Overwintering a rose tree

I almost forgot about the poor  rose tree. Our fall has been so warm and lovely, and the rose tree still had green leaves into November.

This is the first year I have had a rose standard, or rose tree.  "They" graft a rose bush or plant to an older, stronger straight stem, so the "tree" is tall and stands above the rest of the garden, like this.

                            This one has two different roses on one standard... pretty glorious, huh?

I almost forgot to tell you the name of this rose tree.....it is from Weeks Roses (weeksroses.com) and they label it a "36 inch Twofer Tree".... The names of the roses are Brilliant Pink Iceberg (the light one) and the dark one is Burgundy Iceberg.  They are both Floribunda roses  meaning that there are several roses on one stem - they bloom in little bunches... see the bottom lower left ? there are three dark roses on one stem.

Well, to keep this tree beautiful, it needs a whole different type of overwintering.  Remember that in a colder climate like ours - zone 5, the bud union (where the lower stems meet the "trunk" that leads to the root.... needs to be planted a few inches  under the soil.  I try for 4 inches, but inevitably, the rain washes the soil away and I have to keep building it up.

This bud union is  high up off the ground.  You cannot see it in the photo but it is just above the bottom leaves....

In order to bury this below the earth for winter - otherwise it would freeze and die - you have a couple of options.... If you didn't plant it in the ground and put it in a pot on your patio, you can move it into an unheated garage.... wrap it but don't smother it or put plastic over it or it will create to much moisture around it which can then freeze.

If you put it in the garden, you could dig up the tree and put it in a large pot - and put it in the garage.... However, we know that roses hate to have their roots disturbed.... I have moved mine so many times, that I wonder if this is true, but the experts say it is.  So something to think about  if you do this.

The other option, is to dig a trench and bury it.

Easier said than done... but when we planted this, left enough room along the left side for us to do this.

I pruned all the branches back to one out-facing bud so that the small limbs would not be bent or broken in this manoeuvre.

Being careful of not disturbing too much root, we dug a deep hole behind it (in the direction we were planning to lay it down) and as it got deeper, it was then (sort of) easy to tip it over on its side.....We put a frost blanket ( a porous piece of fabric) under and over it so that when we dig it up in the spring, we would not be injuring the tender bark.

We extended the hole to make a long trench. ... long enough to bury it.  We covered it with earth we took from pots, a bag of sea compost and hilled it up over the tree... covered the mound with lots of leaves,  some more earth to hold it all in place and them more leaves.

As this is the first  year we have done this, we shall see in the spring if we did enough.

The rose garden in winter...

Sometimes I am very sad that my garden season has ended... but when it is time for Christmas, I  am somewhat gladdened.

Here are some of the things I did to put my gardens to sleep this fall.

First, I begged bags of leaves from my neighbours.  Nice crisp maple leaves.... I think I ended up with 15 or 16 bags.  I pounded in long wooden stakes into the ground and fastened a length of burlap to the stakes.  Backed by the Spirea hedge, the rose garden would be well protected for winter.

Roses don't like to be hilled up until there has been at least one frost... a hard frost is best... meaning the upper inch or few centimetres is hard.  As long as the stems are still green, there are nutrients in them that need to be sucked back into the roots to nourish them for winter.

Even after a hard frost, there will still be green, but at least the ground will not be too warm to hill up around the roses.  The warmth around the base of the stems is a great place for mice and other small rodents to nest and what tastier morsels than yummy green bark in those long hungry months.... then in the spring, when those nasty wee  beasties are fat, your roses are suffering.  So wait as long as you can, then cuddle up, and go and hill those roses  up.

You can use the earth you dump out of pots, compost is good or any soil you have.  Just don't take soil from around the rose itself.... you could damage the roots.

After they are hilled up, dump all the leaves on top - even if  you have a foot of leaves, how cozy they will be.

The idea is not to keep the roots warm as it may appear... but to keep the ground around them consistently frozen.  It is that freeze, thaw, freeze thaw in both the early winter and late winter - or early spring that is so deadly.... when it thaws, the rose thinks, aha,  I should send green out.... and then comes another frost, and kills the tender shoots.  So, all this is to keep them frozen... another reason to wait till a  hard frost before doing all this.

Sure, it is cold, and fingers and toes get frigid, but at least you can go inside when done... it is worth doing it right.  See how lovely it looks?  Snow blossoms.

Have you ever moved a "Fairy"?

