You water your roses? Really?!?

Wow!

Why?

With the exception of two roses that were here when I moved in (and which I don't water), my oldest rose will be five this spring. Nearly all have started out as bands, which won't make it thru the hot (and last few years, dry) summer w/o water. So, the 45 min once a week is for the babies. As they get larger, they still get the same, which makes it a "weaning" process. My drip lines are now maxed out (I have 350 roses), so when this years babies are three, I'll cut back to twice a month and see how it goes.

Y'all on the East Coast get rain in the summer? Wow!

Jeri

I have always watered this way. Newly planted roses 1. and 2.season gets watered more frequently than older more established roses with a bigger rootsystem. I has not rained now for 28 days (Melissa in Italy stole it all) and I have only watered the newly planted roses and those growing in a sandy strip in my garden. The next days I will water - with a sprinkler. I measure how big the area is look at the watermeter and give about a gallon per square feet. I want to make sure the organic fertilizer I gave in late march will reach the root zone. Fertilizer in the very top of the soil do not do the roses much good.

I usually water the roses this way 2 times during the spring, since it is so dry here. Later I only water about once a month if needed, since it rains more in June and July. When I water during the summer month I do not want the rose leaves to get wet so I make sure to water with a soaker hose that do not spray water up on the rose plants. I find it it best to water early in the morning, so the leaves do dry fast when the sun comes up.

I also subscribe to deep waterings but not very often. I am not sure that those who walk around with a soaker hose 15 min a few times a week really do the rose-plants much good. Too much water will evaporate and be wasted.

But of course those with sandy and poor well drained soil will need to water more often. I forgot to mention that I have excellent rich black clay soil that in spite of loads and loads of compost every year still look greay and become hard like concrete in long dry periods. It has improved so much over the years though that digging and planting anything has become much eaiser and it look.

Oh yes, even with much organic ammendments, when we don't get rain, I water with drip irrigation, most every day.

Sandy

And those who get no rain for 9 months out of the year must water their plants more often than not.

Jeri

Ahem! You can have it back, believe me!

So it's dry in Denmark? This is the wettest winter and spring I've seen since we moved to the farm; if the rain shifts north of the Alps at this point it will be more than fine with me. I agree with what everyone has said so far about watering.

Melissa

Jeri, not always. In 07, I lost a young tree.
Again, if we're lucky!

Carla

No rain for 28 days! There has never in history been recorded this many hours of sun in April and so high an average mean temperature. The Sun has been blazing down, people are barbecuing and the roses have have buds. This after the mildest warmest winter ever! It seems to be getting warmer and warmer. The last 10 years the mean temperature has showed record after record and winters are getting millder and milder. are there any very fragrant tea roses?

Melissa - We would have loved to get half of that rain - all the low pressures seem to have taken a more southern path this year 2 because of the persistent high pressures up here. At least it seems we are going to get a little (all too little rain from sunday - forecast to be 1/4 of an inch over the next week - which is off course just going to evaporate not doing anything for the plants). So I will water deep now and look forward to the first roseblooms in a week or 2 (4-5 weeks earlier than in a normal year - now that I am not complaining about!!! - mayby some roses will actually be able to give 3 flushes like in USA and Southern Europe. I sure wish you a nice and warm summer now down in Italy Melissa - now that your roses have been watered deepley! Those who were not flushed away!

It depends on climate, soil, and the type of rose. There is no universal prescription.

In very light, sandy soil, a heavy watering is just wasted irrecoverably into the deep soil where there are no roots. The small amount of water that the topsoil can hold will only last 3 days at most in hot weather. So a half-watering twice a week is much better than a heavy watering once a week.

I have a fast-draining bed that needs water twice a week to support rapid growth. Then I have a couple of once-bloomers in heavy soil that I never water at all, even during drought. If they go semi-dormant for 6 weeks, that's not a problem.

What Michael said. Less frequent, deep watering is common wisdom. Sandy soils require different management.

Most of us don't have the water resources (i.e. a well with our own pressure tank) used in the Vintage Gardens display garden, where roses are watered for 24 hours by overhead sprinkler every 3 weeks or so.

