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Re: [Fwd: winter care]

Wade & Michelle Peterson wrote:
> 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I posted this last week and no one responded.  Since it is poring rain
> outside and it is supposed to get cold, is it too late to do anything
> with my roses?
> 
> Michelle
> 
>     ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Subject: winter care
> Resent-Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 08:08:43 -0700
> Resent-From: rose-list@eskimo.com
> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 10:10:26 -0500
> From: Wade & Michelle Peterson <wdpmap@lse.fullfeed.com>
> Reply-To: rose-list@eskimo.com
> To: rose-list@eskimo.com
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Time for me to delurk.
> 
> I have a rose that I found, I have named her Bessie DuVaul.  She was
> always a small rose, no taller than two feet.  I am assuming that it is
> an old rose, it only blooms once a year.
> 
> Anyway, we moved and I brought her along (three bushes).  Since she was
> always so small, I planted all three of them in a spot for small roses.
> Well, I must be doing something right, she is over five feet tall and
> sending suckers all over the place!  I'm not complaining, it is fun to
> see her thriving, but she has out grown her spot.
> 
> We finally had a good freeze last night but I don't think it was very
> hard.  When is a good time to move her?  Do I prune her for winter?  Do
> I mulch?  The bushes are so dense that nothing growns under them, never
> have to weed.  How do I move a rose of this size?  You can't tell that
> it was only three plants a year ago, she has sent up so many suckers it
> looks like solid rose.
> 
> For tall roses, how do you get them to stand up without flopping all
> over the ground?  I'm hoping to move her yet this fall before we get a
> killing freeze.
> 
> Michelle Peterson
> Wisconsin

I can only make two observations on your situation, and one suggestion,
based on my past experiences with old roses.

1) One of the oldest methods suggested in the classical (Greek and
Latin) sources for dealing with a rose that is doing poorly is, very
simply, to move it. I don't know why, and I've never really seen a good
explanation for it, but it seems to work.

My late aunt had some roses that she had taken from her mother's
childhood home in Ohio--they had settled there in the territorial
days--to California in the 1920s. She then moved these sames roses back
to the family farm in western NY, and finally to Arizona. I haved moved
them here with me, to Maryland. Each time, they have flourished again,
as they had seemed in their old locations (over about a thirty year
period) to start losing their vigor.

2) There is a chance, if your roses are grafted on to a root stock, that
the root stock has started throwing up suckers, and may be overwhelming
the stock grafted into the base stock. You may now have some very good,
native roses.

3) If you have not had a firm, permanent for the season, freeze, you may
still be able to move them for better spacing--if you move quickly.

Just some observations, from a fellow lurker. I usually learn far more
from this list by reading postings, rather than posting.

Anthony R.D. Franks
Takoma Park, Md.
arfranks@erols.com
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