 Roses have a reputation for being difficult to grow, but our speaker tonight is going to tell us how it's done. Don Kinsler is a native of Lisbon, North Dakota, and after graduating from North Dakota State University in horticulture, Don joined the NDSU Experiment Station in Woody Plant Research, followed by five years in extension horticulture's state office. After he left NDSU, Don and his wife Mary owned and operated a greenhouse business for the next 25 years. So it's a lot of experience. Don's now back with NDSU, which we're all happy about, and he's the extension agent for Cass County Horticulture. Don writes two weekly gardening columns for foreign communications, and he has a weekly radio program on two stations during the growing season. Don, welcome to the forums. Well, good evening. Good evening. And thank you very much for inviting me. And I'm excited. Now, I, I like everything in horticulture all the way from house plants to vegetable gardening and everything in between, and not the least of which is growing roses. So this evening, it's going to be fun to discuss roses. Now, I have, I have grouped rose growing into about 10 steps. And I firmly believe that all of us can grow roses. Now, for example, the roses that you see pictured there are all Canadian developed very winter hardy types. Now, one thing I should mention, feel free to at some point to download the handout that was prepared on growing roses in the upper Midwest, because everything I say during this program is written up on there. So feel free just to sit back and enjoy the show and know that everything that I mentioned, as well as a list of the hardiest roses are all on that handout. But look at the variety of roses that can be grown. Starting from the left is Hope for Humanity, a beautiful called Campfire is Next. The upper right hand is one of my favorite called Canada Blooms. And the lower right is Morden Sunrise. So just look at the variety of very winter hardy roses that we can grow. So if we are looking at having rose success in a northern atmosphere or northern environment like we have, there are really 10 steps. It's a 10 step process. So let's cover those 10 steps. And then I think we can all be highly successful. Now, it's fun. My wife, Mary, and I have, I think probably about 15 rose bushes in our yard, and they're wonderful. So step number one is to choose the varieties wisely. Now, the International Rose Society groups roses into a very strict classifications traditionally, starting from the left, you have hybrid teas with the beautiful kind of florist quality blossoms. And then you have the floribundas, grandifloras, hybrid musk, miniature roses, climbing roses, tree roses, wild roses, shrub roses, and a few other classifications. But a maybe better way to classify roses is by winter hardiness. That is really the most useful because in our area, of course, we're all about having our roses survive the winter time. So I've grouped the roses into kind of three categories based on that winter hardiness. And we'll go through each of these in a little more detail. But first of all, our roses that are really quite winter hardy, and they will survive our northern conditions here, even without winter protection. You know, we'll see they might get a little little bit of winter injury on the tops, but they've come through fine. And many of those were developed in Canada. Hardy Canadian shrub roses. Now a second classification of winter hardiness is what we could call crown hardy. Now crown hardy roses are ones where the canes, the rose branches, often die back to the ground. Now they can regrow from the base, but those are really best covered for winter. A third hardiness classification are roses that we would consider tender. And those freeze out very, very easily. So winter protection on those is a must. And we'll talk about winter protection in a little bit. So let's talk about each of these winter hardiness categories. Let's start with the last one first. The tender roses, several types, like if you're looking through a garden catalog or you're looking at tags in a garden center, you'll oftentimes see these terms. Now hybrid tea, those are the really nice look like florist roses. That particular one pictured there is the peace rose. That is one of my favorite. Now these tender type roses, if you're a hobby rose grower, you know, these are kind of must-haves. You know, if you kind of like to as a hobby, kind of fuss with roses a bit, then the tender roses, you know, you don't mind covering. Well, peace rose is really a great hybrid tea. And then you see the names like grand of flora, flora bunda, but these types really need winter protection. Next, we move to those that I mentioned were called crown hardy roses. Now the crown of a rose is the spot between the branches and the roots, that spot, that juncture is called the crown. And crown hardy roses will oftentimes have the canes die all the way back down. And so they really need to be covered. Now many of the crown hardy roses are the types sold by the national mass merchandisers. We have to be careful because sometimes on the tag they'll say hardy. Well, what's hardy down in Kansas isn't necessarily hardy in Fargo, North Dakota. So a series that you oftentimes see in this grouping are ones such as the easy elegance series, also easy, carefree beauty, the knockout roses. So do be cautious with these even though the tag says hardy, they maybe aren't hardy for our area. They'll oftentimes survive, but they'll die back quite a ways or totally die out if they're not covered. Next, we