Everything's Coming Up ROSES for Mother's

Dear Friends:
Nothing is more satisfying then heading out to your landscape and snipping a beautiful long stem rose from your very own plant growing in your yard. 
Roses are the queen of the garden. President Ronald Reagan signed a proclamation certifying the rose as America's national flower in a ceremony at the White House Rose Garden back in 1986. It's no surprise, millions of roses are planted in gardens across the U.S. Many think roses can be fussy and hard to grow. Given the right conditions, roses can thrive and add beauty to your garden for years to come.
Here are 5 tips for growing healthy roses from Weeks Roses (weeksroses.com), the premier grower of rose bushes in America.
Follow these tips and you can enjoy these beautiful flowering shrubs in your own garden year after year.
1.   Select the rose that's right for your garden
There are over 2,000 varieties of roses-and new varieties are introduced every year. Different roses have specific needs and behavior. You might be tempted to select a rose solely based on its flower appearance, but a rose's hardiness, disease resistance, bloom time and other factors are important to consider, too. 
Roses come in basically six forms.
Hybrid Tea-Hybrid Tea Rose has a large bloom or flare at the end of a long cane. They are the most popular roses sold at florist shops.
Floribunda- Floribunda were once called hybrid polyanthas. In the 1940s, the term floribunda was approved. They can be shorter bushes with smaller blooms in beautiful clusters of vibrant colors.
Grandiflora-roses are a combination of hybrid tea roses and floribunda with some having one-bloom stems and some with cluster blooms
Shrub-Shrub rose bushes are defined by the American Rose Society (ARS) as "A class of hardy, easy-care plants that encompass bushy roses that do not fit in any other category of rose bush.
Miniature or Patio -these are true roses bred to stay small or miniature.
Climbing-Climbing roses grow more aggressively and can be trained to climb on trellises and arbors.
2.   Plant your rose in the right location
The first step toward a healthy, beautiful rose in the garden is planting the right rose in the right place. A rose will never perform well if planted in a poor spot, no matter how much you pamper it. 
Get your rose off to a good start by first selecting the right variety for your garden's climate, and carefully planting it in a sunny location with good soil. Roses prefer locations that receive 6-8 hours of sunlight in order to produce the most blooms. 
Roses do not like wet, poorly drained areas so make sure they are planted in well-draining soils.
3.   Prune wisely
Some roses bloom with a great flourish and they're done for the season. Other roses are repeat bloomers that flower continuously throughout the growing season. Once-blooming roses (such as antique rose varieties) should be pruned after they flower. Repeat bloomers can be pruned in early spring before they bloom. I like to remove spent flowers or deadhead roses weekly. By removing blossoms, the plant will steer its power back into the plant instead of focusing its power into producing seed from the spent flower. This means more blooms.
Remove the spent flower and prune above the first set of 5 leaves on the stem beneath the rose. This will generate new growth and new flowers the quickest.
4.   Water deeply
More roses die from over-watering than from under-watering. Once established, most roses only need to be watered once or twice a week. For the healthiest plants, make sure to water deeply to encourage healthy root growth. Avoid watering with sprinklers or spraying the foliage with a hose, because wet leaves can invite diseases such as black spot and powdery mildew.
5.   Fertilize (but don't overdo it)
Roses are heavy feeders, but many gardeners use too high a concentration of fertilizer, which can damage plants. I love to use Espoma brand Rose-tone every six weeks. This organic product offers the perfect balance of nutrients to keep roses looking their best!
Here is a list of some of my favorite roses:
Perfume Factory - Fragrance beyond belief new for 2021
Burst of Joy - Awesome yellow orange floribunda
Ketchup and Mustard - appropriately named yellow and red flowers
Blue Girl - Clean lavender blue w/lilac fragrance
Mr. Lincoln - Red velvety flower with an incredible scent
Henry Fonda - Deep Yellow Hybrid Tea w/light fragrance
Pope John Paul II - Pure White, awesome scent, my favorite!!
So many more varieties exist, and they all are amazing in their own way. If you have never grown roses, I would try one or two this year.