I think "The Fairy" rose is such a stunning rose for any garden.  It is so easy to grow, so forgiving and so gorgeous.  It blooms from early June to late in the fall.  Here it is in late October and still in bloom...

So, imagine having to move this spreading bush, that in spite of its massive blooms, has even more thorns.  Mine was about 6 feet wide and almost 4 feet tall. I think it is not impressed by being moved.
This is the third time I have moved this rose - from house to house and finally it would now be in its permanent spot.



We came up with the idea that wrapping it might work, and it did.  Here is How We did it...

I took a large roll of clinging plastic wrap that movers use to wrap furniture.  Starting at the bottom, I wrapped the bush rather tightly, pulling in all the spreading branches, but also being careful not to break them.

Here it is below- wrapped, which made it so much easier to dig up.  Notice there are not many spreading roots…. This is because I transplanted it only the  previous  Fall and it had only one summer to grow in rather poor soil. As a tenant, I was not prepared to replace all the soil  in this borrowed garden, but I did add compost and fertilizer.

Because it had to be transported in the backseat of my car, I wrapped the roots in plastic.

Here it is with the roots wrapped in plastic.




And.....

All safely tucked into the car for the long drive to the new garden.  I say this with tongue-in-cheek as the ‘new’ house was literally around the corner from this one.

We love this neighbourhood so didn't want to move far!

Here it is planted in its new - and last - home.  The previous Fall, when we moved it from the last garden a medium sized piece broke off from this one so it too, got planted.  At least, no flowers or leaves fell off in the process.

Below you can see the largest piece on the right, and the smaller piece that broke off, to the left of the Japanese Maple.  There are Iris, Lungwort, Monk's Hood, Phlox and a Pee Gee Standard Hydrangea in the corner.

The Mysterious Peony

THE MYSTERIOUS PEONY:



That same week, I moved more plants.

Among those still in pots, was a ‘sort of Peony’ - I say, sort of, because when I bought it on our Master Gardener’s trip to Montreal (at a nursery in the middle of nowhere) I saw only the tag and I fell in love with the colour. It was less than $30.00.
I am not sure why, but I neglected to write down the type or name. Then, when it came time to plant it in its new home, there stuffed down under the earth, was the tag.

                                             This is what it looks like. Isn't it glorious?

It is an Itoh, or Intersectional Peony.  Its name is ‘Cora Louise’ and  has the best traits of both the herbaceous peony and the sturdy stems of the tree peony.   Until lately, its price was in the thousands of dollars but in the last few years, most gardeners who love peonies,  were able to find one for around $100.  My, was I lucky !

This peony is listed on many sites as ‘rare’.  Its gorgeous blooms are stunning and once it is established, it will bloom for longer than a traditional peony.
             
          You can find out more if you search on the net for Itoh peonies.

Here it is in early bloom -nestled behind the Fairy rose (in bud in front) and the Japanese Maple

I like to have other  flowering plants among the roses for several reasons.  One is that some roses get leggy and reach for the sky, showing off at the top of the branches and leaving the lower ones rather naked.  This Peony has gorgeous foliage that stays crisp and green until late fall and hides some of the taller roses behind it.

                   

Time to get those roses on the road.


It had been raining off and on all day, and getting much cooler by the day-  Fall was definitely around the corner.

I must say I admit I was getting anxious about having to find the time to move all the plants I needed to.  The beds in the front were almost ready, but the back !! eei-eei-ooo....

In the meantime, the Crab Grass was having a 'hay'-day !  All that I dug out, had been gleefully replaced by more and more !  I needed more time and more shovel-wielding weeders. Of course, there were none to be found.  At least it was easy to pull as there had been some rain.

This does not look anything like a rose bed.

So, I decided to work at the front because there was more room and the bed was almost ready.

At a lecture at our Horticultural meeting, I asked if I should cut back my plants in order to move them, especially after hearing that each plant has its own cycle and should be cut back when it has taken in all the nutrients it can.  The speaker suggested I wait until the first hard frost when all the leaves would be gone.  

My concern was that the weather would be prohibitive, like the last time we  moved the garden where was up to this point - the same time of year.  Prohibitive, my foot - It was dark and cold with snowflakes and sleet and we were digging holes, throwing in bone meal, saying a little prayer and shoving roses in holes higglety-pigglety… and almost all of them survived and did well, and only one balked at the process. 

Sigh.  So I guess I can do it again.

For my planned rose-moving day, the weatherman promised high winds and pouring rain…. But… he lied.  It was cool and windy, but only spit now and then.  I decided to ‘make hay while the sun shines’ as they say and get on with it.  That turned into a whole day and here is what I moved.

