Roses at Home. From A to Z
Roses at Home.
Roses are favourite flowers of many people, but they are considered to be outdoor flowers. Indoor planting of roses is also considered to be troublesome, but it’s erroneous point of view! Blooming roses are best decoration of a room. They have beautiful flowers with wonderful shapes, various delicate colouring and extraordinarily pleasant scent, and the care for roses doesn’t require much efforts.
The main task for indoor planting of roses is to make the plant create buds and bloom in winter and in spring (the seasons when there’s no much flowers at all). For this they should be planted in cool rooms, but they need a lot of light to build buds, that is why the roses should be kept on bright windowsills.
You can plant roses in warm rooms, too. But in this case you should spray them with water often. The water should be 2-3 0C warmer than the air temperature. If you use cold water for spraying, you can provoke powdery mildew of roses. The disease doesn’t cause death of plants but spoils their decorative appearance.
For summer period pot roses should be placed on outside windowsills and balconies. If it is possible, you can plant them into the soil with or without pots. At this period spraying the roses with water in sunny days (in the morning and in the evening) will positively affect their growth and development. With this measures you wash away the dust and simultaneously refresh the plant and prevent pests. In a cloudy weather you should stop spraying because it slows down the development of a plant. Roses should be kept outdoors until the frosts and then be brought into the house.
Watering of Pot Roses
The clod with roots should not get dry. You should water it in the morning and in the evening until the soil is fully saturated, but you should in no way water it in the full sun. Excessive moisture of the clod is also bad. Water should have about 20 0C.
For a better ripening of sprouts you should reduce watering gradually by the end of the summer.
In late autumn the rose plant is taken out from the soil and is put on a side with the aim to fully stop the growth. Belated buds should be removed.
The Soil for Roses
The soil for pot roses should be extra nutrient. It is also required because indoor roses should be planted in small pots for better flowering.
A good mixture would be from 2 parts of greenhouse humus, 2 parts of a mixture of clay and sand combined with bird droppings powder. The clay can be replaced with argillic and turfy soil. A good soil would be from a bed of nettles as it grows on soils rich with nutrients.
Pests and Diseases of Roses
Unfortunately pot-roses can be also affected by pests and diseases. Most popular pests are aphides, red spiders and large rose sawfly. To eliminate aphids you should wash the flower with soapy water. This procedure should be repeated every 7-10 days. Treatment of a rose plant with pyrethrum also provides positive results. The solution is prepared in the following way: 200 g of pyrethrum powder should be infused in 10 liters of water during 12 hours, then you should take 50 ml of the infusion, dilute it in 10 liters of water and add 50 g of soap.
A very efficient means of defeating aphids, red spiders abd other pests of roses is water extract of garlic. You should take 50 g of garlic, pound it in a mortar and add a glass of cold water. In 15-20 minutes it should be filtrated and dilluted with water, so that you have 1 l of the extract. Then you should take 1.5 glass of this extract and pour it into a bucket of water and wash the plant in the evening or in a cloudy weather.
In books you can find recommendations against powdery mildew and red spider where you should use granite dust that should be added to the soil in spring, in the middle of the summer and in autumn. Besides you should also sprinkle the soil and the plant with ash. These measures are preventive.
In order to eliminate infectious rose diseases (powdery milldew etc.) it is recommended to remove and destroy affected parts of plants. The plants are sprayed with drugs containing sulphur and copper (Bordeaux mixture, solution of soap and copper or solution of soap with soda ash – 40 g of soap, 40 g of soda ash for 10 l of water). This procedure should be repeated in a week.
Rose Replanting
Rose planting from the soil into pots (to get pot-roses) should be done in August. In this case the replanted roses will have time to root and they can bloom next spring.
If you replant roses in spring, they can root in summer and start blooming only in the next year.
For replanting you should take small pots, because in bigger ones the soil dries slowly and can turn sour and as a result the roots can start rotting. Besides big pots with house plants don’t look beautiful. In big pots the plant “fattens”, gives a lot of leaves and few flowers. You should try to grow a rose in a small flowerpot while replanting them into nutrient mixtures of soils and adding fertilizers.
When replanting a rose during its growth period you should not fracture the soil clod in order to keep the roots safe. In this way you can replant a rose during the whole summer.
For a better rooting the replanted roses should be kept in a shadow for 5-7 days. Watering is moderate.
Pruning Roses
Roses are pruned with the aim to form a shrub, to improve blooming in potted plants or with frosts coming, when the roses grow outdoors.
This should be done as follows: first you should cut weak (undeveloped), small and interlaced branches. On a shrub you should leave 4-5 strongest sprouts that are well developed and have medium size. If they have ripe timber, they are pruned so that there should be left only 3 to 6 buds on each sprout. On moderately grown sprouts you should leave 4-5 buds, and on weak sprouts – 2-3 buds. With climbing roses you should only cut dead and excessive branches.
It is better to prune multiflowered dwarf roses with big flowers in spring for 3-5 buds.
Parviflorous kinds have abundant flowering if they are pruned for 2-3 buds. Flower buds on dwarf roses develop on annual sprouts of the 1-st, 2-nd and 3-rd level. They bloom with small interruptions until the vegetation is complete.
Right after the pruning the roses should be taken into some cool premises with the temperature of 10-12 0C. Under such temperature the buds grow very slowly, approximately 12-15 days. When the first leaves appear you should place the rose on bright (better sunny ones) windowsills. You should cut the “fattening” sprouts completely, so that they won’t waste nutrients and won’t stop the development of a shrub. Under such conditions there will be developed strong sprouts and big buds.
