A Rose Letter

A letter from my friends who own a Rose nursery very near to me

Dear Woo, it seems unbelievable that Autumn is here already – did we miss summer?
From what I gather speaking to friends and family elsewhere in the country we seem to have had better weather than most, here in Kent, but believe me it has not been good and the one memory I will have is of incessant winds! – the least plant friendly element of all.
The roses perhaps, have not looked their best this year but they are resilient plants and the additional rain did at least help with watering of the container grown plants, even if disease pressure increased as a result.
One of our aims this year was to attend more shows, as we feel this is one of the best ways to showcase the business and create more local and regional awareness amongst the buying public. Unfortunately, we had to miss the South of England show which was very good to us last year, as we did not have enough bloom to create a display [late spring] and we had a dreadful weekends weather during the Kent flower show – I was seen retrieving the gazebo from the cattle sheds on Sunday morning along with pots and pots of roses. Never the less, our first Hampton Court Palace Flower show was a great experience and success, I would thoroughly recommend it to any one interested in gardening; every aspect of the industry is well represented, with excellent quality plants and lots to see and do, all within the unique setting of the palace grounds. We showed in the dedicated rose marquee, which for rose enthusiasts, is a must, as most of the countries top breeders and producers are represented, it is always on the same site within the plant village and easy to find.
On the growing front, we have had a good season, budding, which is always a tense time, went extremely well, as the rain stopped the day before our budders arrived and resumed the afternoon they finished. Incase anyone wonders why budding has to stop in wet conditions, the reason, is that moisture and soil contaminating the union between the bud and rootstock will case failure and possibly fungal infection with resulting crop loss.
For the first time we have budded standards this year, which will be ready for sale during the summer of 2014.
At this point, I have a confession to make and declare that we have not budded either of the last two International Rose of the Year, varieties on the nursery. Don’t get me wrong they are both perfect examples of excellent breeding of the modern style, namely, compact, very free flowering, extremely healthy with good vigor, excellent flower size and conformity but totally without perfume. From feed back gathered mostly at shows, we have decided to alter our range and place a greater emphasis on selecting varieties with good perfume, as this seems to be the single most important feature of a rose to a customer. As a result and following field trials on the nursery this summer, we have “gone back” to a lot of varieties which are not new but have much better fragrance than some of the varieties that have superseded them over time. These will be in the catalogue and available as bare root plants in the autumn of 2013, with pots to follow the following spring.
I only hope that this proves to be a wise decision!
We will shortly be lifting and dispatching bare root plants, which, was the traditional and indeed only way of selling roses before containerisation started, following the knock – out winters of the early 1960’s.
Bare root plants offer good value, as they are less expensive than pots and delivery costs are significantly lower; it is also an excellent time of the year to plant and bare root roses will establish very quickly if planted well.
In the garden, you may like to do a little light pruning; this is mostly to remove the last of this seasons flowers as they finish and to remove leaves, which may carry fungal infection through to next season.
We recommend the secateurs remain in the shed till next spring before undertaking annual pruning as the buds start to swell. Many thanks for your support during the year, and will see you in November.
Peter and Stephen

 

Good morning ScotKat and Sheal thank you my friends