The photo of the rose above, taken late one afternoon in Golden Gate Park's rose garden, is of one of the lesser-known climbers that should be more widely advertised, Climbing Royal Sunset (not to be confused with "Sunset Celebration", "Alpine Sunset", "Autumn Sunset", or a host of other roses with the name "Sunset" in them!). It's a shame, because this rose symbolizes everything people ever look for in a rose: rich color (nice shade of orange with streaks of red in the bud, fading to a soft apricot as it ages); powerful fruity fragrance; great repeat bloom; extremely healthy foliage; and even drought-tolerant (once established), to boot! Oh! I almost forgot: it also makes a long-lasting cut flower -- as long as you cut when still in tight bud. Another pic of this rose, and further description, can be seen on my Gallery of Roses page... My idea of "rose basics" is pretty simple. Give roses what they need and want that NATURALLY makes them thrive, first, like: sun; a fine, deep home of PH-balanced, nutrient-rich, organic soil to send their roots down into; ample water (a few roses are drought-tolerant, once established; but you'll get more from them if regularly given deep summer drinks!); and sun -- and I do mean: SUN! (If roses went on cruise ships to the Caribbean, they'd be out on-deck every day, and ALL-day!) There are a few "shade-tolerant" roses, however (the key word, though, being "tolerant"!) -- the old once-blooming Alba rose family, as well as the repeat-blooming Hybrid Musks, are both two good examples of rose groups to choose from. For beginner rose-growers, the first order of business is usually deciding WHAT rose(s) to plant in their garden and WHEN to purchase them. Usually this is mindlessly accomplished by tempting rose company catalogues with mouth-watering pictures and writers so clever at concealing a rose's faults that you'd swear they were all former politicians. Please don't fall into a comatose state of unrestrained shopper's addiction by simply looking at gardening catalogues! DO SOME RESEARCH AHEAD-OF-TIME INSTEAD. To find out more information about roses that perform well in your little corner of planet Earth, a good start is to see if there is a local Rose Society in your city or general area. Be forewarned, though: in some cases, because many rose societies are so heavily focussed on rose bloom competitions, their tendency is to both banish roses to beds of total isolation from other green creatures of the Plant Kingdom, and to also declare total chemical warfare on any possible bug or rose ailment that could even remotely possibly ruin the rose owner's chance at winning one of those damn rose bloom contests. Having said that, though, their advice on which Hybrid Tea and Floribunda roses usually perform best in your climate is usually quite excellent, although their knowledge of the many beautiful Old Garden roses, newer healthy "Landscape" roses, and David Austin's "English" roses is usually more limited. Once you have done some research on which cultivars sound most appealing for you to have growing in your garden (the word "cultivar", by the way, simply stands for the combination of two words: "CULTIvated" and "VARiety"), the next question that you need to ask yourself is the following one: "Do I want to buy an OWN-ROOT rose, or a GRAFTED one?" "What the heck is the difference?" you are probably asking yourself right now, right? Well, let me try to clarify that issue, and make it as easy as possible to understand... Own-Root Roses vs. Grafted Roses An own-root rose is probably pretty easy to figure out: the rose that you decide to purchase is growing roots from the same plant as that which blooms above-ground. Whenever humanly possible, this is my highest recommendation of the best way to go. The problem with many own-root roses, though, is that sometimes they take practically an eternity to get established and get to the eventual size plant that you were hoping to see someday before your deathbed. It all depends on the variety - some roses grow faster on their own roots than others. Again, do as much research as possible before planting time. The good news about own-root roses, though, is: you will never EVER get those evil things coming up from the deep, dark underworld called "suckers!" In fact, over time, own-root roses usually only increase in health and vigor, often even out-living their original owners!! And my hands-down favorite rose nursery to purchase own-root roses is definitely Vintage Gardens in Sebastapol, CA. Please look at my Links page for further details about them, including their wonderful website! Now for the dirt on grafted roses: this is the method most often used by most rose companies to quickly mass-produce as many rose plants as possible in order to sell to the rose-hungry public. Just picture a bunch of ravenous teenagers with their fists wrapped around their knives and forks, pounding on the family dinner table at the traditional American Thanksgiving feast, chanting their demand: "We want roses! We want roses!!" Grafted roses are simply the marriage of two completely different roses, resulting in satisfying most people's insistence of having "instant gratification!" But, the problem of grafting is this: although a wonderful "quick fix", the rose that's the "half" which remains underground is simply there for the sole purpose of quickly forming massive roots to support the prettier rose that blooms above-ground. If those two roses could talk, though, you'd soon realize that they really don't get along all that well. Here is an imaginary conversation between the 2 of them, illustrating what I mean by saying it can be a "problem": Pretty Rose On Top - "It's so nice of you to be my humble dirt-breathing servant, oh lowly rose growing only roots beneath my feet!" Rootstock Rose Underground - "Huh? Who the heck is standing on my head up there, --- and why are you not allowing me to bloom, too?? It's not fair for you to get all the fun in the sun; so, I'll just send up one of my own canes to sprout above-ground so I can grow and bloom, too!" In other words: the rootstock rose that was grafted to simply support the prettier rose that you paid your money for is playing the ancient game of "survival of the fittest", usually eventually sending up his own canes that will look like a completely different rose from what you saw in that catalogue (because it IS a completely different rose - the rose that is "supposed to" stay underground, but doesn't want to!)