How to over winter baby Blue Satin Rose of sharon

16 years ago

In both spring and fall of 2006 I could not find any blue satin rose of sharon cultivars for sale at our local nurseries.

This is my most favorite bloom of all the locally grown RS shrubs in my area. So in mid-spring this year, just prior to my one and only Blue Satin RS that I am training to grow as a small tree-form, Rose of Sharon started to produce flower buds, I took 4 cuttings and stuck them in pots. They have been rooting on the west side of a privacy fence and under the North east canoply of my mature Scarlet oak tree. This gives them full morning shade, with dappled afternoon shade. They have all rooted and are thriving. I have not fertilized them yet and they have not seemed to produce much new top growth yet.

Since they are rooted nicely now, I am wondering what I should next do for them during, the soon to arrive, fall. What should I be doing for them so they will survive the upcoming winter?

I was thinking of sinking their pots into my azalea peat beds that are growing nearby. Will that be enough or will they also need to be covered with mulch or straw over the Winter? This fall, should I be exposing them to a little more light, and trying to harden them off some?

Or should I simply leave them under the shade tree, and later bring them into the garage every day or night that the forecasts predict temps to drop down to freezing?

I know that the Blue Satin Rose of Sharon is a hardy cultivar, which can survive our winters, but these are still so thin trunked and little, I am certain they are not equipped to handle our winter weather and earlimost springtime thaw and refreeze events.

Should I give them any nonburning Osmokote fertilizer, at this time? They are still in the 6 inch pots where I first plugged them into. Should I repot them into one gallon pots and feed them with some Osmokote?

Please help me with some solid detailed advice on how to proceed. In the past whenever I get to this point in trying to start new plants from cuttings, I generally end up killing the plants by my lack of knowledge on how best to proceed. Please, please help.

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Comments (5)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
16 years ago
i never fertilize after July [or 90 days before killing frost].. anything that i want to 'harden up' for winter ... especially NOT a pot ... lush green growth too late in the season is a killer ...

pots can become very problematic during winter... i had 1500 potted hosta when i moved houses... 750 in a pole barn ... the problem was that the barn was 2 or 3 zones warmer.. so the pots broke dormancy months early .. and 2 or 3 months before last frost date.. i recommend mother earth .. in a pot buried completely .. or just dump it out of the pot and put it into the earth ... you can always repot in spring ...

leaving them exposed .. exposes you to freeze/thaw cycles all winter.. if the pot isn't big enough to overcome warm days... pots gathered up.. and buried in a mulch to temper temperature fluctuations would help.. if vermin are not a problem ....

perhaps your unknown zone will make my advice irrelevant .... but i would put them in the ground in zone 5 ...

good luck

ken
katrina1
Original Author
16 years ago
Can I take them directly out from under the tree and plant them pot and all in some pine bark mulch bed on the east side of my house? Should I do that now, or wait a few weeks until the day time highs drop to the mid to low 70s.

Also, should I move them out from under the tree for a few hours each day, until they are more acclimated to morning sun, part shade?
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
16 years ago
in my zone 5 ... the only thing i have to go on .... the biggest issue is winter heave ....

so i try to get them all in the ground within the next 2 weeks .... hosta seedlings/conifer rootings/grafted conifers ... etc .. this gives me about 60 days until killing frosts ....

i don't know how this differs for your zone .. i hope someone else would chime in .. or you can use my ideas and make a call to your extension office ...

the sun is significantly lower now.. move them halfway out of the shade .. and keep moving them out... deciduous plants, like your ROS will be losing their leaves soon .. the extra sun will be a benefit.. but even if you force early dormancy .. so be it ...

i will be taking all my stock straight out within a week or two.. not even thinking about the sun ...

if you have more than one.. you can try different methods.. and try to remember in spring to determine whether any of it had any real impact..

good luck

ken
katrina1
Original Author
16 years ago
Ken,

Your comments are very helpful. Thanks.
katrina1
Original Author
16 years ago
I did not mention, the four that I found at the nursery later after my earlier started cuttings had just begun to root. One of the four I purchased at the nursery looked like it was struggling at the time I purchased it. It clearly had a thcker trunk and was about 8 inches tall. I brought it home and transplanted it to a 3 gallon pot. It too has been growing under the oak tree. Now it has abundant and nice dark leaves, and its main leader trunk is about 1/4th inch thick. All summer long its flower buds just dried up. I think that might have been due to the amount of shade where it was located.

when I purchased that larger one, I also found three more that were in 4 inch pots. Their trunks are about 1/8th inch thick now, and have developed lots of dark green leaves and has bloomed a little under the dappled afternoon shade of the oak tree.

At Ken's advice I took those 4 young potted starts out and set them just south of some taller azaleas, west of a still young camelia, and a few feet just east of my house. It seems reasonable that they will survive the winter if I dump them out of the pots to plant and over winter them in that location.

But I am still concerned about the rooted cuttings that have been staying alive in 6 inch pots under my oak tree.

They look healthy now, and I know I need to take them out from under so much shade. The fact that their main leader trunks are only about 1/32 or just slightly thicker, makes me doubt that they can survive our outside winter condtions, even when they go dormant.

I do not have a greenhouse, but should I find someone with one, who is willing to over winter these 4 smallest ones in their greenhouse for me?