13 roses- 

2 x Polyantha-‘Mothersday’

1 x David Austin’s “Evelyn” - pink Rosa AUS - English

2 x ‘Kristin’ var. Benmagic PPAF a miniature rose

1 x ‘White Lightening’ - var.Arowhif Pat. # 4670

3 x ‘Tournament of Roses’ - cv. Jacient Plant Pat. 6725

1 x ‘Eglantyne’ David Austin

1 x ‘Lambert Closse’ - Rosa explorer 

1 x ‘Astrid Lindgren’ - 

1 x mystery white that we think might be ‘Kathy Wade’

14 or 15 Monkshood (all new stems from one plant put in last fall !)

6 Delphiniums- blue and fuchsia

2 Penstemon

1 lonely bright pink Coneflower (where did that come from ?) called ‘Magnus’

A couple of dozen stems of Sedum that I salvaged from the previous garden in the hopes that new plants would form

4 white Phlox - dwarf

3 bright purple Phlox- dwarf

7 new Sedum 

I gorgeous Japanese Anemone -Anemone x hybrida ‘September charm’

1 Claudie Hydrangea

1 Lace Cap Hydrangea

2 Astilbe

When I dug each  hole, I put a huge handful of 3-Way Mix which contains peat humus, peat fibre and manure from Pefferlaw Peat (www.pefferlaw.com). Because of the contest I mentioned in a recent post,  I did some research about this company - it is in my zone, and I like the description of their products - so I decided to give it a try. I will know next season if it is all I think it will be. 

Besides, having it all in one bag works for me…..It is dark and rich and just for good  measure, I added a pinch or two of bone meal. 

 (Be careful not to breath the powder in…. Not good for our lungs, being that is ground up bone. Same with blood  meal- perhaps the granules would be better and not as airborne).

I usually fill the hole with water when I plant, but we had so much rain, both the plants and the earth were quite wet so I didn’t.  I did talk to each plant, though and assured them this would be the last time I would move them.  Oh dear, I may have lied about that.  I firmly believe if plants don’t do well in one spot, it is better to move them where they will do better.  But that is not the same as hauling them halfway across the city or even around the block, or is it?

Here's how it looked that fall:

....... and the following summer- its first:

Speaking of successes and failures, I completely forgot that a month before I was getting read to move my garden,  I entered photos of my first garden in a ‘before and after’ photo contest with a company called “Pefferlaw Peat Products (www.pefferlaw.com)

… Guess what?  I won !



The garden "Before".

The garden "After" (3 years later) 

You may see a theme starting with this garden and the new one......but there were two others between this one and the newest one.  A story for another time.

I love that feeling of diversity in a garden and perhaps because I had a Japanese Maple in my last garden, I really wanted one in this one.  Did my research and found they will tolerate a Black Walnut.

So, that first summer, I found two lovely ones - “Acer Emperor”- at the bargain price of $49 each - they are usually over a hundred dollars each.  They stood

about 6 feet tall, with dark red leaves and green undersides. I chose two that seemed to bend gracefully toward each other and the boys helped plant them - one on either side of the ‘pathway’ to the Love Rock.


I decided to put a large ‘Endless Summer’ Hydrangea on each side of the Love Rock and then a ‘Claudie’ which is a bit smaller and more spreading, with the ‘Nikko Blue” still smaller but bushy too - so the garden would be full of lush green foliage with lovely blue flowers.






All this gardening and no roses. The black walnut and roses do not get along.  However, I was determined and read that as long as plants that are sensitive are not either under the drip-line of the branches, nor near enough that the roots could touch, they should be fine.





Before we get to the new rose bed, here is this garden the following summer.

But alas, not long after this was taken, my beautiful Endless Summer Hydrangeas started looking pale.  The leaves became a paler- almost yellow green and I discovered that I had not researched the sensitivities of the Black Walnut and its victims well enough.  I did learn, that although there is a lot of information on the internet, I need to read all of it.... or at least enough that my initial findings are legitimate.

There are many things that make gardens grow, or not grow.  Sometimes we try to grow things that will not do well under our particular circumstances and in this case, Hydrangeas do not like, nor will they tolerate the juglone of the Black Walnut.

I hastily  moved all the Hydrangeas up to the side of the house...  far away from the tree they suffered under.... and as of now, they are much happier and back to their crisp deep green leaves, but it took that summer and the next - and lots of compost and love to make them stop pouting.

