This period is a good time to start pruning your roses; the spring pruning; the most important pruning of the year! (so no summer pruning). It doesn't look like it will freeze during the day, if this is still the case, wait a little longer.
Why prune?
Pruning will help prevent your rose bushes from growing into the sky and preventing you from seeing them bloom. The roses are also rejuvenated by pruning; growth and flowering remain optimal.
With the guidelines below we focus on your (1-4 year old) roses (Tea hybrids from the Verschuren® Collection plus standard roses) and not on older roses that have a lot of wood. You will receive tips about this when your roses are a bit older.
Just a moment: with an "eye" we mean a fresh green dot that appears from the trunk; the start of a new branch.
Before you begin.
Before you begin, smooth out and clean (even with the rest of the soil) any soil that has been dug up. The budding spot (thickening just above the root; the "heart of the plant") is now just above the ground. This will be nice later because your rose will become very short after pruning; you must be able to see it, otherwise you might step on it. Moreover, this is REALLY important, otherwise the rose can start to “suffocate”.
Use sharp and clean pruning shears that cut on 2 sides; when the "wound" is nice and smooth, diseases can penetrate less quickly. Frayed pruning wounds lead to infections.
Clean and sharpen your pruning shears with a rotating mechanism with a fine sandpaper and some oil. Disinfect with some spirit or alcohol.
General Pruning Rules:
- All roses should be pruned in the first spring. With the exception of the younger climbing roses;
- Climbing roses: it is best to start pruning them properly when they are two to three years old. Now just prune away the thin twigs. With the climbing roses, you only prune a small part of the thick branches, so that the wound is neat. Ramblers (tree climbers with very long branches) hardly need any pruning. Here too, only cut away the thinner twigs.
The final height of a climbing rose” this is not reached in 1 season, so please be patient;
Small explanation:
Climbing roses have branches on which the flowers come. These branches hardly grow any longer. The rose also makes long new branches, which do not bloom yet, but will bloom the following year.
These new branches are longer than the old ones with flowers. This process continues until the rose has reached its maximum height. The growth of a climbing rose therefore has to do with the new branches. A newly planted rose barely produces new branches, while a rose that is already 5 years old has already reached its maximum height and therefore grows the fastest.
A climbing rose that can eventually reach 10 meters will grow faster than a rose that will eventually grow 2 meters high.
- If you prune too early, young shoots can freeze due to night frost.
- Before pruning: first remove damaged and dead branches and cut out all wood and/or dead material. Also remove the branches that cross other branches (crossing branches damage each other with wind).
- With your new roses (non-climbing roses): remove the thin twigs. Prune the remaining branches (three to four/five) until the branches are fairly short; approx. 5-6-7 cm (measured from the inoculation point). Please note that you do not take the correct distance to the last eye too short or too long (see image). The top/highest eye should preferably be directed outwards (for a nicer flower shape). ALWAYS PRUN ABOVE ONE EYE (unless you want the branch removed).
- Wild branches:
The "wild rose" (the rootstock, so on which your rose has been grafted) continues to have the need to grow; this is what we call “wild”.
Of course we don't want these branches. All branches that begin to grow below the budding point are wild branches; they are thin and grow quickly and are somewhat paler in color. You can always cut these away throughout the season and preferably as low as possible.
- Most eyes are located around the ocular spot (thickening just above the root); so it is also important not to prune too short here. New branches often emerge from that thickening; these can be valuable.
- Try to keep three to five thick branches in the rose. This should be enough. Always cut thinner branches. Thinner branches can be pruned shorter than thick branches.
- If you prune too high: this promotes the death of branches.
- If you prune too low, you will damage the bud.
- A cut that slopes towards the bud makes it rot sooner (see the left photo in the image how to do it right.)
Fertilization:
- If you planted the roses last year and prepared the soil well with fertilizers, you do not need to take any action now.
- If this is not the case, now is the time to fertilize. After the first bloom this summer, you can fertilize again, but not after that; plants get a growth spurt due to the manure and therefore become herbaceous. We don't want the roses to be herbaceous and then face a frost; this causes them to freeze to death. If a rose is hardened (i.e. not herbaceous), the rose offers much more resistance to frost. So: don't fertilize late in the season.