The lower the temperature of the premise is, the slower will be the growth of buds and the longer will be the resting of the pruned roses. Outdoor pruned roses should be covered for the whole winter so that they won’t be destroyed by frost. They are uncovered only in spring.
Forcing Treatment of Roses
You can conduct early forcing treatment indoors. For this you should have well ecized potted plants.
Early in spring it is the high time to obtain shrubs of rose cultivars. They should have well-developed roots with a lot of fibrils. These roses should be planted into pots. The soil should consist of 2 parts of agrillic and turfy soil and 1 part of humus and sand.
Then you should make pruning of each branch for 3- 4 buds, by high roses you should leave 5-6 buds. The upper bud should be left on the outer end of the branch. You should also completely cut branches that interlace or grow in parallel.
Roses that are planted in spring can be driven into the ground together with branches for 3-4 weeks for ecizing. At this time you should keep an eye on them so that the buds won’t burst and build white sprouts. An ecized plant should be placed at a bright place and be shaded with paper. In 10-15 days the paper should be removed because at this time roses are already growing very well.
Roses that are pruned and placed into pots also can be dug into the soil on the balcony or a bed for ecizing. The best place for it would be in half-shadow.
When roses will be well ecized, you can use extra nutrition once or twice a week. In summer you should cut weak and excess sprouts to form a shrub. The buds that are constantly appearing should be removed. In autumn, in September the pots with roses are dug out and put on their side. They should be watered only when the leaves will fade. Such treatment provides conditions for ripening of timber, falling of leaves and transition to dormant state. The leaves that still remain on a plant should be removed, and the plant should be prepared for wintering in a cellar. The earlier the plant goes into dormant state, the earlier you can begin forcing treatment.
In the cellar you should winterize the pots so that the roots won’t freeze. You should also keep them from mice that can bite timber. In January the roses can be brought into rooms for forcing treatment.
Upper layer of the soil in pots should be removed and replaced with fresh nutrient soil. The plant is put on its side for 7-10 days, to ensure even nutrition of buds. It is sprayed several times a day with warm water. It is desirable to lower the temperature at night for 2-3 0C as it will promote better growth of sprouts and development of flower buds.
If you plant roses in autumn, you should make no pruning. The roses should be brought into a cellar and winterize pots for better ecizing. For forcing treatment you should bring roses into premises, then prune them and start watering little. For spring blooming you should do it in February.
Rose Reproduction
Cultivation of roses is quite simple. The best methods for rose reproduction are cutting and winter grafting.
Green cutting of roses is conducted in May-June after blooming in cups or pots. Cuttings are sliced from green sprouts, when their timber begins to harden but is not hard yet. Sprouts are cut into pieces with 2-3 buds each. Cuttings ecize better if they are taken with “heels”.
The lower cut of a sprig is done as closer to the bud as possible. The upper cut should be done a little bit higher than the upper bud. The cuttings are prepared from the best abundantly blooming rose shrubs. For ecizing you should take 2-3 cm layer of peat with humus soil and pour over it a layer of 2 cm of clean bank sand.
The planted cuttings (rose seedlings) should be covered with glass cap or jar. First you should protect them from the sun and spray often. In 15-20 days they will ecize and you should start watering them. After they are ecized the cuttings should be planted into small pots. When the roots will braid the clod in the pot, you should replant the rose. All buds that appear on a nursling should be removed.
In the same way you can implant cuttings with hard cortex.
Winter Grafting of Roses
The chosen wildings (dog rose) with a well developed root system should be covered with earth in a cellar in autumn. In March you should take them into premises, cut the top aerial part while leaving 5-6 cm and then plant them into tops. The root collar should not be covered with earth while planting. The roots are cut a little bit, so that they fit into pots, and then they are laid like spiral.
When the dog rose begins to sprout, it is inoculated with green cuttings taken from best rose shrubs that already bloomed before. The cuttings should have one bud and a leaf. You should make an angular cut under the bud. Then you should obliquely cut the dog rose in a root collar, make a cut out and insert the cutting so that the bud of a cutting is placed over the upper cut of a wilding. The inserted cutting is tied and covered with a jar.
The grafted plant should be kept on a window with enough light in a warm room. In 8-10 days the cuttings begin to grow. You should take away jars from sprouts and train them in room conditions. When they will grow up to 20 cm you can take cuttings for grafting from them.
Rose Species
Nowadays there are thousands of rose species available. For planting roses as house plants you can take old proven kinds: from a tea rose group – General Arnold Janssen, Augusta Victorian Rose, La France; from climbing roses – Crimson Rambler, Marshall Neil Rose; from polyantha roses – Levasseur, Gloria Dei, Katharina Zeimet.
Modern kinds can be found in a special literature like a book of Dr. D. G. Hessayon “The House Plant Expert”. Many kinds are offered in the Internet.
A very popular kind for house planting is so called shoeflower or hibiscus. There are polypetalous and single flowers of white, yellow, orange, delicate pink and bright red colour. It likes bright light, but not hot sun. If the plant is placed far from windows, it will have much leaves but no flowers.
You should replant them in spring into a nutrient soil consisting of foliose soil, humus, sod and sand soil. It would be good to add some bird droppings. Right after replanting you should prune branches for one third of their length. This will encourage the growth of young sprouts with flowers on their tops. In summer the plant requires good light, nutrients and frequent spraying with water. In winter you should better keep them in a cool premise and water them just a little bit.
Hibiscus is propagated by cuttings from the tops of young sprouts with warming up the ground or with covering with a jar. Cutting is made in July-August. To form a shrub the stem should be nipped.
Learn additional tips for when you buy roses online and from major retailers.
