Roses have secrets

Picking a rose bush for a landscape starts with two words. Own root. ‘Own root’ means the rose was grown from a single cutting and is not grafted. If the winter kills the shrub to the ground, it will usually regrow from the root and regrow the same rose. Sherbondy’s rose suppliers include Bailey Nursery and Weeks Roses. We purchase bare root roses in February, pot them up at our Underwood greenhouses and bring them back to Council Bluffs in bud and bloom for retail sales. My favorite red is Home Run and favorite pink is Nearly Wild. I have Nearly Wild growing at the Korkow Ranch for Wounded Warriors. It has survived for 6 years with no winter help. Any of the Easy Elegance Rose varieties are excellent for our area. We get lots of compliments on them.

Hybrid tea roses are grafted. A hardy understock has a favored large cutting variety grafted on top. Heavy mulch that covers the graft is the best winter protection for these delicate beauties.

Rose care starts with a good rose food. We carry a new Bayer product which fertilizes and has a good insecticide and fungicide. Our most popular black spot spray is Bonide Rose Shield; a very good Ready-to- Use spray.

If I get a problem with black spot or powdery mildew in the greenhouse, I use a product containing the same active ingredient as Infuse and it really works fast.

Use Jack’s Petunia Feed to jack up the nutrition on your roses. A slow release granular fertilizer works best, but for fast results use the Jack’s. Yellow leaves are a sign of Iron Chlorosis. Use Fertilome Liquid Iron. It is a chelated iron product. The acidity of a soil dictates whether a plant can pull iron and other micronutrients into a plant. To correct the problem of an alkaline soil you must use a chelated iron which does not tie up in soils and will green up any chlorotic plant quickly.

Sherbondys sells bagged compost. For champion roses, dig a 24” diameter hole 2’ deep and use a half a bag of compost mixed with your soil.