What we recommend:
a) We prefer perennial stable manure (preferably horse or otherwise cow manure). You spit some fertilizer under the top layer of your roses. Not too deep, because we don't want to damage the roots. This type of fertilizer ensures a good structure of the soil and a steady release of the nutritious fertilizers and is therefore environmentally friendly.
b) Secondly, we recommend: DCM Organic Fertilizer for Roses & Flowers. This is a balanced rose food with a long effect. But even better: the nutrients in this fertilizer hardly leach out, so the environment is not burdened (unlike fertilizer (!)) and a long effect of at least 100 days can be guaranteed. This product is for sale at stores such as Boerenbond and Welkoop.
Good luck and have fun with your roses!
For the coming period: in general: the nights are colder than during the day. So take extra care that the roses go into the night as little as possible "wet".
Water
This one speaks for itself: give enough water! That means above all: don't let it dry out! “Too much is never good” and therefore not too much water.
Watering: Preferably in the morning and at the foot of the plant. And if possible: no ice-cold groundwater, but rather rainwater.
The above means that the roses enter a (cold) night with as little moisture as possible. And this is important to reduce mold formation.
Faded rose buds / summer pruning (until about mid-August).
Rose buds that have finished flowering or are almost finished: remove; this promotes the re-blooming of the roses enormously! You can just cut the buttons out.
Summer pruning:
Why? To promote re-flowering; when the flowering branches that have completely finished flowering (therefore no buds are left on them) remain, all the food goes to the seed formation in the rose hips and this is at the expense of flowering. If there are no new buds on the branch where the roses have finished blooming, you must cut the entire branch off to a certain height. This is the so-called summer pruning:
looking from the top, look for the first branch where there are five green leaves (yes… the so-called five-branch). Cut off the branch just above (approx. 0.5 cm).
If you (but this does not happen often) do not find a branch with five leaves, then you keep about cutting away 1/3 of the branch* and preferably just above a point (axillary) where a new branch will form/ is forming.
*1/3 of the branch obviously does not apply to climbing roses.
Fungal diseases
This occurs to a lesser extent with our roses. If something happens anyway:
- The place where the rose is planted also has a major influence; so we hope you have followed our advice (minimum 5-6 hours of sunshine, good ventilation, not too sheltered).
- Remove diseased leaf immediately and put in wheelie bin.
- Under planting around the rose can also prevent some fungal diseases; the “splashing bacteria” has less chance.
- The first tip in this email is also important to follow in order to give fungi as little chance as possible.
- Healthy roses are less susceptible to mould; therefore make sure you are in good shape; therefore also sufficient fertilizers; follow our advice that we always give carefully. (if all goes well, the roses now have enough fertilizer). When a rose is too limp due to too little water. it also becomes much more sensitive to fungi.
- If the above is not effective, please contact us (preferably by e-mail and accompanied by a photo (of the rose 😊).
- Curly leaves in your roses are more common during this period;
This is more common when the roses are near trees, it turns out. And this plague almost always disappears on its own. The cause is most likely the rose sawfly. You will often find the larva in the curled leaf. The wasp sprays a product at the leaf vein, which causes the curl. You can't get rid of the curl. We advise: remove the curled leaf and throw it away if there is little infestation. Do not remove too many leaves, because the rose also needs its green leaves for photosynthesis. Usually the damage to the rose itself is negligible.
Chemical control is not of much use and we therefore advise against it (as we do 999 out of 1000 times…). So: just ignore it; the problem usually solves itself (nature takes care of that nicely).
Lice
Lice: we advise to leave the lice in place, provided that this is a single louse. Otherwise the ladybugs will never come and we want to lure them to eat all the lice. (developing a biotope).
If there is still too much nuisance, we recommend that you repeatedly wet the roses with cold water, repeatedly. The lice don't like this. Please note: make sure that the roses do not get too wet; the soil must be allowed to dry out. And watering: in the morning.
If this does not help, an effective mixture against lice is: a mixture of 1 liter of water, 1 tablespoon of alcohol and 1 teaspoon of green soap. Spray this when there are too many lice. Repeat if necessary. Note: do not spray this mixture in sunny weather; this will damage the rose!
Lice Potty:
You can put an earthenware flower pot upside down on a wooden stick (10 cm). Stuff some straw into the flower pot. Earwigs find this a nice place to live in. At night they come out of their potty to eat lice. Place the pot as close to the ground as possible.