... And this impostor is called a "sucker!" The biggest problem about all of this is that most home-owners are unable to identify when a sucker rose cane from the rootstock rose underground has successfully made it to the surface, eventually inviting more of his underworld kind to join him.... which, eventually over time, will cause the prettier rose that you paid good money for to start losing its vigor and eventually be killed off by the more aggressive underground guy that's slowly taking over (unless you detect the problem early enough and keep up with removing all sucker canes). In a nutshell... Own-root roses take longer to get established, but once fully grown, will do better and live way longer and only increase in vigor and health and bloom! Grafted roses, on the other hand, are certainly quicker to grow big and bloom great in their first few years of their lives, but unfortunately over time, will eventually lose vigor and health, etc., and potentially even be replaced by the much uglier rootstock rose that came sneaking up from deep below the soil when you just weren't looking... It's YOUR choice of which type of rose to buy, but at least now you know the facts about both of them! And now on to the next sub-topic... Rose Purchasing, Planting, Watering, and Feeding, Etc. Now that you've probably made your decision re. whether to get a grafted rose or an own-root rose, your next question most likely will be: "WHEN is the best time of year for me to purchase and plant my new rose(s)?" Well, since most people end up buying grafted roses, let's begin with talking about those... By far, the cheapest as well as the best time of year to buy grafted roses is during their winter dormant season. Be forewarned, though: they look VERY ugly and unimpressive - they're just a bunch of naked thorny canes with a tangle of roots attached! This ugly-looking thing even sometimes looks downright dead sometimes, but rest assured, this naked creature is simply sleeping... Once it has been purchased, then maybe shipped and mailed from Texas or California or even as far away as from Shangri-La, you are then free to plant this Sleeping Beauty in your own garden soil. Just follow their package directions and advice, especially with regard to soil preparation recommendations, and any adjustments that might be necessary to make because of your specific climate. As far as own-root roses go, there's quite a bit more allowance for freedom to purchase these rose plants year-round, although for me personally, I still prefer buying and planting those roses in winter, too (because I like to utilize our Northern California rainy wet winter season to help the plants better establish more naturally than they would during the dry summer months). You can still purchase potted rose plants at ANY time of the year, though - it's just that they are usually quite a bit more expensive when potted (especially if in full and glorious bloom)! Regardless of time of year that you chose to buy a new rose or two, the #1 most important thing you can do for your new little baby plant(s) is to provide an excellent new home for it. This means that regardless of whether your native garden soil is predominantly heavy clay soil or the opposite, which is sandy soil (which are the 2 types of backyard soils most commonly found in our San Francisco Bay Area), you'll need to do the same basic kind of soil amending, in either case: AMEND WITH ORGANIC MATERIAL!!! This can be any combination of any or all of the following: aged poultry and/or steer manure and/or bat guano; organic compost; worm castings, some bone meal, etc.... Some people prefer to buy these soil amendments in store-bought large bags, while others make their own homemade compost, etc. - it doesn't matter! As long as they are all-natural and organic, they'll do the job. Just dig a wide and deep hole in your ground (2' X 2' is the standard recommendation), amend the soil in that location by digging it and turning it over and over until it mixes in well with the native soil, and then carefully and lovingly plant your baby little rose plant... Other than making sure there are no air bubbles underground, simply regularly water it thoroughly during its tender young beginning, and then just watch it grow! There are other additional little details that could also be mentioned here at this time, but those details are written in many MANY rose books as well as usually included along with your rose package instructions... So, please read them!!! To keep this "Rose Basics" page BRIEF, I will only be covering the most basic of the Basics... So, now to move on to discussing Watering.... Roses LOVE water! They will bloom their best and be at their healthiest if given plenty of deep, regular drinks. However, this does NOT mean that you cannot train them to be at least somewhat drought-tolerant, or in some cases, eventually even COMPLETELY drought-tolerant (an especially important consideration in climates like California's naturally summer-dry one). The 3 biggest factors in making drought-tolerant rose gardens happen are the following: the specific rose varieties you chose to plant (like many older rose varieties - especially some of the bigger climbing roses grown on their own roots, for example - as well as a good number of old once-blooming roses), but more on this topic, later on other pages... the type of soil you plant your roses in (heavier clay-based soil