By Brian Wagner
ONE more month and our long digging season will be over.
We are now very busy packing and delivering bare root roses to all our customers who placed their orders in the last few months and have been so patient waiting for their new roses.
We cannot wait to see these sticks, which is how a bare root rose looks lie in its dormant season, growing in your gardens and changing in vigorous and beautiful plants in springtime.
Your bare root roses will be delivered very soon.
The plants will be wrapped in wet paper and plastic bags and boxed.
If you can plant them out straight away, it would be great but if not, there are a couple of things you can do to keep them at their best until planting.
Open the box and make sure there is moisture around the roots, then reseal the box and store it in a cool place.
Bare root roses can easily stay in their box for many days if their roots are not drying out.
When you are ready to plant your roses, give the canes a trim by about two thirds of their height.
While it sounds a little severe, they will respond well with strong growth and excellent vigour.
After, soak the plants in a bucket of water for 24 hours before planting.
Bareroot roses need a deep wide hole with well broken up soil – a 30cm x 30cm x 30cm hole would be perfect.
You can make a small mound in the centre of the hole for the root system to rest on if you prefer, but it’s not necessary.
Spread out the root system evenly and make sure the bud union is around 3cm above the ground level.
Finally, backfill with soil until the hole is half full; add a bucket of water; fill the rest of the hole with soil when the water has drained away and water again.
Rose bushes should be planted 1.2m to 1.5m apart; climbing roses need to more space to grow their long stems and need to be planted 3m to 5m apart.
Varieties still in stock, now up to 25 per cent off August is the last month to order roses, and we’ve decided to discount all varieties still in stock.
All bushes are now 20 per cent off, while some popular varieties now have a 25 per cent discount.
All standard roses – 60cm and 90cm high – are 25 per cent off.
After finishing all the digging and grading of the plants, we could finally put some varieties back in stock.
This includes the beautiful Pope John Paul II, one of our favourite white roses, with strong fragrance and vigorous growth; back in stock as a bush, 60cm and 90cm standard.
Black Caviar is a stunning variety, with strong fragrance and dark red velvety flowers; which is also back in stock as a bush and 90cm standard.
Shirley’s Rose is one of our special Australian bred varieties, with large and very fragrant blooms, in a peach/apricot colour back in stock as a bush.
You can find many more varieties on the website, on sale until stock lasts.