Other:
And just to be sure: we've mentioned it before, but it's really important that the thickening (the oculating point) protrudes just above the ground; you will therefore have to scrape away some soil (and then re-earth again in the winter; but we will email you about this again in due course)
Note: with standard roses the bud point is at the top of the crown; not below the ground.
Enjoy your roses and have a nice summer!
For the coming period: general: the nights are cold. So take extra care that the roses go into the night as little as possible "wet".
Water
This one speaks for itself: give enough water! That means above all: don't let it dry out! “Too much is never good” and therefore not too much water.
Watering: Preferably in the morning and at the foot of the plant. And if possible: no ice-cold groundwater, but rather rainwater.
The above means that the roses enter a (cold) night with as little moisture as possible. And this is important to reduce mold formation.
Faded rose buds / summer pruning (until about mid-August)
Rose buds that have finished flowering or are almost finished: remove; this promotes the re-blooming of the roses enormously! You can just cut the buttons out.
Summer pruning:
Why? To promote re-flowering; when the flowering branches that have completely finished flowering (therefore no buds are left on them) remain, all the food goes to the seed formation in the rose hips and this is at the expense of flowering. If there are no new buds on the branch where the roses have finished blooming, you must cut the entire branch off to a certain height. This is the so-called summer pruning:
looking from the top, look for the first branch where there are five green leaves (yes… the so-called five-branch). Cut off the branch just above (approx. 0.5 cm).
If you (but this does not happen often) do not find a branch with five leaves, then you keep about cutting away 1/3 of the branch* and preferably just above a point (axillary) where a new branch will form/ is forming.
*1/3 of the branch obviously does not apply to climbing roses.
Fungal diseases
This occurs to a lesser extent with our roses. If something happens anyway:
- The place where the rose is planted also has a major influence; so we hope you have followed our advice (minimum 5-6 hours of sunshine, good ventilation, not too sheltered).
- Remove diseased leaf immediately and put in wheelie bin.
- Under planting around the rose can also prevent some fungal diseases; the “splashing bacteria” has less chance.
- The first tip in this message is also important to follow to give fungi as little chance as possible.
- Healthy roses are less susceptible to mould; therefore make sure you are in good shape; therefore also sufficient fertilizers; follow our advice that we always give carefully. (if all goes well, the roses now have enough fertilizer). When a rose is too limp due to too little water. it also becomes much more sensitive to fungi.
- If the above is not effective, please contact us (preferably by e-mail and accompanied by a photo (of the rose)
*Curly leaves in your roses are more common during this period;
This is more common when the roses are near trees, it turns out. And this plague almost always disappears on its own.
The cause is most likely the rose sawfly. You will often find the larva in the curled leaf. The wasp sprays a product at the leaf vein, which causes the curl. You can't get rid of the curl.
We advise: remove the curled leaf and throw it away if there is little infestation. Do not remove too many leaves, because the rose also needs its green leaves for photosynthesis. Usually the damage to the rose itself is negligible.
Chemical control is not of much use and we therefore advise against it (as we do 999 out of 1000 times…).
So: just ignore it; the problem usually solves itself (nature takes care of that nicely).
Lice
Lice: we advise to leave the lice in place, provided that this is a single louse. Otherwise the ladybugs will never come and we want to lure them to eat all the lice. (developing a biotope).
If there is still too much nuisance, we recommend that you repeatedly wet the roses with cold water, repeatedly. The lice don't like this. Please note: make sure that the roses do not get too wet; the soil must be allowed to dry out. And watering: in the morning.
If this does not help, an effective mixture against lice is: a mixture of 1 liter of water, 1 tablespoon of alcohol and 1 teaspoon of green soap. Spray this when there are too many lice. Repeat if necessary. Note: do not spray this mixture in sunny weather; this will damage the rose!
Lice Potty:
You can put an earthenware flower pot upside down on a wooden stick (10 cm). Stuff some straw into the flower pot. Earwigs find this a nice place to live in. At night they come out of their potty to eat lice. Place the pot as close to the ground as possible.
Other:
And just to be sure: we've mentioned it before, but it's really important that the thickening (the oculating point) protrudes just above the ground; you will therefore have to scrape away some soil (and then re-earth again in the winter; but we will email you about this again in due course)
Note: with standard roses the bud point is at the top of the crown; not below the ground.