get to the stars of the show. And these are the winter hardy roses. These are really my favorites because there are so many different colors and many of these were developed in Canada. Canada has had a very, very good rose breeding program throughout the decades. And I have these listed on the handout. The Canadian roses are, you find them in series like the Parkland series and the Canadian artist series, et cetera. Just for example here, starting on the left are Morden blush. One of my favorites is called Canada blooms. That's the dark pink one. Hope for humanity is the red one. Morden sunrise is that beautiful kind of coppery yellow. And the climbing is William Baffin. So lots of good selection in these types. And they will survive winter better than most other roses. In addition to the ones developed in Canada, there are many very good old roses that survive winter fine. Many of these were found on homesteads such as Persian yellow rose, Grutendorst rose, the Hansa rose, those are good too. The ones developed in Canada tend to have a little better flower form. And many of those bloom recurrently throughout the summer also instead of just being June bloomers. Now step number two in our process. And that is to buy what are called own root roses, if at all possible. Now there are two ways to propagate roses commonly. And one is by grafting. And that is where the upper good flowering part is grafted onto a kind of a non flowering rootstock. And you can tell those by the knobby graft joint in between the branches and the roots. The other type shown on the right are called own root roses. Own root roses were propagated by cuttings. And so the cutting of the rose rooted. And so it has its own roots. The problem with the grafted roses on the left is that if that upper part totally freezes out, the sprouts that live over and come from the base are just the non flowering rootstock type thing. You've lost your good flowering versus on the right, the own root roses. Even if the tops die back, any sprigs that come from down below are always going to be that good flowering variety. And good news, I've noticed in catalogs and plant tags, I'm seeing more and more that they specify whether a rose is on its own roots or whether it's grafted. And of course the own root roses are going to survive better. They're less apt to be totally frozen out like a grafted rose. So whenever you have the chance, look for what are called owner root roses. They're on their own roots instead of on a grafted rootstock. Step number three on our journey is the location. Roses will bloom best if they are have full sun for at least six hours. And we should avoid hot exposed locations. Roses don't like that. An east exposure is nice because they get the morning sun and then they get shade from the heat of the afternoon and then the flowers tend to last longer. Another important part about location is plant them in an area that gets good snow cover. Snow cover is a great natural insulation where we have some of our rose bushes along the sidewalk. When I shovel the sidewalk, I throw the snow onto the rose bushes. Step number four is to amend the soil. Roses don't like heavy baked clay type soil. They like a soil that is very high in organic material. I like the bales of peat moss because you can find it at almost every garden center and you just mix it down in the soil and it has a fairly good lasting capacity in the soil. I like the baled peat moss for adding or you can use compost. Now instead of just adding a few handfuls down in the planting hole when you're planting, instead work the organic material into the surrounding soil. You know kind of get that so that you have a an entire soil mass kind of surrounding the rose that's a little more root friendly. Organic matter really makes a big difference. It also gives a moisture holding capacity too. Step number five on our journey is to plant the roses deeply. No matter what the tag says for planting depth, in our area it's important to plant them deeply enough because the mass of natural soil will give some insulating benefit and even if the branches die back up above, hopefully there will be some sprigs of growth that'll come from below the soil. So if it's a grafted rose then plant that graft knob four inches below soil surface. If it's an own root rose, plant that crown which is the juncture between branches and roots. Plant that crown area also four inches below. That's a very important first step in winter protection other than choosing a good winter hardy variety. Step six on our journey here is to mulch the roses. Roses love the soil cool and moist and a good mulch of an organic type material such as shredded wood product works really really well and for weed control it should be somewhere between three to five inches. It does kind of pack down together so I would put for weed control. I'd put up to about five inches of wood product mulch. Now that's much more rose friendly than rock mulch. Rock mulch is hot and heavy. It heats up in the summer sun. That's not really what roses like and it's also heavy and tends to compact the soil. So you know maybe skip the rock mulch in favor of a nice shredded wood mulch. Step number seven is the summer care that we give to our roses and a couple of things that we can talk about on summer care. The first is to water the roses properly. Now roses are thirsty. They really should have a good soaking during the summer a couple of times a week. It's better to let the water soak just around this on the soil and let it slowly saturate down around the