Last weekend I wanted to cut some roses for our dinner table to make a lovingly cooked meal by my husband even more special. So in a good mood I went out with the secateurs in my hand and guess what, I could hardly find a rose that was suited for cutting. What a bummer!
The only bouquet I could come up with is the one that you can see on the photo below, containing five roses. The two clear pink ones are 'Bewitched' and the three white ones with the pink center are 'Pierre de Ronsard'.
There is nothing wrong with this bouquet, and as a matter of fact I love it and am quite proud that these beautiful roses are coming from my own garden, but what bugs me is that I had to search quite a while for some roses suited for cutting purposes and these five were the only ones that I actually could find. It is not the first time that this happened to me that I had to declare a rose state of emergency in the middle of summer. You would assume that with approximately seventyfive roses planted in the ground and in containers that there is always a rose to find for cutting, but nope, often it is not. Something is clearly wrong here!
That brings up the question: why is that so? First of all a lot of my roses are still very young, since I buy most of them as teeny tiny bands and it takes at least three years for these roses to get established. To show you an example: on the photo below you can see a band of 'Stephen's Big Purple', which will hopefully become a beautiful purple hybrid tea rose in the future.
Secondly I am growing a couple of roses that are unsuited for cutting, like some of my tea rose, which often have flower stems that are simply too short to fit into vase. Some of my roses do not last in a vase. They do not last on the bush either, but there it does not matter so much. I think one mistake that I am making is that I am not fertilizing often enough. Organic fertilizers do not last that long in the ground and need to be renewed I think at least three times in one growing season. Right now I am on my second round of fertilizing the roses, which clearly takes place a little late. When I compare my fertilizing regimen with the ones of the top rose exhibitors of the San Diego Rose Society it will not even bring a tired smile on your face. Obviously I still get a couple of decent roses, but not that many!
The rose of choice for cutting, of course, is the hybrid tea rose or a grandiflora rose, which are bred exactly for this purpose and have long stems that hold up the bloom well in a vase. I realized that I have only two roses of these classes planted in the ground which are already established: 'Sweetness' (I did a post about this rose some time ago, if you want to read it click here) and 'Pope John Paul II'. 'Sweetness' is just between flushes right now and there is not a single flower stem to find in the moment (see photo below).
'Pope John Paul II' on the other hand has a decent amount of blooms, but unfortunately most of them are damaged by thrips, an insect that leaves behind brown edges on the rose petals. You can not see it so clearly on the photo, but believe me the roses up close do not look very appealing. Unfortunately a white rose is really ruined for cutting purposes when these insects have infested it. In the garden seen from a distance it still can look OK:
The two other hybrid teas I frequently cut from are still growing in five gallon containers: 'Mister Lincoln' and 'Bewitched'. Since I robbed 'Mister Lincoln' of all its flowers lately and it is working on the next flush in the moment, ...
...it narrowed it down to 'Bewitched'. And yes, I knew I could rely on this rose. She had about eight flowers in all kind of states of opening. Two of them were perfect for cutting. On the photo below you can see the bush after I cut two blooms of.
I wanted to cut at least five roses altogether and so I looked around and found three more on my 'Pierre de Ronsard', a shrub rose, which is producing his second flush. The flush is a little bit puny, so I thought if I cut of three more blooms it does not matter. On the picture below you can see 'Pierre de Ronsard' after I cut off three of its blooms. The re-bloom is truly pathetic, isn't' it?
So there you go I finally got my little bouquet together.
Reflecting about how to improve the situation in the future I would like to plant more hybrid tea roses in the ground so that they get strong and vigorous and will give me great roses for cutting. Also some of the English Roses bred by David Austin might be suited for cutting, therefore I will try to plant some of those first, too.
