Flower Garden Lovers

Organic Roses in the Flower Garden
Part 2

Caring for your roses organically means not relying on harsh synthetic chemicals in an attempt to keep our immediate environment healthier for our families, ourselves and our neighbors. In this part of the article, we continue our list of things you can do to raise healthy organic roses.

• Keep the area around your rose bush neat. Don't allow fallen leaves or prunings to accumulate around the base of the rose. Anything that can shelter pests needs to be removed.

• Encourage beneficial insects such as ladybugs, lacewings and parasitical wasps Be aware that trichogramma wasps will also feed on butterfly and moth eggs which will result in a reduced adult butterfly population in your butterfly garden.

• Add plants that some feel help keep disease and pests away from your roses. Try garlic to persuade aphids and Japanese beetles to go elsewhere. This is called companion planting.

• You may wish to try the yellow sticky bars which you can hang about every 10 feet to catch bugs. This is used in orchards with some success. You will need to keep an eye on them and remove and replace as the summer sun and heat dry them out or they fill with bugs.

• Below are some methods you can try to keep down the number of pests on your roses.

  1. Use the pressure of your water hose to knock the pests off. Make sure to hit the underside of the leaves.
  2. In the evening (best time), pick off the bugs that have invaded your roses. You can drop them into a container of soapy water to make sure they will not return. Try this with Japanese beetles. Just don't crush them as the pheromones will attract more of the pests.
  3. Remove any infected/affected branches and destroy them. DO NOT put them in your compost pile. Burn if you can.
  4. For nematodes, try adding ground crab shells or a chitin containing product to your soil around the bushes.
  5. Spray with the appropriate horticultural oil to smother the pests. Dormant oil in winter and summer oil in, you guessed it, summer.
  6. Use an insecticidle soap or, my preference, make your own from one part dish soap to 10 parts water. Spray on plants and make sure to hit the underside of leaves. Although this soap breaks down quickly, to be doubly safe use an organic soap from your local health store.
  7. While there are some organically based pesticides such as neem oil and pyrethrum based ones, these also can kill beneficial insects such as lady bugs and bees. Try spraying when bees are not as active such as in the evening. Just a couple notes of interest: Pyrethrum based sprays are considered safer for animals and humans than organophophates. And neem oil is an effective treatment for powdery mildew, rust and black spot.

• Some methods you can use to fight the various diseases roses can get are the following:

  1. As stated before, be sure to remove quickly any leaves affected and destroy immediately. Do not compost. Keep debris picked up around your rose bushes.
  2. When you water, water the base of the plant, on the soil. Try to keep the water from splashing up on the leaves. Water in the morning if you can to allow the plant plenty of time for any leaves that do get splashed to dry out.
  3. Spray as needed with a summer oil or dormant oil. Diseases caused by cool damp climates such as downy mildew should be treated with dormant oil. Others that appear in hot weather such as powdery mildew or black spot should be treated with summer oil. You can also try mixing one tablespoon baking soda and one tablespoon summer oil or vegetable oil into a gallon of water to spray for these diseases. Try doing this once a week. Rust which can appear in dry areas whith warm days followed by cool nights can be sprayed with a dormant oil
  4. Make sure you have followed earlier suggestions for pruning and spacing to allow plenty of air into the rose bush.

  At any time one of your roses becomes afflicted with anything, be sure what you are dealing with so as to give the appropriate treatment. Take a sample to your garden center or Extension Service office, especially when just starting out, for a proper diagnosis and to increase your learning curve.

  Hopefully this two part article will have given you enough information to get started with growing roses organically in your flower garden. Remember the point is to enjoy the roses while protecting your home from potentially dangerous chemicals. But as with all things natural, there is a give and take and your roses will not be 100% pest or disease free. That's nature in the flower garden, as in all things.

  © 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson
  
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  © 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson. Find more articles for Rose Garden lovers at our informative website, http://flowergardenlovers.com.
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