soil instead of sprinkling overhead. Now the lady there means well but she's not watering the best way and the reason for that is watering above like that where you get the foliage all wet tends to spread foliage diseases. So better to water only the soil and keep the foliage dry. Also water in the morning and then any splashing that does occur will dry up more rapidly instead of watering in the evening where the lower leaves could stay more wet. So water in the morning water only the soil. Second step of summer care is to fertilize. In addition to being thirsty roses are also hungry. They're considered heavy feeders and the fertilizer that you give really does have a noticeable effect on roses increasing the number of blossoms and the size of the blossoms. So starting really in April or May we can apply either a granular type fertilizer or a liquid water soluble type. Now the granular fertilizers do not have to be a rose type. They can be. You can use a fertilizer labeled for roses that's fine or it could be a well balanced type like a 10, 10, 10 fertilizer. Now instead of sprinkling the granular fertilizer on top of the rose bush I might mention you could use a time slow release also but instead of sprinkling that fertilizer on top of the mulch I'd rather brush the mulch back a little bit. Incorporate the granular fertilizer into the top inch or so of soil watered in and then you make sure that that fertilizer is making its way down into the root system instead of getting lost between the fibers of the mulch. It's also important to discontinue fertilizing by July 4th. That will give roses the opportunity during the last half of the summer to slow down a bit. They'll still produce blossoms because they've got residual nutrients but they will slow down a bit. They'll become more, what's the term I'm trying to think, hardened. They will become more hardened by fall and they will survive winter better. Another thing in the summer care of roses is to deadhead the withered flowers removing the spent blossoms and it's best to do that when they just as soon as those flowers have begun to fade. Now it's important to note where we should cut off those spent flowers. Notice in the diagram right below the flower itself the first rose leaflet is composed of only three the first rose leaf is composed of only three leaflets there. If we cut the rose off down to that point the buds that arise after that are usually quite weak sometimes they won't even produce the flower. So instead of that cut down to where you find the first five leaflet leaf. See so you can see by the diagram there there's five leaflets on there sometimes you'll find one that has seven and cut down to that and then the buds that arise the new growth that arises from that point will be more vigorous and will also tend to produce a better flower. And we should stop the deadheading by early August the reason for that is if we leave the flowers on they'll usually turn into a rose hip which is the fruit coming after the flower and that helps to harden off the roses so they'll be more a little more tolerant going into the winter time. So a little more of a winterized rose. Now step number eight is to control insects and diseases let's talk about a couple of those. In the upper left hand corner there's a couple of things going on there that yellowing in between the veins with the green veins is very typical of iron deficiency chlorosis on roses so we wouldn't want to treat that that's a severe case we would want to treat that with an iron compound labeled for roses. The second thing is very interesting notice those kind of neat cutouts in the leaves those are made by an interesting insect called the leaf cutter bee they cut out those circles and use those for nesting. Now the leaf cutter bee is a pollinator so I would not apply an insecticide on there. Usually you don't see quite so many holes in the leaves it doesn't really seem to hurt the rose that much so when I see some leaf cutter bee activity I just leave it alone the roses roses do fine again usually it's not quite that that many. Other insects we've got the rose pear soft lie nibbling on the on the outer leaf surface there and we've got the Japanese beetle luckily they aren't too too too numerous yet in North Dakota because there are tough insects but if you find insects on your roses then treat with a product that's labeled for those. And next we go to rose diseases the two most common rose diseases are black spot and powdery mildew. It's important to note that when rose leaves develop these symptoms those leaves will not revert back to normal no matter what you put on and so it's important with rose diseases to prevent them at the very first sign of this happening before it starts to spread so rose diseases is all about prevention you can you can find some rose varieties as indicated on their labels that are more resistant to diseases so that's always a good thing or you can use some products and again when I mentioned products it's not to endorse them but just to give some suggestions garden fungicides or rose type fungicides applied when the rose foliage is still healthy is very important and don't water from on top as we mentioned before and you can even find some rose and flower care systemic type products that will be taken up by the rose that can help with insects if you've been bothered with with that as well. Step number nine is winter protection on roses. Now even some of the hardy Canadian grown shrub roses there's nothing wrong with giving them some winter protection in a very severe open