Organically Grown Roses? Certainly!

        Does rose growing to you mean dusting, spraying, pruning, pinching, watering, fertilizing and generally intensive care?

        If this is your idea of growing roses, you haven’t picked the right roses.  If you select a variety of rose that is well-adapted to your climate and soil, you will find that roses, like every other plant, can be grown successfully and beautifully with organic methods.

        Antique roses are most likely to fit that bill in Texas. These old varieties have been around long enough to prove themselves under the worst that nature can serve up.  If a rose can survive several Texas summers unwatered, unfed, unsprayed and unpruned in a Texas graveyard, you can bet it will do fine in your garden.

        The Noisettes described in this issue are just one family of roses that do very well in Texas.  China, tea, hybrid musk, Bourbon, and other classes of roses also thrive in the heat and humidity or heat and drought or whatever combination of heat you have in your yard.

        The trick is to find roses that like your particular climate.  Check out neighbors’ yards, local nurseries, or ask people who truly love and know roses which ones they recommend.  Be sure to ask if they do a lot of labor- and chemical-intensive gardening. If the answer is yes, ask someone else.

        Roses, like every other plant in your garden, really demand only one thing — nutrients in the soil.  They love compost, they delight in alfalfa, they appreciate mulch.  Building your soil will improve your garden no matter what you plant.  Roses growing in improved soil will bloom consistently, be less prone to disease and less susceptible to insects.

        Black spot and mildew, the twin curses of roses, are ironically often caused by too little water.  Thorough, deep soaking and a layer of mulch will go a long way in cutting down on these problems.  Enriched soil will also help.  Most roses will, however, get a touch of fungus from time to time. The good roses shake it off, drop leaves and put on new leaves without missing a beat. These are the ones you want.

        An occasional foliar spay of seaweed/fish/molasses/humic acid/whatever-is-your-favorite blend will also strengthen the immune system of your plants.

        Diversity in the garden helps control pests and makes for a lovelier landscape.  Instead of planting a bed of just roses, try interspersing your roses with annuals and perennials.  The mixture of scents and colors will confuse pests and encourage beneficial insects to work on your behalf.

        If you need to jump-start your beneficials population, order some lacewings, lady bugs, or other helpful critters and get them working.

        If you’ve had a lapse and poisoned to get rid of grasshoppers this year, re-populate your beneficials as quickly as you can.

        If you have deer, you will have to use a deer repellant in order to have roses. Deer love them — even horses have been known to munch on the stickery branches. There are, however, good deer repellants on the market. Buy and use one consistently and your garden will grow!

        Building the soil is the best thing any gardener can do to keep plants healthy and beautiful, but some gardeners want to do more!

        If you must do something, here are some recipes:

For Blackspot

1/4 c vegetable oil
1 T mild dish soap
1 T fish emulsion
1 T seaweed
1 t Vitamin B-1
1 T baking soda
1 T molasses

Mix together with 1 gallon water and keep well shaken.  Spray.

Insect Control

2 cloves garlic
2 jalapeno peppers
1/3 blender of water

Blend well. Strain through a cloth and add 2 T vegetable oil. Put in 1 gallon container and fill with water. Use 1/4 cup of this mix to 1 gallon water for spray. Keep shaken. (You can use whatever hot pepper you have in your garden for this mix.)