Enjoy your roses and have a nice summer!
Winter isn't really showing itself yet; at least, not in the sense that we have to start winter preparations for the roses.
Should it really be winter (moderate frost/fair easterly wind), we advise you to earth up the roses (see later in this mailing).
Many people tend to prune too quickly in their garden, but we do not recommend this when it comes to roses. There's no point in pruning; in fact, it is more likely to cause damage.
Exception to this:
Only if the branches are so large that they can tear off in the wind or break off in the snow, then we recommend pruning what is too strong.
Additional ridging in winter:
The image below (the orange part) shows the approximate amount of soil needed to protect the rose against moderate and/or severe frost in winter. The oculation points are the most sensitive. You can apply this extra protection after all. Or maybe you have already done this; also fine; it's not necessary now, but can't hurt either.
(When the frost is finally gone, remove this protection again.)
Light to moderate frost is therefore no problem at all when the plant is at rest. And certainly not when there is no strong easterly wind.
For standard roses, in case of moderate/severe frost, the following applies: protect the crown (plastic bag around it and under the crown, tie the plastic bag together with a piece of string). Because a greenhouse effect may not occur under the plastic, you should not leave the plastic on it for too long; especially when it is no longer freezing.
Light frost, but with a strong easterly wind:
Light frost in combination with a strong easterly wind should be regarded as moderate to severe frost with regard to the roses; so the rose wants extra protection.
Add fertilizer
If you have not yet added fertilizer, you can do so at this time. After earthing up, the perennial cow or horse manure can be spread between the roses/"in the holes". In the spring, when earthing off, the largest chunks of manure are broken up and very lightly incorporated.
Note: With the above tips we assume that the roses have already been planted in the open ground.
Just a few more weeks and then winter will officially begin.
You don't actually have to do anything in your roses now, but if it does freeze, we recommend the following preparations for the winter:
Should it really be winter (moderate frost/fair easterly wind), we advise you to earth up the roses (see later in this message).
Many people tend to prune too quickly in their garden, but we do not recommend this when it comes to roses. There's no point in pruning; in fact, it is more likely to cause damage.
Exception to this:
Only if the branches are so large that they can tear off in the wind or break off in the snow, then we recommend pruning what is too strong.
Additional ridging in winter:
The image below (the orange part) shows the approximate amount of soil needed to protect the rose in winter against moderate and/or severe frost (note: does NOT apply to standard roses). The oculation points are the most sensitive. You can apply this extra protection after all. Or maybe you have already done this; also fine; it's not necessary now, but can't hurt either.
(When the frost is finally gone, remove this protection again.)
Light to moderate frost is therefore no problem at all when the plant is at rest. And certainly not when there is no strong easterly wind.
For standard roses, in case of moderate/severe frost, the following applies: protect the crown (plastic bag around and under the crown, tie the plastic bag together with a piece of string, so that the heart of the plant (flowering point) is protected). Because a greenhouse effect may not occur under the plastic, you should not leave the plastic on it for too long; especially when it is no longer freezing.
Light frost, but with a strong easterly wind:
Light frost in combination with a strong easterly wind should be regarded as moderate to severe frost with regard to the roses; so the rose wants extra protection.
Add fertilizer
If you have not yet added fertilizer, you can do so at this time. After earthing up, the perennial cow or horse manure can be spread between the roses/"in the holes". In the spring, when earthing off, the largest chunks of manure are broken up and very lightly incorporated.
Note: With the above tips we assume that the roses have already been planted in the open ground.
What is still useful for your roses from the Verschuren Collection:
- remove faded flowers
- if nothing blooms on a branch anymore or is about to flower: prune back to the first five leaves.
- water enough (!!!!)
Tools:
- New shoots are often formed from the ground. This is a good sign; the rose will branch out more and become bigger in size.
- Do not confuse these branches with wild branches (!), but let them grow nicely. The new shoots can be recognized by: reddish (at the beginning of the growth spurt) and somewhat pointed in growth.
- Wild branches should always be removed (preferably not pruned, but "pulling" or tearing, without damaging the rest of the plant). Wild branches start to grow BELOW the budding point and are often somewhat lighter green, small leaves.
So far, we hope you enjoy your roses to the fullest!!