winter way of no snow cover then they can they can die back a bit usually they come from the lower part just fine but all roses including even the winter hardy ones that benefits from some some cover and with the tender roses or those that are only crown hardy the winter protection is kind of a must now a couple of ways we can do that if you notice over on the left hand side we can just scoop up the the wood product mulch that we have on the rose bed just kind of heat that up around the canes then in the spring uh early April when it's time to remove the mulch just uh you know rake that away and put it back around the base of the rose bushes or you can do as shown in the center photograph you can put a wire mesh or chicken wire and put leaves in that works and on the right is the good old rose cone now rose cones by themselves usually do not provide enough winter protection there's too much free air around the rose canes so instead if you do want to use rose cones uh mound leaves or wood mulch or something up inside that rose cone in order to give a little better protection now number ten uh the step is a very important one and that is pruning in the spring of the year uh well i think about it don't prune roses roses in the fall of the year uh give roses their pruning in the spring uh that's that that's the best time so when we look at uh rose pruning in the spring time what is it we're trying to accomplish uh roses love pruning pruning stimulates good growth fresh growth that is more apt to bloom uh repeatedly and profusely pruning really stimulates nice fresh growth capable of better blooming so what we want to do are two things cutting the height of the rose back to about 18 or 24 inches then the second step in pruning is to eliminate a lot of the weak crisscrossing growth and just eliminate the tangle of canes if we get air and light in the growth that arises will be more vigorous and you'll get better blooms now sometimes a bit of winter injury helps us prune or nowhere to prune in the photo on the left you can see where the winter injury has occurred on some of the canes there is a very sharp demarcation between the black injured cane portion injured by winter and the uninjured portion which is green and so there's no choice other than to cut back that black damaged portion down to the point of where you see green there are a couple of canes there that you see they're going to have to be taken all the way back near ground level and so sometimes uh that will help you thin it out too getting rid of the winter injury and the basic pruning cut should be an angled cut about a fourth inch above a bud and aim the buds so that they're facing outward you know instead of an inward crisscrossing aim them outward and here's one of the most important steps of all and that is to enjoy the roses that you're growing now again here are varieties developed in Canada they have a good amount of winter hardiness you see they're more than blush that campfire is a neat one and you find these at garden centers I should mention too that for these Canadian developed winter hardy roses oftentimes it's the locally owned independent garden centers where you will find these you're less apt to find these at the national chains but look at campfire up there the beautiful rose that's one that Mary and I have growing in our yard and it gives that you know kind of a a multiple colored look beautiful and Alexander McKenzie up in the upper right I mentioned Canada blooms down in the center with that pink one a kind of a different name Canada blooms that one Mary and I like so much because it's got a form that's almost like a hybrid tea and it does have some fragrance and it has a nice kind of an upright oval shape we like that one so much we planted six of that one and Oscar Peterson that's just a very small sampling of probably oh there are 40 or 50 of those Canadian roses now be sure to download the handout that I prepared that Tom put on the website because really everything that I said plus a little more is on that handout and lists many of the good varieties so be sure to download the handout and thank you I've got my email address there feel free to contact me if you have questions about rose growing and those in Cass County feel free to email me about almost anything so I'll give you a second to jot down that email address Donald dot kinsler at ndsu.edu and this has been a privilege to talk about roses now I'm going to stop sharing that and let's see if there are any questions okay Don we have a few questions um you did I see we have a couple questions about pruning the winter hearty roses but you covered that at the end how about Don should you like with the drought and the lack of snow cover are you worried about the roses surviving this winter well as I mentioned roses roses are thirsty and many parts of the state had a very dry fall and so hopefully when we were watering evergreens and other landscape plants hopefully we give our roses a good watering too without that if they went through winter in dry soil and many parts of the state didn't have much snow cover so we didn't have that natural insulation so it could be a tough winter for rose survival how about do you recommend a brand of granular fertilizer for roses no um my favorite fertilizer is actually 10 10 10 for everything from vegetable gardens to shrubbery roses because you find it at so many stores garden centers national chains and the label tells kind of for strawberries raspberries roses it kind of usually gives an indication as to how many cups to put or portions