retaining better moisture than sandy soil, for example) HOW you water your rose garden. Re. Issue #3, above, if you water your rose garden DEEPLY AND THOROUGHLY but try to gradually lengthen the frequency in-between waterings to give your roses occasional dry periods, this will encourage your rose plants to reach deep down into the ground, resulting in DEEP roots, rather than shallow surface ones. The worst thing you could do for a rose garden is to have it all set up on one of those unthinking automatic irrigations systems, and then setting it for 10 minutes of watering every day - DO NOT DO THAT!!!!! If you do... your rose plants will only develop very shallow, surface-only roots. Then if you go away on a 2-week vacation or something, and let's say that this automatic irrigation system breaks down or is accidentally shut off by someone (please look at my "Climate of Northern California" page for a good example of what I'm talking about here, reading the story that starts off with "A Word to the Wise..."), guess what your rose garden will look like when you come back home after such a long absence?!!??*%!!!!! In the rose garden that I planted and maintain in Castro Valley, CA, for example, I've gradually trained it to become more and more drought-tolerant. When I first plated the baby rose plants in February of '07, I watered those roses about twice a week, unless it rained in which case i DIDN'T water them. Once their big spring flush of bloom happened in May, I cut the watering back to only once a week (although watering VERY thoroughly and deeply each time I did water). By around mid-summer, I cut it back to only watering that garden every 10 days or so. By the time September rolled around I had even gone for as long as a full 2 weeks without giving that garden ANY water, and this was even during a time when we had a couple of triple-digit heat waves in the Bay Area!!! I wanted that rose garden to become as drought-tolerant as possible, because I live in San Francisco but work over in Castro Valley (which is almost an hour's drive across the Bay and into a much hotter summer region than the SF side of the Bay). Much to my great delight (and sometimes even to my complete surprise!), all those roses did AMAZINGLY well! I didn't want to have to worry about that garden during any of my days off, because I didn't want to have to come back across the Bay early only to have to water some thirsty roses that I would be afraid of not being able to survive without me. I absolutely DON'T coddle them now, because I trained them at a very early age to grow up to be "survivors!" I first learned about this technique of growing drought-tolerant roses from a woman named Marlea Graham. She had been the editor of the monthly Heritage Rose Group magazine for many years, and I remember a conversation I had with her on the topic of drought-tolerance. In her own garden in the eastern part of the East Bay region, where it can get quite hot and dry in the summer, she had a huge collection of mostly old roses and even went so far as to stop all summer watering for a period of time after the main spring bloom was all finished - giving her plants sort of a mini "2nd dormant season" - then beginning hand-watering again around September (so that she could enjoy a fall repeat bloom before the winter rainy season returned). The key to having drought-tolerant roses is to NOT fertilize them, though. In order to fertilize your roses, you need to give them a lot of extra water, --- and if you give them a lot of extra water, your roses then won't be all that "drought-tolerant!" The ONLY fertilizing I ever do nowadays (as far as the Fern Lodge rose garden in Castro Valley goes) is to give each rose plant a generous heaping portion of aged manure around each drip-line (that imaginary outer circle that occurs if you picture the rose dripping-wet after a big rain). Along with a fresh layer of organic mulch to help smother the weeds out as well as help keep the moisture in, about the only other fertilizing I do is maybe add some alfalfa pellets in spring. Also, if you specifically feel the need to see more fresh young "Basil breaks" (AKA new rose canes, which are usually mahogany-red in color), a small amount of epsom salts added in spring is another thing I'll do sometimes. After spring is over, though, I do NOTHING: NO FERTILIZING, NO SPRAYING, "Nada!" Just occasional deep and thorough watering, the more thorough but INfrequently, the better! TRUE: you will not get as much repeat-bloom if you cut back on the frequency and/or amount of your watering. But, if you enjoy NOT being a slave to your rose garden (and are also a bit on the lazy side, as I am - LOL), you will find that you'll still have plenty of roses to enjoy, and maybe even appreciate them all the more, because not taken so for granted! One more small topic to discuss now, while still covering this sub-category: the topic of whether to spray your roses with insecticides, fungicides, etc.... Personally, whenever I can get away with it, I prefer NOT spraying ANYthing on roses whatsoever! If a rose plant can't survive on its own - especially when I know I give it well-amended soil when I plant it, plenty of regular watering when it is young, and placed in plenty of full-day sunshine near no tree root competition - then, I'm sorry to say this, but: whenever a rose variety turns out to be more of a "lemon" than a rose, I simply shovel-prune it! In order to encourage bird and other wildlife to be included in your garden (OTHER THAN deer and gopher visitors - LOL), you absolutely must NOT spray any toxic chemicals in your garden. As Nancy Reagan once so famously said, "Just say NO!" If you plant various herbs and other well-chosen companion plants near and/or around your roses, especially any of the ones that I most highly recommend for rose gardens, you not only will have a healthy and diversified ecologically-friendly habitat for the beneficial insects to come to, you'll