Re: New Iceberg!

**L*@zeonchemicals.com**

Joanie:

since I don't like to fool with chemicals (I work in a chemical company and
know full well the dangers of inhaling them or getting them on your skin),
I just don't grow anything that would require constant chemical spraying.
It's not worth the effort to me.  I prefer roses that respond well to good
soil and good watering.  I provide the pruning and the extra soil additives
and that's it.

Having said that, if you don't spray the roses that tend to succumb to
blackspot, the leaves turn yellow with black spots (hence the name) and
then they fall off.  You'll have to pick up those leaves and dispose of
them otherwise you'll keep getting the same fungal disease every year.  But
if you live in a humid climate, you'll get a lot of blackspot no matter
what you do.

Therefore, I grow roses by trial and error.  Since this gets expensive,
I've been sticking to rugosas, "landscape" roses, and species roses.    All
of these respond well to good soil and watering and I am not a slave to all
of that spraying.  The drawbacks are few:  once or maybe twice a year
blooming period (but it's drop dead gorgeous when they do!), a tendency to
sucker and spread (not such a bad thing for me), and your choices are
fewer.  One very disappointing purchase was from Jackson & Perkins.  I
bought six so-called "landscape" roses that were touted as "disease-free."
All six died of blackspot and had twiggy growth.  Bleh!  As a nice
comparison, I bought a rose from Heirloom Roses and planted it with the
Jackson & Perkins roses as a color contrast.  I still have the Heirloom
Rose and it is thriving, despite being only 10" tall when I got it.

Val in KY

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