to put over an area and so I really like 10 10 10 fertilizer so I don't have a particular brand now uh the fertilizers that are labeled specifically for roses because they're kind of fine-tuned and so um they're good too but I don't have a particular brand no okay just pay attention to the numbers huh that's more important right now numbers I was not I believe I like that well balanced it gives the leaves some nutrition it gives the flowers some nutrition and the roots some nutrition how about uh with uh friday terese boune said how you say it is that a rugosa rose it is it is way back when I was a young little horticulturist working at the experiment station we used to joke that that was uh terese uh bug net but yeah that's that's been around for a long time that's a pretty rose as well that's uh considered one of the uh hardier shrub type roses well don do you remember when you were just a little young horticulturist how did you prune that particular right how to prune that one very similar to uh the rose pruning that we described uh maybe cut them back by about half and thin out kind of the crisscrossing branches and that will tend to send up more prolific vigorous type shoots that will bloom better so I would prune that similar to what a person would the other roses oh you'll do that in springtime in the springtime um springtime is much favored versus fall type pruning I think fall pruning a roses opens up the canes to desiccation and uh I just feel it uh tenderizes the roses how about uh hansa or hansa rose have you ever grown that oh that's another yeah hansa is that hearty and that's hearty and four hansa is one of the good old I think that's been around since pioneer days one of the really good winter hearty shrub roses again um Canada's breeding program uh kind of took some of the those good old-fashioned shrub roses and kind of kicked them up a notch but yeah hansa uh grew endorsed um the persian yellow those are still great now some of those I I can't quite remember if hansa is just a june bloomer or if that repeats I can't remember I don't I don't know that but that's a big concern about a lot of those roses is there some of the older shrub roses some of the older shrub roses bloomed in june and then they were a shrub the rest of the summer yeah um you know it's very dry outside when should we start watering our rose bushes are they already thirsty you know given the 50 mile an hour wind gusts today I think I would start if we don't get range uh shortly I think I would probably now uh in Fargo here a couple inches down even though it was dry in the fall there there's some moisture below an inch or so so I don't think the roses uh for example in Fargo here I don't think they're desiccating yet but uh boy in a lot of parts of the state even if especially if it's a lighter soil I think I'd probably get some moisture and of course rather than frequent light sprinklings a thorough soaking so we get water down in uh is much better than light frequent sprinklings okay so as I suspected you're gonna get a lot of questions so we're gonna we're gonna answer your uh short and sweet we can do that we can do the lightning that's what I'm talking about okay how about uh this person's moving this spring can they dig up the roses and take them with them yes dig them up before they leaf out dig them up get as much root as you can keep moist peat moss around the roots in a bucket and off you go that was prune them back by at least half or two-thirds that uh increases success greatly so you mentioned that cating explores is there a climber that's hardy yes a couple of really good climbers uh William Baffin and Henry Kelsey are a couple of really good now uh they don't twine around a trellis by themselves they get really nice big long canes so they look like a climber but you do need to take twistoms or something and and fasten those canes to the trellis but they work beautifully I had some photos of those if you noticed uh climbing up trellis I agree how about are any of those Canadian roses fragrant the uh one of my favorites is the one I mentioned called Canada Blooms that pink one that has fragrance um and of course they're they're working on trying to get fragrance in because the hybrid tea roses uh with the wonderful rose fragrance uh the shrub type roses are more subtle fragrance but do try that one called Canada Blooms is the name because that has one of the most fragrant that I've that I I've ever grown there's a question about Canada Blooms how long does a Canada Blooms bush live how well theoretically it should live forever forever no plants live forever but but it has a good uh well let's see uh we've had Canada Blooms now for uh five years sometimes I have to prune prune it well you're supposed to prune it back anyway a little bit but um but it's it's done well for us are there any roses that will tolerate less than six hours of sun not really um the less sun they get the less blooms they get they tend to be a little more weak and less less blooms so I'm not really I don't know of any roses that are really more shade tolerant how do you prune a climbing rose climbing roses uh you can cut them back reduce the height a bit you don't need to go all the way back to 18 to 24 inches uh check for the any dead wood that winter killed so anything that's brown or black cut back to good green and you can just kind of get mostly with climbing type roses get rid of the cluster you know thin them out and you know so remove any black and winter injury and get rid of some of the cluster you know thin out the criss-crossing