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Rose grower, philosopher says patience is the secret
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Published: November 8, 2008
Every gardener has to start somewhere.
Ed Wall said that he got started in roses after planting a thorny bush beneath a wayward teenager's window to thwart her stealthy ways. I'm still not sure if he was joking, but he reports that the former teenager is now a responsible, self-reliant and employed adult. As for the roses, they have graduated from vegetable fencing to full-time passion.
Wall has lined his steep driveway with roses -- hybrid teas, shrub roses, English roses and a few of the new low-care varieties such as Knock Out and Living Easy. Wall says that the roses love the good drainage of the slope, and, although you wouldn't want to push a wheelbarrow up it, tromping up and down that slope has got to be good exercise.
Starting in March
Like many rose growers, Wall has a regimen he follows that begins with the March pruning. He prunes the hybrid teas back by about two-thirds and the English and shrub roses by about a third. He combines fish meal, cottonseed meal, Epsom salts and alfalfa pellets with a synthetic fertilizer that contains a systemic insecticide. He puts it all in a bucket and distributes half a cup to each bush. In April he begins regularly spraying to combat black spot, the bane of most rose growers in the area.
Though he grows several of the newer landscape roses that are touted to require less maintenance, he still treats all his roses the same. Among the many blooming in his late October garden were Living Easy, a creamy orange fading to a suffused yellow with a light rosy fragrance, and Happy Chappy, a landscape rose that bore open clusters of 30 or so blossoms of single petals of pink-orange fading to deep reddish pink.
A David Austin English rose called Eglantyne held a deep fruity fragrance in its ball-shape, pale apricot flowers. Yellow Simplicity, a pale lemon-color carefree rose, had exaggerated pointed buds that opened to rounded flowers. There was a Red Simplicity that mimicked the yellow in characteristics other than color -- being a deep rose red.
Blossoms all year
Roses were Wall's first love when it came to plants, but they were just the beginning. His goal was to have blossoms year round. Camellias were the solution. Wall says he has had something blooming every week for the past year and a half. A few, such as Ashton's Pride with a weepy appearance and unique small, shell-pink blooms hanging from the branch tips like clusters of butterflies, were blooming last week.
Wall has planted his camellias at the bottom of the hill formed when the land was leveled for the house foundation. Surrounding the rear of the house is a young woodland, with pine, oak, maple, beech and hickory taking on their autumn hues. Wall has developed the landscape on a budget, a large part of the savings from some clever propagation tricks that have given him more plants at a fraction of what they would have cost at a nursery.
"I have more time than money" Wall said. "And camellias have taught me patience."
He uses a technique known as air layering to reproduce his camellias.
"Timing is everything," he said. When the plant is actively beginning to grow, select a healthy stalk and pull the leaves away. Scrape a band of bark away about an inch wide all the way around the stalk. Take wet sphagnum moss and sprinkle it with a rooting hormone powder. Wrap this around the wound and then wrap the moss in plastic wrap. Wrap the plastic wrap in aluminum foil and tie the ends with twist ties.
If this process is started in April, Wall said, you will have roots by September. When roots form, sever the shoot and plant it either in a pot or in the soil.
"This will give you a duplicate of the plant you love for basically pennies if you have the patience and the time," Wall said. "If you have an heirloom it's a wonderful way to take the memories you had and plant them in your own yard."
Wall tried competing with his roses at one time and won five red ribbons, but he decided that competition was not what gardening was about for him.
"I enjoy the beauty, and I enjoy giving them to my wife," he said. In fact he sees a correlation between growing good flowers and cultivating a marriage. "You have to set aside some time every day to pay attention to your roses, if you want them to bloom. The same is true of your marriage."
I suppose it's an apt metaphor. We won't talk about the thorns.
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