Newsletter
Each month Jon will provide his clients with a newsletter with information on what's happening in the garden, what plants are looking good, and what you can be doing. This is sent by email and is free of charge.
"I look forward each month to Jon's newsletter to see what useful tips he has for my garden. I have transplanted my Daphne as after reading one of his newsletters I realised my Daphne was planted in the wrong area for what it liked." Carolyn Freedman
Sample Newsletter:
It’s that time of year when it is colder, wetter and there is less light due to the sun being lower. It is great to get more rain, but with the cold, shady conditions, your soil will take longer to dry out. Lawns become slippery, and the garden looks starker. Sasanqua camellias are now in bloom, and the luculias have flower buds swelling.
If you have frost tender plants, you can cover them with frost cloth, but it is better to plant frost hardy plants if you get frosts.
It is the time of the year to prune roses. Rose pruning is often seen as somewhat of a mysterious art that few can master. However, it really is quite simple. In fact in trials overseas, they compared cutting back roses randomly to cutting them carefully, and found little difference in growth and flowering. While I wouldn’t recommend wanton slashing, it does illustrate a point that once you understand the principles of pruning roses, it is relatively easy to do.
Roses flower on new growth, compared to say apples which flower on 2nd and 3rd year-old spurs. To encourage flowering in roses, you need to encourage new growth. You can do this by hard pruning. Hard pruning of apples, on the other hand, results in a mass of new growth. As apples flower on older growth, hard pruning will discourage flowering and fruiting.
When pruning roses you need to consider what type of growth you have. For example, there are bush roses, climbers, miniatures, groundcovers, and standard roses. Bush and standard roses are pruned back hard, usually leaving stems with 2-3 buds remaining. A vase or open shape is preferred, which means you keep the centre of the rose open by pruning to an outward-facing bud.
You should prune your roses to a suitable bud, with the cut sloping away from the bud. This sheds water away from the bud, as shown in the diagram. It is better not to leave a section of stem above the bud as you can get dieback.
Woody unproductive or dead growth can be cut back to the base.
With climbers, you don’t need to prune them back as hard as you want to train the rose up your structure. You can cut them back 1/3 to 1/2 to a strong bud. The idea with climbers is to recycle the canes or shoots. Older woody canes can be cut back to ground level, as new canes appear. Tie the canes back as they come away in spring.
Miniatures and groundcover roses are easy – they can be cut back with hedge-clippers! Cut back past flowering growth, and shape the plants.
If you are going to grow roses, it is essential you have the right growing conditions. They need ample moisture over summer, but good drainage over winter, and need adequate nutrients as they are gross feeders (this means they need a regular fertiliser additions) They need compost, mulch, fertilisers, regular watering, regular pest and disease control and yearly pruning.
I ask my clients who want roses if they have the time to look after them. If the answer is no, I say try something else!
As for cultivars of roses, one of the best performing roses in my experience is Iceberg. I have seen some recently in full bloom, while the other cultivars around them were long past it. They are a very hardy, vigorous rose.
If you live near the coast, you could try some of the rugosa roses or a variety called Alberic Barbier, which has naturalised around coastal areas. For scent try Mme Isaac Perriere or Cecile Brunner. You will no doubt recognise that there are a lot of French names with the older roses, so brush up on that French accent when you are asking for them!
Roses in good health and bloom are a sight to behold, but remember they
need that extra care to achieve the result.
Wellington Gardens Ltd: Servicing Wellington, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Porirua and Kapiti
PO Box 13-402, Wellington;
ph: 04 477 4744; fax: 04 477 4773;
mobile: 0274 794 195
Email: info@wellingtongardens.co.nz;
Web site: www.wellingtongardens.co.nz