and get it down to maybe half of the mass okay are yellow roses more prone to powdery mildew well that could be I haven't really seen the correlation but somewhere there's probably a study that's been done on that I I'm not aware of that correlation yeah I don't think so I don't think so that doesn't make sense to me but how about I do you have a yellow climbing rose that you like well I know um you know climbing roses as a group are you know not very hardy you know when you look at a rose catalog and there's climbing roses those generally are not hardy they keep freezing back so when we say the Canadian types that kind of act like climbers William Baff and Henry Kelsey uh but uh there is there's is one I think listed on our list that I happen to not copy off for myself uh but I believe there might be a yellow climber in that group that that acts like a climber hmm okay well we'll have to look at that little consult the handout yeah I'm not aware of any how about uh this person gets orange to red spots on the leaves of the plant it sounds like rose rust um and uh so um if you're bothered by that make sure that you rake up the foliage in the fall and that's good sanitation regardless and um then if you've if you've been bothered by that um in the past maybe treat proactively with a fungicide it sounds like a rust type fungish fungus if they used a rose cone when do they remove the cone uh depends a little bit you know how the spring goes but really protection should be taken off in early April if we're going to get frigid uh you know down into the teens don't go too far with your cover maybe put it back on if uh if it's forecast down into the teens or approaching 10 so don't go too far but we need to start opening those up and get air into the rose by in early April is that true for uh just in general when people cover their roses like how do they decide when to uncover them a best time to cover is usually uh how about uncover how about uncover when should we uncover yep cover them up early November you're gonna get some cold in and then uh really uncover uh as a rule of thumb it's usually late March early April when you start getting warmer weather uh you don't want to let the roses start growing or leafing out underneath so loosen up any mulch or cover so it can get air and sunlight but if it is gonna get frigid again then you know move it back around okay this person uh is buying roses and it says grade one and a half what does that mean yeah roses roses are graded uh and uh the top grade the grade number one will have thicker canes and to grow a little more vigorously from the start the lower the numbers are graded less and so you know one and a half is probably a pretty decent rose um so it will probably do quite well for you and the nice thing about barot roses that you buy they will usually flower the first season such as hybrid teas and etc but again those those will need winter cover how about the David Austin roses David Austin roses aren't winter hardy they're in the group of tender type roses they're very pretty uh well worth growing if you like to kind of work with roses as a hobby but you do need to cover those for the winter with a good mound of mulch etc yeah they're very fragrant too huh oh yes yeah yeah beautiful roses yes how about uh okay what's your three or four favorite canadian roses and we already know about canada blooms canada blooms because it uh has nice form and has some fragrance to it oh golly then it's kind of what you what you favor by color um i like the morden series there's morden centennial morden blush blush pink that morden sunrise is coppery orange so the morden series is really really good and uh you'll see them labeled like that you know morden sunrise morden amur at morden ruby uh there's a white one and so there's a little something for everybody in that morden series i i like them too because they're they are hardy but they really uh they're susceptible to disease don't you find that that's a problem that's one reason i like the canada blooms which is you know i keep harping on canada blooms that's a fairly new introduction some of the newer introductions coming out to canada have better uh disease resistance canada blooms has a nice glossy green leaf fairly free of disease you know what i'm just gonna just uh speak for one second here i just want to thank everybody for their participation tonight and um and we're gonna do this again next week we're gonna talk about environmental topics and the questions are just keep rolling in here for don so we'll say goodbye to everybody who uh who doesn't care so much about roses but for all you rose lovers we'll keep going until uh as long as they keep as long until don walks out gets out of his chair and walks away i guess well i'm in i'm in my office here so i'm i'm good okay how about the powdery mildew issue is the powdery mildew of roses the same powdery mildew of peonies now i i'm not a plant pathologist and they tell me that there are many many many um i think species of powdery mildew many fungus that cause that powdery mildew outbreak but generally the control is the same whether it's on uh peonies or roses or lilacs uh so generally protective fungicides look at the label to see make sure that it protects against powdery mildew uh but generally um keeping the foliage dry and putting the preventative type fungicides should should work regardless of the uh specific powdery mildew species okay do you have any comments about bone meal i i'm not a fan of bone meal our soil bone meal as i understand is uh pretty