I water less than most because I have black plastic in my beds and it stops a lot of evaporation. I leave plenty of space around the roses for water to get in when it rains but I dont water much at all. We had drought last year and I basically wished my roses luck. They all survived. Each gardener must find what works. For me...black plastic and mulch have made watering almost unnecessary in the summer.

Ronda

With heavy and medium soils, you get "capillary lift" to draw stored water up from the subsoil. As the rose's feeder roots draw moisture out of the top soil, water moves from the wetter into the drier zone. I've seen graphs based on moisture meters in the soil, showing how the "tank is topped off" during the nighttime when plants aren't drawing water. It moves up from below.

With very light soils, there is little storage capacity and virtually no capillary lift-- instead, water only moves downward by gravity through the large pores in sandy soil.

Also, a lighter amended topsoil layer over heavy subsoil will not lift much water, because capillary attraction is stronger in the clay beneath. Likewise, a light soil mix filling a deep hole cannot draw water from the surrounding walls of clay. Capillary lift only works where the soil is reasonably uniform, rather than layered.

So, infrequent deep watering is best practice where you have deep and fairly uniform clay, silt, or loam soil.

Niels,
Our weather returned to normal--more or less--this last winter. It was wetter than usual, but winter temperatures were within normal range after two years of practically no cold. It's been extemely wet since November, and there are a lot of mudslides in our area, which is susceptible to them, but on the other hand the groundwater has been completely replenished after two to three droughty years. I wouldn't count on being able to grow Tea roses in the near future if I were you; it may be that this winter your temperatures will return to a more normal range, too.

We are SO glad it has stopped raining, and I hope you will get the rain you need! And lots of flowers! I don't want the heat to come too soon, with my once-blooming roses setting buds now. If it's too hot when they flower the blooms last only a few days. The Teas have splendid flowers now, though the plants are pretty messy, sprawling all over the place after all the rain. I hate to prune back large quantities of healthy top growth.

Michael, thanks for that explanation of water movement in the soil! By the way, where do you come from in Florida? I grew up in Cracker country too, though with all four grandparents coming from north of the M-D Line, I'm kind of a cultural hybrid.

Melissa

Oh, Michael, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge of watering sandy soil. When I first read this post, I was so excited to learn that someday my roses would be more able to stand on their own, water-wise. Until Cupshaped said "except for sandy soils."

*** a heavy watering is just wasted irrecoverably into the deep soil where there are no roots.

You explained exactly what I have feared to be true and reminded me painfully to stop forgetting to turn off the soakers - 4 hours is definitely a waste. I wonder, is 1 hour too long, do you think? I NEED MORE MULCH!!

Thanks again, Michael. Please don't hesitate to pour forth all the other interesting stuff you know. It's wonderful - even if some of it is bad news. Too bad I didn't know about clay when I dug my beds. I bet I could have obtained some clay, don't you think? I guess it's too late now.

Ronda, did you put the black plastic on top of the soil and under the mulch? I ask because I put some in the bottom of the large planting holes in a very dry shade bed for some azaleas (also to prevent the tree roots from encroaching.) It worked well until we had some rain in March. Then I think one azalea was sitting in a pond and dropped all its leaves. I poked holes down through the plastic after that. Amazingly, the azalea is coming back slowly. I'm going to put newspaper down in the rose beds soon when I do my 2nd feeding - under the mulch.

Sherry

Melissa, I grew up in Central Florida, Polk County. I've lived most of my life in Western North Carolina, though.

Sherry, when you replace a rose, you could dig in 1-2" of plain cat litter, which is a fine clay good for retaining moisture and nutrients. (Per 10" depth of sand.)

See if you can measure the output of your soakers at various points. I guess 3 gallons per square yard would be an appropriate light watering.

thank-you, michaelg, for the excellent explanation of 'capillary lift'.

i have observed this in my own garden over time and guessed that was what was happening.

Michael, I'm from Wakulla County in the Panhandle. I spent a few years in North Carolina, too, when I went to graduate school at Chapel Hill. I got up into the mountains to go hiking and loved every minute of those excursions.

Yes, my plastic is on top of the soil and under the mulch. Every bit of my gardening is experimentation and this just happened to work out for me in the best possible way.

In this picture I am cutting back the hill to put a stone wall in. You can see my plastic and the horrid 'quality' of my dirt. Hard clay and soapstone.

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