chelle said:Hi, Liza. to ATP!
Your rose is likely drowning. We want these rose transplants to grow new roots quickly to become more self-sufficient. Your plant can't do that if it's always wet. When you move it, do move it into a sunny spot, water it in well (to the point that water sits on top for say, 5 minutes or so and then drains away, then just leave it be. Its roots will want to travel downward and outward in its future quests for water, but it will only do that if you let that top soil dry out. If after a few weeks you've had no rain and the plant looks wan with drooping leaves in the evening, then water deeply. You can add some compost and mix it with your native soil at planting time, but your plant is likely so stressed now that adding lots of nutrients at this time might just finish it off. I'd venture to guess that it needs time to recover and settle in a bit first before you feed it.
Hope this helps.
Thank you Chelle, please bear with me because i want to make sure i understood everything perfectly clear before i touch my iceberg rose again.. I know i read that it is not the season to transplant roses at this time, but if i leave it there, then it will surely die.. So, after i dig a hole for it, don't mix the soil with the miracle gro garden soil and/ or the supersoil enrich planting compost? Just use the dirt that i dug from the soil? what about the spraying of the ultra green plant starter? don't do that either?
Newyorkrita said:Oh and don't get too alarmed when it drops all its leaves or wilts and looks like it is dieing. Supply good drainage and water well and it will recover. Do not fertilize after transplanting until it is growing well.
Newyorkrita said:Liza, do you have ordinary garden compost? In spite of miracle grows add campaign the very best thing you can add to your garden is compost, not miracle grow. Not saying miracle grow is a bad thing but not as great as it's claimed to be. Your rose is already going to be stressed from two moves. Too much fertilizer is a bad thing in these cases. Compost on the other hand enriches the soil naturally and never burns plants. It increases bad drainage issues and keeps soil that it to dry from drying out as fast. It averages soil acidity or alkalinity. In effect it just always makes the soil better for planting.
And that is for veggies, flowers, shrubs you name it. Compost is a gardeners best friend.
chelle said:I'd say you probably shouldn't use the Miracle Grow mix. It may have more nutrients in it than your plant can handle right now. If you ask a plant to make more top growth than the roots can adequately feed/supply it just compounds the problem and adds even more stress. I have no experience with the plant starter, I've never used it, so I can't advise you on whether it would help. Less is sometimes best when dealing with a stressed plant. They really just want to grow as nature intended; with some wet periods and some drier spells. Trying to figure out how much of each is best is just part of the learning process. Compost, as Rita said, is great! However, whenever possible I try to get my plant's roots growing into native soil first. Sometimes a plant will be lazy if it's over-supplied with goodies at the beginning and the roots will just want to remain right there...never going out on their own to get what they need. For annual veggies, this is okay and preferable because we want them to grow and produce as quickly as possible; shrubs and trees really need to stretch out those roots first for a long and productive life.
What are your temps like now?
(While I was typing this you posted a picture...to me, that plant looks just fine for a recent transplant!)
chelle said:I'd say you probably shouldn't use the Miracle Grow mix. It may have more nutrients in it than your plant can handle right now. If you ask a plant to make more top growth than the roots can adequately feed/supply it just compounds the problem and adds even more stress. I have no experience with the plant starter, I've never used it, so I can't advise you on whether it would help. Less is sometimes best when dealing with a stressed plant. They really just want to grow as nature intended; with some wet periods and some drier spells. Trying to figure out how much of each is best is just part of the learning process. Compost, as Rita said, is great! However, whenever possible I try to get my plant's roots growing into native soil first. Sometimes a plant will be lazy if it's over-supplied with goodies at the beginning and the roots will just want to remain right there...never going out on their own to get what they need. For annual veggies, this is okay and preferable because we want them to grow and produce as quickly as possible; shrubs and trees really need to stretch out those roots first for a long and productive life.
What are your temps like now?
(While I was typing this you posted a picture...to me, that plant looks just fine for a recent transplant!)
RoseBlush1 said:There are a lot of right ways to grow roses and few absolute rules, because the roses always seem to be able to break the rules. One of the absolute rules is that roses don't like wet feet, so all of the comments above about the very real possibility that you are drowning your rose are spot on.