My dream would be to have a separate cutting garden, where I only grow roses for cutting purposes. Like a vegetable garden this part of the yard would not have to look pretty all the time, but is a "working garden", which fulfills the purpose to provide me with cut flowers. Again, this is one of those moments where I wish that I would have a bigger garden (even though sometimes I can not keep up getting all the necessary work done in my small garden already!). - But wait a moment I have a small area at the one side of the house in the back yard, which is not landscaped yet and houses my pot ghetto right now. Maybe I could use it for this purpose. Hmm...., I have to think about it!
Have you ever been in my situation? How do you make sure you have roses for cutting when you need them even though you only have a small yard?
See you in the garden!
Christina
The only bouquet I could come up with is the one that you can see on the photo below, containing five roses. The two clear pink ones are 'Bewitched' and the three white ones with the pink center are 'Pierre de Ronsard'.
(you can click on the photos to enlarge)
There is nothing wrong with this bouquet, and as a matter of fact I love it and am quite proud that these beautiful roses are coming from my own garden, but what bugs me is that I had to search quite a while for some roses suited for cutting purposes and these five were the only ones that I actually could find. It is not the first time that this happened to me that I had to declare a rose state of emergency in the middle of summer. You would assume that with approximately seventyfive roses planted in the ground and in containers that there is always a rose to find for cutting, but nope, often it is not. Something is clearly wrong here!
That brings up the question: why is that so? First of all a lot of my roses are still very young, since I buy most of them as teeny tiny bands and it takes at least three years for these roses to get established. To show you an example: on the photo below you can see a band of 'Stephen's Big Purple', which will hopefully become a beautiful purple hybrid tea rose in the future.
The rose of choice for cutting, of course, is the hybrid tea rose or a grandiflora rose, which are bred exactly for this purpose and have long stems that hold up the bloom well in a vase. I realized that I have only two roses of these classes planted in the ground which are already established: 'Sweetness' (I did a post about this rose some time ago, if you want to read it click here) and 'Pope John Paul II'. 'Sweetness' is just between flushes right now and there is not a single flower stem to find in the moment (see photo below).
'Pope John Paul II' on the other hand has a decent amount of blooms, but unfortunately most of them are damaged by thrips, an insect that leaves behind brown edges on the rose petals. You can not see it so clearly on the photo, but believe me the roses up close do not look very appealing. Unfortunately a white rose is really ruined for cutting purposes when these insects have infested it. In the garden seen from a distance it still can look OK:
The two other hybrid teas I frequently cut from are still growing in five gallon containers: 'Mister Lincoln' and 'Bewitched'. Since I robbed 'Mister Lincoln' of all its flowers lately and it is working on the next flush in the moment, ...
...it narrowed it down to 'Bewitched'. And yes, I knew I could rely on this rose. She had about eight flowers in all kind of states of opening. Two of them were perfect for cutting. On the photo below you can see the bush after I cut two blooms of.
I wanted to cut at least five roses altogether and so I looked around and found three more on my 'Pierre de Ronsard', a shrub rose, which is producing his second flush. The flush is a little bit puny, so I thought if I cut of three more blooms it does not matter. On the picture below you can see 'Pierre de Ronsard' after I cut off three of its blooms. The re-bloom is truly pathetic, isn't' it?
So there you go I finally got my little bouquet together.
Reflecting about how to improve the situation in the future I would like to plant more hybrid tea roses in the ground so that they get strong and vigorous and will give me great roses for cutting. Also some of the English Roses bred by David Austin might be suited for cutting, therefore I will try to plant some of those first, too.
My dream would be to have a separate cutting garden, where I only grow roses for cutting purposes. Like a vegetable garden this part of the yard would not have to look pretty all the time, but is a "working garden", which fulfills the purpose to provide me with cut flowers. Again, this is one of those moments where I wish that I would have a bigger garden (even though sometimes I can not keep up getting all the necessary work done in my small garden already!). - But wait a moment I have a small area at the one side of the house in the back yard, which is not landscaped yet and houses my pot ghetto right now. Maybe I could use it for this purpose. Hmm...., I have to think about it!
Have you ever been in my situation? How do you make sure you have roses for cutting when you need them even though you only have a small yard?
See you in the garden!
Christina
