Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
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With the weather changing so quickly it makes you suddenly realise that winter is not far away and along with that comes the bare rooted plant season.
This is the only time of the year that dormant deciduous plants can be sold with no soil covering their roots.
This practice is done because it is a quicker and cheaper way to grow this group of plants.
Bare rooted plants are grown it the ground in close rows allowing them to develop much quicker than similar plants grown in pots.
They also require less space, less constant maintenance and less set up costs to get them to a good size.
Then, once they are ready and have gone dormant in the cooler months, they can be dug out and sold, to be replanted into their new home without causing too much stress on the plants.
If handled correctly, it is a great way to incorporate well established plants into your garden at a cheaper price.
Golden Beauty
Roses, deciduous ornamental trees and fruit trees are the main plants that are regularly grown this way and are very successful if you know what you should be looking for, and you follow a few simple steps when planting them out into the garden.
I will run through this when the season starts in June, otherwise be sure to talk to the Garden Centre staff to explain it all when purchasing your plants.
With the realisation of the quickly approaching season, we have been busy this week checking our customer orders, the quantities of stock that will still be available after filling orders and procuring extra stock where numbers are running low.
Mother’s Love
Since the bare rooted season is so short, once varieties run out it is 12 months before they will be available this way again.
Already quite a few plants are sold out with grower’s availability lists getting much shorter each week.
There has been a strong call for roses so far this year, so I would urge interested gardeners to place forward orders to secure the varieties they are chasing after.
Roses at this time of the year are well past their best, so it can be hard to get enthused about incorporating them into your garden, but the display they have put on this summer has been beautiful and they just love our hot dry summers.
All our bare rooted roses are grown as budded stock.
Pascali
This is where the required variety is grown from a bud or two grafted onto a vigorous proven rootstock to produce a strong growing hardier plant.
This is the same for all roses whether bush, standard, climbing and weeping roses.
Bush and climbing roses are usually budded about 150mm above the ground level.
Standards are either done as patio standards at 600mm, regular standards at 900mm or maxi standards at 1200mm.
Mister Lincoln
Weeping roses are mostly done at 1800mm, but occasionally at 1600mm, and require a rose wheel and pole to support and grow them correctly.
Some of the varieties to keep an eye out for are some of the older proven ones like the Just Joey rose with its soft apricot toned petals.
The deep red coloured Mister Lincoln with its beautiful strong fragrance, or Charles de Gaulle, with large strong mauve coloured flowers, again with a lovely fragrance.
In the pinks, there is Queen Elizabeth with its deep pink high pointed buds, and in the whites, there is the large flowered pure white Pascali.
Most of these are available as either bush or standard roses.
In modern roses, there are many that stand out for their richness of colour, fragrance, number of flowers, fullness of flowers or vigour.
Some of the popular ones coming in this season are Dark Desire, a deep red; Father’s Love, a scarlet red; Mother’s Love, a very soft pink; Seduction, a two-toned pink to shell pink; Golden Beauty, a rich apricot gold, and Delightful Parfuma, with its very strong fragrant blooms of deep mauve pink.
Weeping roses in recent years are becoming popular again, especially some of the newer varieties that have a recurring flower characteristic that allows them to flower in flushers right through the summer months making a beautiful stand-out feature.
Roses require a sunny open position in the garden, and if given the right growing conditions and a bit of maintenance, they will reward you with stunning floral display that will not only brighten your garden, but also give you beautiful cut flowers to fill your room with fragrance and colour.
If you are considering planting roses in your garden, call in and grab a copy of our rose list order form and have a chat about what you are looking for.
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