Useful information

Covering the roses

Rose Angelique

November is the month of sheltering roses. This year it turned out to be surprisingly warm and rainy, and these are weather conditions that are not conducive to shelter. It is best to carry out the shelter in dry weather, when the rains have already ended, and the air temperature drops to -5 ... -7 ° C. Low freezing temperatures will not harm the roses, but, on the contrary, will temper them. Roses are not afraid of frosts down to -8 ° C, they tolerate them normally. More dangerous than frosts at -10 ... 15 ° C, especially if they suddenly hit uncovered shoots and soil without a snow blanket. And, nevertheless, I covered my roses on October 30th, since the weather was dry.

In this article, I will not touch upon the theoretical aspects of the shelter of all groups of roses, but I will share my experience. My summer cottage is located on the border of the Tver and Pskov regions. I have been growing roses not very long ago, since 1999, but during this time I have tried various ways of hiding, the roses fell into different climatic troubles ... But first things first.

Three varieties of hybrid tea roses - Cardinal, Sonya and Angelica - were awarded to me for my work in digging them up during the liquidation of the Teplichny state farm in Moscow. Thus, they initially grew in greenhouse conditions and, once in open ground, were forced to adapt to what they had never experienced - rain, wind, frost. These were mainly rooted roses, with the exception of the Cardinal. This rose was grafted, and the specimens that I got were, judging by the state of the grafting site, at the age of 3-4 years. About their long life in the open field, I had big doubts, unfortunately, confirmed - with red glasses the Cardinal pleased us only for 3 years, the fourth winter, very frosty and little snow, he did not survive. But the rooted Sonya and Angelica live and prosper to this day, which all my family members are incredibly happy about.

All nine plants were planted under the window. Ground waters are located quite close to us, and this was the only high area with sandy soil, and even so well located - you can admire roses without leaving your home. So the soil is loose, there is no stagnation of water during heavy rains, it thaws quickly in spring and warms up. The plot is open, the shade from the house on the roses lasts no more than 3 hours a day.

Preparing roses for wintering consists of several stages:

 

Top dressing

The preparation of perennial plants for winter begins as early as mid-July. During this period, namely from July 15, I stop giving nitrogen fertilizers, I begin to fertilize with ash and potassium monophosphate in order for the shoots to mature normally and there was an active autumn regrowth of roots. The last feeding is carried out in mid-October.

Bloom control

I cut off all the flowers after the petals have fallen, preventing the seeds from ripening. If you leave them, the rose spends a lot of energy on seeds, which greatly weakens the plant, reducing its winter hardiness. I let the roses bloom until the end of September, in October I remove all the buds that appear.

Soil moisture control

In October, a month before the shelter, if the autumn is dry, I definitely carry out water-charging irrigation at the rate of 30 liters of water per bush. If autumn is rainy, I build a tent of film over the roses, protecting the soil from excessive moisture.

Removing foliage

Before pruning, according to the canons of care, you need to spray the leaves with copper sulfate or another copper-containing preparation annually. I do not adhere to these recommendations, I prefer the use of biological preparations during the summer, in particular, Fitosporin, and proper agricultural technology - then the roses get sick less. Leaves from the shoots must be removed without fail, you cannot leave fallen leaves on the ground, and even more so, cover leafy shoots. I had such a sad experience in 2005, when I could cover the roses only at the beginning of October, which, of course, is early, but there was no opportunity to come to the site later. October was warm and the leaves were growing again.In the spring of 2006, having opened roses, I saw rotting black leaves and blackened shoots with a white bloom of mycelium. He cleaned everything, processed it with copper sulfate. Damping off negatively affected the roses, they developed more slowly, bloomed later and worse, but still survived.

Pruning

I also prune shoots from mid-October. The cutting height was chosen experimentally. When I pruned it high, leaving shoots 40 cm long, placing a box above each bush and filling it with dry peat, foliage, shavings (which was at hand), the shoots froze over quite a bit, and I had to do a short pruning in the spring. By the way, under the iron buckets filled with shavings, roses wintered worse than under wooden boxes with the same shavings; a stronger frosting of the shoots was noticed. This is due to the fact that the metal freezes faster than the tree, and it is colder under it, from which the shoots are more damaged. The use of metal buckets had to be abandoned.

Short Autumn Pruning Roses

But the way the roses hibernated under wooden boxes did not suit me. Since winter, they came out badly damaged, they had to be cut by 15-20 cm. Considering the spring pruning as an irrational expenditure of efforts, I began to carry out a short pruning. Now, since autumn, I leave shoots 20-25 cm long and no longer use any boxes, the need for them has disappeared. With such a short pruning, it is enough to pour a hill of earth, completely covering the shoots with it. It is better to use dry soil, but if it has not been prepared in advance, it does not matter, you can also use damp soil. But do not use clay soil, only sandy soil. I add half a bucket of dry sawdust to 1 bucket of raw earth, mix thoroughly - and the mixture is ready. I pour 2-2.5 buckets on each bush. I have been covering roses in this way for eight years and I am very pleased with the results.

 Mounds of a mixture of earth and sawdust

 

Snow retention

As long as it was possible to throw snow on roses during the winter, there were no particular problems with snow retention. Although the snow was sometimes blown off a high area, a new snow drift was always thrown over it. Now, when we do not live in the country in winter, it is necessary to take care of this. The classic technique is the use of spruce branches. But to be honest, I am very sorry to cut the Christmas trees. Although, I will not hide, I did this a couple of times, until I tried to use other materials for the same purposes, namely the stems of raspberries, wormwood, motherwort and even nettles. It is enough just to throw them on the resulting earthen mounds.

Wormwood stems for snow retention

 

Why is a shelter good with a mixture of earth and sawdust?

  • firstly, it is not so difficult to make it, and it does not take very long to fill the rose with this mixture;
  • secondly, the shelter is not dense - neither film, nor roofing material, nor lutrasil is used. That is, using it, there is no need to make ventilation vents in the spring, open roses in a thaw and worry about spring damping out, if you do not remove a dense shelter in time (and as practice shows, it is because of it, and not from freezing, in in most cases, roses die);
  • thirdly, the thawing of the soil proceeds evenly, and through the thawed layer of soil, if they are late in opening, it is easier for the shoots to break through than to suffer in the dark under roofing felt. It is very easy to shake off the thawed soil from the bushes by freeing the shoots. I do not remove this land immediately, but leave it for about 2-3 weeks, distributing it in an even layer under the bushes - it inhibits the development of weeds;
  • fourthly, the shoots are practically not damaged by frost, only the tips freeze slightly.

Maybe the shelter does not look very aesthetically pleasing, but the final result is important to me - and it suits me perfectly. Opportunities for all people are different, there are many options for shelter. Let everyone choose and apply what brings the best effect. All year long we enjoy the beauty and scent of roses. On one peduncle there are 20-23 buds - this is an unforgettable sight. The neighbors dissuaded me when I started growing roses, they said that they did not grow with us here and did not winter.But now, looking at my successes, they planted roses at home, and they come to me for advice.

I will be glad if my experience will help you too.

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