With new breeding and new pest control products out, it's easier than ever taking care of roses.
Use 2 oz of the liquid mixed with a gallon of water and pour around the base of your plants. This application protects from insects and disease for 6 weeks. Mark your calendar to reapply and you will have gorgeous roses. 
I will also add a little magnesium sulphate to the base of roses a couple times a season. True rosarians say this is a secret to getting big blooms and more fragrance from their roses.
I have not touched on knock out varieties of roses. These blooming machines are amazing and are aptly named.
I especially like the Sunny Knockout which starts out yellow and fades to butter yellow then white. It has such a strong citrus scent. Peachy knock out roses have pink petals with a yellow center combined to achieve the peachy color to its blooms. And of course, the original red, pink, double red and double pink ink are show stoppers as well. No spray needed, hardy and they just don't stop blooming! Mine bloomed well into December of last year.
These roses are awesome for the beginner or veteran. Checkout our website for pictures and more information on all the roses we carry.
As for my spray recommendations for the week, the cooler weather has slowed the progression of insects emerging a little bit. The dreaded emergence of Crabgrass is starting in lawns. If you haven't done so, get your For all Seasons Crabgrass and Weed Preventer on your grass before it's too late.
Leaf miners in birch, elm, alder and honeylocust will be laying larvae now/and or very soon. The ordinary looking black flies lay their larvae on leaves. As the larvae grow, they literally bore through the leaf leaving yellow to white squiggly lines. A shot of systemic spray from Bonide will help to eliminate this pest. Neem also has been shown to work well.
Coming down the pike are the first hatching of pine needle scale which look like white bumps on your pine needles almost like they were dipped in a white wax. Mugho pines are notorious for this scale but other pines can be affected as well. As soon as the red or pink horse chestnut tree blooms, it is the optimum time to spray Spinosad or insecticidal soaps on all the needles till they run off. This will eradicate this pest.
The Cooley and Eastern Spruce gall adelgid will by attacking blue spruce and sitka spruces. An application of insecticidal soaps or horticultural oils will help to stop the infestation.
Feeding by the adelgids produces a characteristic cone-like gall. The gall’s shape, size and position on the twig aid in identifying the species involved. Galls interfere with the natural formation of twigs and cause curling, stunting and the eventual death of new growth. Heavy infestations give the trees a ragged appearance and destroy their beauty. Continuous infestations can seriously devitalize trees and render them more susceptible to attack by other organisms. Some trees have a natural resistance or immunity to these adelgids, and in spite of the presence of the insects, the galls never completely develop or may not form at all.
When galls are first produced, they are green, soft and made up of many individual cells that are inhabited by the developing adelgids. The galls mature by midsummer when the cells open and the adelgids emerge. The empty galls soon dry, become brittle and turn a light to dark brown.
Eastern spruce gall adelgid feeding causes the formation of pineapple-like galls about 1/2 to 1 inch long at the base of twigs. Twig growth is normal when the gall is still green. The twig dies after the gall matures.
The Cooley spruce gall adelgid produces elongated, often-curved galls about 1 to 3 inches long that usually involve the entire twig.
One thing to consider when spraying oils on anything blue is the oil will cause the "blue" color to vanish until new growth appears which may be one-to two years down the road.
We'll keep you informed of what to expect next week as temperatures warm or cool.
In closing I would like to wish all the moms out there happy Mother's Day.
Mother’s Day is a celebration which honors the mother of the family, motherhood, maternal bonds and mothers' impact on society.
Anna Jarvis created Mother’s Day back in 1908 with the United States making it an official holiday in 1914. This is a great day celebrating moms’ sacrifices made for their children. A time to say thank you for guiding, teaching, taking care of during sickness and steering us all in the right direction
No bond can be greater between a mother and her child. I hope all of you have a tremendous day today and throughout the year. And for all those who had a “mom like” influence on other children at some point in their life, happy Mother’s Day to you as well.
J.R. Pandy, "The No B.S.Gardener"
Pandy's Premier Garden Center
440-324-4314
www.pandysgardencenter.com

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