much calcium and our soils are so plentiful in calcium that i i'm not a fan of applying bone meal i'd rather spend that dollar on a well-balanced fertilizer how do you feel about sulfur oh i i was sulfur i i i like sulfur there are um some fertilizers aluminum sulfate and different uh that that can as i understand can help um mitigate some of the alkaline type situations in our soil and so um uh myself i don't use aluminum sulfate as a fertilizer but i i know of many people that have good success with that okay how about uh have you ever propagated your own roses in your career as a nurseryman you know i i've got a long bucket list uh in in horticulture and one of the things on my bucket list is to propagate roses from cuttings i think i'll do that this uh this summer and um so i've got to bone up on exactly the most successful ways and so i never have okay let's see here how about it ever use neem oil for powdery mildew i've used neem oil on house plants um but i have not used it on powdery mildew i believe it's listed as a control for powdery mildew but i i don't know one way or the other how effective it is have you used that tom neem oil uh i i have i i've used it for insects right um you know what i really focus on uh i focus on prevent like you said prevention's the answer you know proper watering and if possible uh disease resistant cultivars that really makes the huge difference you know good sanitation at the end of the year um but i don't think but neem oil i guess it can have some fungicide will benefit there's other fungicides i guess i would if i was desperate to save my plant i would turn to a more conventional one how about uh have you ever made in is this not on your bucket list too about making tea from rose hips or have you done that yeah no i haven't i have eaten rose hips uh just because they say they're edible so i i've eaten rose uh you know and they're delightful and but no i haven't brewed them into tea but i like the flavor of them they're a little bit bitter but you know roses are in the apple family so um they are edible how about harrison's yellow any experience yes harrison yellow is one of the good old fashioned roses that's one that i think has been around since pioneer days also now harrison yellow is a june bloomer i don't believe it repeats no it's a father's day bloomer these the gardeners out west tell me that they know it's father's day when it's harrison when the harrison yellow rose blooms you know if you when is the best time to move roses if you have to dig them up spring early spring early spring before they leaf out and prune back by uh two-thirds maybe get as many roots move them with the moist peat moss around the roots and the key is to get them before they leaf out how do you how do you winterize a tall climbing rose well that's why it's important to uh choose like the canadian varieties that act like climbers people that have successfully done the tender type of climbing roses put them on a hinged trellis they can lay the whole works down and then cover it over with a mulch of some sort uh and um but otherwise it's very difficult to in place uh protect a climbing type roses so hinge trellis lay it down and cover it over well we're just tapping you so much here from your knowledge here keep it coming how about uh any wisdom about ever blooming flora bundas just any general thoughts about the flora bundas yeah flora bundas are kind of cluster type roses and i think the first one i ever did was one called utin eutin when i was a teenager and that did beautifully uh and um there as i mentioned a cluster type roses uh tender so they do need covering over make sure after the clusters are done blossoming that you cut that back so you'll get a re bloom also you know with that william baffin you mentioned how tall does that thing get william baffin uh will usually get oh probably eight feet eight feet uh you know no reason it probably couldn't keep going but i guess a practical height is probably eight feet uh so if you wanted to cover an archway the best thing is to put one of those william baffin and hillan henry kelsey uh one of those on each side of the arbor and let them go up because in the course of a season then it'll reach the midpoint do you recommend john cabot climbing rose yeah john cabot yes that's another in that series william baffin um henry kelsey john cabot is another canadian uh rose that acts like a climber uh it does need to have the canes fastened to the trellis how about if this person has a south facing stucco wall is that too hot for roses well if you want to grow a rose in that location the sun will be good but make sure you mulch the mulch the soil very good very well and at least five or six inches mulch odds you know odds are that that's a very hot location so the roses are going to like the heat but you can mitigate that by keeping the soil cool okay last one don how about a personal question about someone knows that you grew a morden bell have you ever heard of that morden bell yeah morden bell is in that series uh let's see morden bell let's see i don't have it now we uh we moved uh five years ago and morden bell was one of the ones that i did not take along we couldn't take everything that one was too old uh morden bell is a pretty it's again in that morden series we're not the best disease let's see morden bell was pink is that right um and i think it was a deeper pink uh now the morden series is wonderful uh you know you do have to keep an eye on the foliage for disease okay done you deserve a break thank you for your great talk tonight