also become convinced that this type of rose garden will provide far more garden health, ease, gardening satisfaction, and beauty than you ever dreamed possible! And now for the sub-topic about roses that for some reason terrifies even many experienced gardeners... Rose-Pruning 101 In order to keep this subject simple and brief - especially since it is much easier to learn about how to do this task from actually DOING the pruning first-hand - I will only cover a few basic concepts here. To begin with, it's nice to humbly remind ourselves of the fact that Mother Nature first invented roses all on her own, originally not needing human beings to have to come along and prune Her fragrant and thorny creations! It's so easy for rose gardeners who get very confident over their wonderful new pruning skills to suddenly begin to have a big ego about it all, and then before you know it, they are soon bossing other rose experts around, while the poor rose itself has to sit there and just quietly "take it!" Having said the above comments in defense of the non English-speaking roses, however, there is actually a LOT to learn about how to best go about the pruning, as well as to fully understand the plant enough to know WHY we prune it. Every winter local rose societies put on free rose-pruning demos, both at local nurseries and also here in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. I have also taken more in-depth rose-pruning workshops up at Vintage Gardens in Sebastopol, taught by one of the owners, Gregg Lowery - worth every penny charged to go take it!!! Why prune?? Well, truth be told, about 90% of the reason why human beings have to prune their roses every winter is because the plants themselves have usually gotten much bigger than most home-owners had ever planned or allowed space for. The good news, though, is that most roses seem to actually ENJOY a bit of this kind of abuse! In Nature, a rose plant will naturally shed off its oldest and most unproductive canes, and continually be replacing them with newer, more vigorous ones. All that human beings really do when pruning is to speed up this process, as well as tidying up the look of the plant and allowing more room to favor the newer canes to better thrive and bloom their fool heads off. The best description I ever read in a rose book referred to having the goal of continually trying to keep the plant "young" (I apologize for not remembering which book this was from; although I believe I read it in one of David Austin's books). Another concept that helps in understanding our rose friends better is the fact that in winter, when the cold and wet weather comes roaring in off the Pacific Ocean here, roses say to themselves some comment or other like this: "Oh! Thank goodness! I'm so tired of growing and blooming right now, I just can't wait to take a good, long NAP!!" Hey, plants need their rest-time, too, and winter is the perfect time for roses to take a long, hard-earned break! For coastal Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, what is considered generally as the ideal time of year to do this winter rose-pruning ritual is anytime between late December and approximately mid-February, with January being considered the most "ideal" month (although I've been told that farther north, up in the Eureka area, for example, that pruning is usually advised to take place a bit later than the Bay Area's timing). Seriously cold-winter climates are a whole different enchilada, so, please contact your local or nearest Rose Society for their recommended advice! One more comment about winter rose-pruning before moving onto other topics: It helps to take the time someday to really thoroughly LOOK at a rose plant. The "average" garden rose, for example, usually will "speak" to you, if you just take the time to carefully look at its canes and "listen"... You'll notice that some canes look rather old and grey, having quite a bit of rough-looking bark on the outside, and struggling to barely bloom or sprout new growth at all in summer. These are the tired old guys, ready to throw in the towel and go to rose Heaven for their permanent retirement. Conversely, you'll probably also notice some very young-looking, succulent, vigorous and thick canes that look like they're about to burst up into the sky on their own steam! These are usually either a beautiful shade of mahogany-red or bright bright green - these are the younguns that you want to totally coddle and favor! These are the canes that you want to be protective of while winter-pruning, because these canes will provide your best and most blooms and future good growth. As far as summer-pruning goes, that is usually done for one or more of the following reasons: because it is a once-blooming Old Garden or Species rose (in which case, prune immediately after flowering, and NOT at all when winter arrives) because the rose has a tendency to grow too much and too tall/wide for the space alloted because that particular variety is recommended to have some summer pruning take place in order to get better repeat bloom from it because "dead-heading" the spent flowers will cause it to repeat its bloom cycle more quickly (because if not dead-headed, the hips, or "fruit' of the rose plant will then form, which will cause it to trigger something inside the rose plant, telling itself that it has "done its job for the year" - and consequently stop or at least reduce the repeating blooms that would otherwise follow - and since human beings are quite "piggy" when it comes to seeing lots of repeat-blooming, it's best to keep dead-heading right up until the first fall cold weather arrives. That's enough Rose Basics for now.... If I bored you with too many other sub-topics on this page, like Rose History, nobody would ever want to take the time to even bother reading about these "basics!" And now feel free to pick your next topic wave to surf on...

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