Good lesson here...research, ask, research, read, research, ask and research again. Most of the university websites, or those attached to botanical gardens will have more documented research than some personal ones, but the personal ones,  have stories by real gardeners who may have time to baby one plant over the hundreds of those in test gardens.  So read them all, and make your decisions based on the accumulated info you read.

And keep good notes if you are trying something new.  You may be able to teach someone else what you have learned.  Share your stories; successes and failures.

Here is the back before we dug the new foundation for the addition.


(yes, I know  this is about moving my roses, but you need to see how their placement came about and how I had to learn to put the pieces of the puzzle together... light, soil, area etc... so bear with me through this rather long tale...)

The addition has begun, the river rock bed has “Big O” under and slopes toward the back corner of the garden where a deep rock well was dug to keep any water run-off from draining into neighbouring gardens.



I think this river-rock bed is a clever and attractive way to hide a drainage pipe. I cannot take credit for it, but I love how it looks and how it serves a good purpose too.

The large stone at the end of the ‘bed’ is on top of a 4 foot deep hole filled with gravel and stone.  

One day, we will put a water feature of some sort here, so in order to do that, we needed to move that stone. Once the gardens are in, we will not want the digger crawling down through them to move it...imagine it smashing roses, and tomatoes and sweet little peas !  Ack !  So it has to be moved soon.  We’ll just have him move it to one side, plant something lovely down there, with a statue or other feature.  But that remains for another creative day.

This is the way the south-west corner looked before the work began in the  Spring.  The cedar hedge is ours with a very large  Black Walnut in the background - in the neighbour’s garden.  I have researched what will grow under it and the list is quite extensive but for my purposes, all I have to plant will be happy.

This is the same corner, during the rock placing act.  That big rock in the corner, actually came out of the hole from the foundation.  The top split off and so the boys thought it would be a great sitting rock - they dubbed it the ‘Love Rock’.

I plan to put Hydrangeas on either side with Astilbes in front of them.  I have 3 large “Endless Summer” that I fed Aluminum Sulphate to keep them blue; one called “Claudie”, one “Lace Cap” and a “Nikko Blue”.  

As for Astilbes?  I brought at least 20 in shades that vary from white to  mauve and pink. Some are a few years old and some, I started from bare roots this past Spring.  In fact, I bought them in May, got busy and forgot them until the end of June. They were pretty dried out, but I doused them with water and two days later plunked them into the soil.  Guess what? Of the 18 in the bag (a real deal)  15 survived.  Except for the 2 the bratty squirrel dug up.   Yuk.

But on to more about gardens.

Now back to the garden... the one in the back....


 Looking southeast, this is how it looked in the early Spring of that first year before any renovations to the house.

The digging began.  This mound of earth came from the dug
foundation at the back of the house to the right of this photo.

This is how it looked after the boys played with the rocks one day when I was away for a few hours.  This mid section will make a nice vegetable garden as it will be closest to the kitchen door and gets lots of sun.

The deck will be at the bottom right of this photo, just off the kitchen.  Some of these rocks came from the hole they dug for the foundation; some of them came from the digger-man’s quarry.  I will never forget the laughing and joking among the ‘boys‘  while playing with and moving the rocks, one by one.

They had way too much fun.




We bought blueberry bushes and two apple trees for the garden.  The apples are Honey Crisp (our favourite) and its pollinator, Royal Gala.  They would be planted at the end of the veggie bed ; one on either side of the ‘river bed’.

There is room in the small space above the Veggie bed for lilies - I think.  I wanted a hedge of roses, but it seems the snow will be plowed or pushed back off the drive onto this bed.  Will the roses survive? Years ago, a city nursery had its greenhouses on a busy street and a rose hedge  in front.  They took all the salt and winter debris with a toughness that defies logic.  So, maybe it might work for me.

I did  buy 4 small roses called “OSO easy” -Peachy Cream-- hardy to zone 3 - so maybe I shall give it a shot.  Poor things were on sale for $4 each, crying for me to take them home. Orphans, they were… the end of the season.

… now where should they go?

"Think Like a Plant" says Evelyn Wolf of "Garden Possibilities...  http://www.gardenpossibilities.com

I heard her say we should ‘think like a plant’. Hmmm.  What she meant, is that plant life is a circular cycle.  A plant has only two goals: the first is always- to produce seed - always.  The second is to survive.