Fresno has a hot dry climate in the summer. Overhead watering after the temps have reached 85 degrees is actually very beneficial for your rose in that it helps the plant combat the high transpiration rate ... the loss of moisture in the top growth during the hot days of summer. After temps have reached 85 degrees black spot spores are inactive so you don't need to worry about that fungal disease which is the "why" of the recommendation not to overhead water roses. The key point here is "dry" climate. In climates that have high temps in a moist climate can have the same high temps, but they have higher disease pressure because fungus diseases love the moist climates.
A plant can only bring up so much water from the root zone and you will see the top growth wilting even with a well watered rose if the plant's top growth is losing more moisture than it can bring up to the top growth from the roots. Usually, that wilting will disappear overnight as the temps drop and the plant catches up. Overhead watering allows the rose to absorb moisture through the leaves. Also, by "washing" the rose, you are helping to avoid a spider mite infestation because they breed like fire in hot and dry conditions. Washing your rose regularly breaks the breeding cycle of this pest.
There is no need to amend your soil unless it is hard clay where the roots cannot expand outside of the rose hole or very sandy and will not hold moisture. If you put compost in your planting hole when you plant the rose, it will decompose and the rose will sink. If you follow nature's lead and put the compost on top of the soil, as it breaks down, it will feed the soil around the rose. Of course, mulching is part of maintaining a healthy rose in your climate and as the mulch breaks down, it, too, will feed the soil.
I garden in the same hot and dry conditions you have in your climate. If I am dealing with a stressed rose ... and a rose that has been drowning can be considered a stressed rose ... I would dig it up and plant it in a large container with well draining potting soil with no fertilizer amendments and just water it until I see new top growth. This gives the plant the chance to grow a new root mass. The first roots to rot are the feeder roots which pull moisture and nutrients up to the top growth and the food created by photosynthesis back to the root zone. My preference ... and we all learn what works in our climates and develop preferences ... is not to plant a rose into the ground until it has a solid root mass.
Do not fertilize until you see new top growth. That tells you the rose has grown new feeder roots and the root system is operating correctly. Then lightly feed it with a soluble liquid fertilizer weekly because the new roots can be easily burned by normal strength fertilizers. Make certain that your container drains well and lift it off of any hardscape or surface to insure that the container does not hold excess water. Keep the plant moist ... not wet and don't allow it to dry out between waterings.
In your climate, you can plant the rose in the fall when the temperatures are lower and there is less stress on the newly transplanted rose and your rose should have developed a healthier root mass while it was growing in the container.
When you prepare your new hole, do what is called a perk test. Fill the hole with water and ideally it should drain within two hours. If it drains faster, that tells you that you may want to amend your planting soil to slow down the drainage. Plain ol' cat litter will do the job. Again, test for drainage. If it doesn't drain within two hours, as long as it drains overnight, your rose will be fine. If it doesn't drain overnight, you need to make a bigger hole and deeper hole. You may have a layer of hardpan under the place where you are siting the rose and that needs to be broken up to get the desired drainage.
Iceberg is a tough rose. It's a rose that LIKES to grow, so there is a very, very good chance that you can bring your rose back to health and have a glorious plant for your garden.
Here's a link to an Ezine article on HelpMeFind written by Kim Rupert who also grows roses in a hot and dry climate. You can pick up some tips on how to prune the rose to avoid disease.
http://www.helpmefind.com/gard...
I have made plenty of mistakes in learning how to grow roses well, especially once I moved to a new climate. One of the greatest things to know about roses is that when they are happy, they grow like weeds.
Smiles,
Lyn
RoseBlush1 said:OK... we were typing at the same time. Yes, place the container where you think you want to plant the rose. That's one of the best ways to find out if a rose will like the site you have chosen.
Use a commercial potting soil for your container. They are designed for good drainage. Native soil may not drain well enough when used in a container. When you take it out of the pot to plant the rose, you don't need to remove the potting soil and can use the native soil for the planting. If you dig the hole now and then backfill it a bit, you can observe how fast that olive tree tries to invade the hole. That will tell you a lot about whether or not it's a good idea to plant the rose there.
Smiles,
Lyn