new plant may bring greater rewards in the long run.

John believes that “Most suckers are caused by plant-induced wounds”. His theory is that the roots grow in opposing directions and cause a wound in the area of greatest tension in the plant. This wound is healed with a white spongy material that is “undifferentiated tissue”, that you might normally find on the bottom of the roots. Undifferentiated material has the property of not being predetermined as to what part of the plant it will become, and can become either a root or stem. Normally plant roots grow from this material, but in the area of the wound stems occasionally grow. Since the area where the undifferentiated material becomes a stem occurs on the rootstock below the grafted bud union, a sucker occurs. My attempt to draw this process based on John’s slide and description is below.

Sucker Origin: The process of wounding, healing with undifferentiated material, that develops into stems rather than roots, as discussed by John Mattia.

Damage to Roses

Deer

John discussed damage to roses from a number of sources. Deer cause damage and John has been able to deter them from his garden just by hanging a single strand of rope around the garden. He suggests that they do not like touching this and leave.

Might Mites

The “mighty mite” causes damage. Action occurs on the back of the leaf where they hang out, as elsewhere on the plant, because it is dry. The European Two Spotted Mites cause rust coloration on the edge of leaves, and where ever they hang out. John showed slides of these mites as they over winter on plant leaves. He was able to show their presence on a slide taken in the middle of the winter. They also like to live on Chick Weed, so you might consider pulling this up if present.

Sprayer Damage

Sprayer damage can be caused by using a sprayer for fertilizing after using it for killing weeds. It is difficult to clean out the sprayer and separate sprayers should be used for these purposes. John cited a case of being called to a garden in a fairly exclusive home where the leaves were misshapen. In talking to the gardener he discovered that a common sprayer was used for both weed killer and fertilizing.

Invasive Insects, Bacteria, and Rust

John showed slides of Witches Broom, Robbins nest resulting from wasp damage, and aphid borers - a specialized wasp that bores into the ends of canes to eat aphids. John was willing to put up with the small amount of cane damage in order to get the benefits of eaten aphids. John finished his show with slides of Longhorn Beetle damage, and Rust introduced from the west coast where this is a problem. The rust cannot over winter here, so it is a problem only for first year plants that are usually of west coast origin. Now he takes new roses coming in from the west coast and dips the entire plant for three second or so in bleach enriched water.

Sunburned Roses

John showed slides of “sunburned” rose canes. These appear to be rose canker, a disease that kills the cane, but growth occurs above the bare brown stem, and healthy stems and leaves can come from the stem.

Root Galls

John completed his presentation with root gall where bacteria in the ground have the ability to take its protoplasm and put it into the plant protoplasm. This is interesting to medical studies, because this is what human cancers do. If the gall is small take a sharp knife and cut it off along with some of the plant wall, and then swab the drug “Bacitracin” into the wound. If the gall is large perhaps it is better to dig up the plant and replace it. John does not worry about replacing the soil to get rid of the bacteria.

“Memorire” - a white rose; another one of John’s special roses that is doing well in shows.

by MRS secretary: Jerry Cinnamon, March 11^th, 2002