 Mark Cullen says that when we see a large mass of pine cones on the top of a conifer, we need to think back to its life almost a year previous.  If there was  a drought, or some other crisis, the tree goes into survival mode… not survival of itself, necessarily, but of its offspring,  namely the seeds from those cones; and it goes into production mode so that if the tree does not survive, its seeds will.  That is very unselfish - don’t you think?

In the fall of the year, plants will have pulled all the nutrients they can from the air, water and soil and push them down into their roots.  They are storing up for a cold winter. This is why I don't cut much down in the garden in the fall.  I want all that green to go back to the roots.... even my roses.  I cut back the extra long branches so they won't break in the wind, but I leave the severe pruning  until Spring.

Did you know that plants do not die in the winter? They are merely dormant - sleeping.  There is most likely more going on under that pile of snow than you or I could imagine.

I really like that idea.

But more about that later.

Before I could bring the roses, I needed to make their bed...

Good soil is the most important thing about gardens.  Like sleeping in a great bed, we get the best rest and the most health... same for plants...

So, I added some Biosol by Fafard (marine compost - 2-1-1) just to give the plants an extra boost.  My local garden centre guru said when he added it to his tomatoes, his kids wouldn't go near them - they grew so fast and so huge, they thought they were magic.....

So who am I to argue with success? When I transplanted, I added bone meal and Biosol, to the bottom of the hole, which I then filled with water and planted.  So far, in three moves, I have lost perhaps 3 or 4 plants.  Pretty amazing when there must be 75 plants…  yikes!

You could add your own compost and some good triple-mix... just make sure you add what your plants need to get off on the right foot.

(By the way, Fafard recently changed the name from Biosol to Sea Compost because folks were asking for sea compost.... smart marketing, right?

www.fafard.com

Here we are - back to October and a load of topsoil has been dumped and the ’boys’ have shoveled it onto the ‘bed I have designed.

The  new bed had a  bit of shape (to be finessed the next Spring) and my wee Braveheart had a new bed and a new bed-partner… a Pee Gee Hydrangea that Canadian Tire was selling for half the normal price.  I love a bargain, don’t you? And wow, is it lovely !

Poor Braveheart (BH) lost a branch or two in the process over the summer.  One day I caught the 'otherwise-careful-carpenter' sawing a board that hung over the end of his saw-horse and bruised and broke a nice side branch.
I had a lot of explaining to do to BH because I had promised when he was moved here, he would be safe… sigh.   I had words with the carpenter and so far, BH was doing fine and lost his pout.

Besides, now he at least he had grass in front and a new bed of good soil. I spent 7 or 8 hours digging out the wicked crab grass to prep the ground for topsoil and sod. (See blog "Weed it and Reap")

What a miserable job.  Those crab grass roots were stubborn and the tops spread out like they owned the place.  

Another week and I would be bringing all my roses to the new bed.... Lots of roses  - 40, in fact - on the road for the last time.

 The Barberry was hoisted up with a crane but it was not happy and didn’t like to be moved and although we did replant it, we shall see if it has decided to stay.

However, the Little Braveheart went with the flow - not like he had much choice but he knew I would not lie and he waited for his turn to be planted again.



Well, here he is planted, but not too happy that he was stuck in the midst of old bricks, dying plants and piles of weeds.  We needed to fix that.

Better, and  happier, but it was hot… really hot, mid-summer and too hot to transplant any plants.

He would have to be patient, my little Braveheart.

Now we  need some sort of bed.....

There were serious things to do before I could get serious about my gardens.


This was the front - (also in Spring) before any construction or digging. The shrubs at the front were too big and overgrown - they had to go before the diggers came.


In spite of my wanting a garden right away, there were some other considerations that made my priorities take second place. Like water in the basement, which  meant digging a large ditch around the foundation.

Besides the ditch, we insulated and put up a water barrier, so those shrubs all had to be moved - and would go to another home.  There was also a very large Barberry (Berberis) in the far right corner of the house that prevented  any side access to the back. It was overgrown and quite thorny and had either be moved or gotten rid of.  We decided to move it.

From the front garden, I really only wanted to save the wee Japanese Maple. You can see it here smushed (carefully, the digger-man says) up against the house in a pile of earth.  I kept telling the poor thing that all would be well and in a few days, (which turned out to be more than a week - eek !)- it would have a nice home and be part of another garden with  new friends.

I am not sure it believed me, but the brave little tree lost not one leaf.

Amidst all the chaos, and the very large teeth of the digger, stones, noise and dust,  the little tree remained brave and intact. “They” say these are hard to grow and are not too hardy.  I (we- he and I ) intended to prove them wrong.

But, there was also, the Barberry.....