With a little planning and patience, your garden will be blooming
If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “I can’t grow roses because…” I could buy a lot more roses. I’m not looking through rose-coloured glasses here, because there certainly are roses that are challenging to grow in Atlantic Canada, but there are also plenty tough enough to withstand our capricious climate with a little judicious selection and planning.
Part of the challenge in growing roses is in how they’re propagated. For many years, commercially grown roses, especially hybrid teas, grandifloras and floribundas, have been grown as grafted plants, with the desired hybrid being grafted on to a hardy, vigorous rootstock of another species of rose.
That graft union is naturally the weakest part of the plant, susceptible to damage from cold or disease. Sometimes the top part of the rose dies, leaving only the rootstock coming up, and producing radically different roses from the originals. And sometimes, the rootstock suckers and overwhelms the grafted variety above it.
Roses grown on their own roots don’t grow large as quickly as grafted roses, but they’re much hardier and able to withstand the vagaries of the Atlantic Canadian climate. Such roses will generally be labeled at the nursery (look for the initials OR on the plant tag). It may take several years for them to reach a significant size with plenty of blooms, but there’s less chance of losing them in a harsh winter season. Let me stress—less chance, not no chance. Any living plant can die despite the best care in the world. It’s ok; it’s not your fault. Just plant something else, or if you’re stubborn like some of us, try the same variety again, in another location.
I’ve learned a great deal about growing roses over the past number of years, including from my friend Catherine Neily of Falmouth, NS. Catherine has hundreds of roses on her rural property, and often hosts garden tours during peak-bloom periods. Most of her roses are planted in raised beds to compensate for heavy soil, and her garden is drenched in sunlight throughout the day. Although she does occasionally succumb to the urge to try a new rose that’s grafted, she stresses that such roses have to be planted so that the graft is buried deeply, at least six inches, and even then there is no guarantee that a cold snap won’t kill the rose. “But when we want a rose that we really want, we have to try, don’t we?” she says.
Catherine’s roses include some very old species and cultivars, some tried-and-true tough roses and some of the glorious English roses bred by famous British rose-breeder, David Austin.
This past winter was a challenging one for rose enthusiasts throughout the region, between the snow load and the bitterly cold temperatures. Bob Osborne operates Corn Hill Nursery in Corn Hill, NB, about a 45-minute drive from Moncton, and is well known for the extensive collection of roses that he offers for sale. Bob’s roses grow on their own roots and without pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers—he uses compost, crab meal and generous applications of mulch on his field-grown plants. He told me that he had a tremendous amount of winterkill on the half-hardy roses, especially new varieties that have been touted as being hardy. “Just goes to show that you need about 15 years before you can truly judge a variety,” he says.
The old real-estate mantra “location, location, location” is especially true for roses, with the mantra being adapted to “sun, sun, sun.” You want to get as much bloom as possible out of your plants, and they’ll soak up all the sun you can give them. There are varieties that will tolerate some shade. I used to have a Snow Pavement in a shady location and it did fine, but didn’t flower as much as the plant that was in full sun.
Roses prefer well-drained soil, rich in organic matter, and moist. If your soil is heavy with clay, you need to find particularly hardy roses, amend the soil with plenty of compost to improve its draining capability, or else make raised beds. If at all possible, check the soil’s pH to make sure it’s nearly neutral, as opposed to too acidic or too alkaline. Much of the region has acidic soil, so adding a little lime can be helpful.
Roses are also greedy feeders, meaning they want plenty of food, organic if possible. Well-rotted manure, compost, kelp or Irish moss meal, bone meal, worm castings and alfalfa pellets are all excellent choices for feeding your roses. Feed them in the spring, again after they’ve had a big flush of bloom, but stop feeding them in September to allow them time to quiet down and prepare for winter dormancy. Feeding them too late in the fall promotes more growth, which can be too tender when cold weather comes and result in dieback or even loss of the whole plant.
Some people like to plant roses in a dedicated garden of only roses, which is fine if you’re prepared to have months with no flowers to look at. It’s usually June before roses are blooming, with the exception of a few early bloomers. A mixed-bed planting that includes roses, other shrubs, perennials, maybe even some annuals and spring flowering bulbs is the way to go if you want a full gardening season of colour.
If you do want to try your hand at a dedicated rose garden, I recommend a trip to Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens anytime during the summer, and check out the huge rose garden there. Gardens manager Trish Fry says they currently have over 270 cultivars in their collection, including the rare and ancient Austrian Copper rose.
No plant is pest- and disease-proof, and roses are certainly no exception. Despite the fact that most are very thorny, deer like to eat the new growth and the buds and flowers of many types of roses. There are products that you can purchase, which can help deter deer, but some of these are unpleasant smelling—which defeats the purpose of growing roses in the first place. Whether you use a home remedy or a manufactured deer repellent, it has to be re-applied after a heavy rainfall, and if you have a lot of roses, this can get expensive as well as time consuming.
Aphids can also be problematic on some species, attracted to the young growing tips and flower buds, but these can be controlled by hosing the plant with a stream of water.
Blackspot is a disease that plagues certain colours of roses in particular (older yellow and coppery-orange varieties are very susceptible), and while the fungus doesn’t kill the plant, it can certainly weaken it, which can lead to its ultimate demise. Some newer cultivars are blackspot resistant, but if you do get black spots showing up, it’s important to remove diseased leaves from the plant as well as from the ground around it. Do not compost diseased leaves, but dispose of them in the trash or burn them.
If you have to water your roses, do it early in the day and avoid wetting the foliage, because the spores of blackspot fungus need wet foliage on which to germinate and grow.
Some rosy temptations
Every rose enthusiast has favourite varieties, even if they need a little pampering. Sometimes you have to sacrifice scent for hardiness, which is the case with many of the Canadian-bred roses developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Certain colours are harder to find in hardy roses (yellows aren’t hugely common) but if you’re in a milder part of the region you can always try grafted roses of particular favourites.
Catherine Neily is especially fond of Golden Celebration for its rich scent and golden blooms. She also loves the Canadian John Davis rose for its huge display of pink blossoms.
Bob Osborne says his favourites depend on the situation and the day. “Quadra is a gorgeous, very double red climber or shrub that has proven ironclad. Blanc Double de Coubert is near perfect with complete hardiness, superb fragrance and pure white colour. I have grudgingly come to admire the Grootendorsts. They are spiny to work with and have no fragrance, but they bloom like crazy. You need to prune them hard every few years.”
Trish Fry loves the Champlain rose, from the Canadian Explorer series, although the historic gardens do well with all of the Canadian Artist, Parkland and Explorer roses. “Father Hugo (Rosa hugonis, an old rose species) wins the nod for earliest bloomer,” she says, “While as a photographer, the perfect blooms of Frülingsduft are what I’m drawn to.”
My personal favourite is Snow Pavement, an extremely fragrant hybrid rugosa, creamy white flushed with softest lavender-pink, closely followed by Polareis, a thorny but fragrant pink-and-white blend. I have several English roses I planted carefully because they’re grafted, but for the most part I practise tough-love with my rose selections.
Incidentally, Bob Osborne’s book Hardy Roses is my go-to rose bible. I bought it years ago and still consult it on a regular basis. Although it’s out of print, it’s still available through Amazon.ca. With photography by Beth Powning, it profiles dozens of roses, and I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to grow roses in our region.