Bloomin' Bust

It seems I'm back at square one. While I'm enjoying large, beautiful blooms, the rose bush stems are still dying when I don't deadhead right away. Why not deadhead right away you say? Not that easy. Usually my two year old 'helps' me with my gardening. A sharp blade is just the type of thing I need to keep a precocious kid like him away from.

Even more disheartening, one of my miniature rosebushes is deader than a doornail, and the other one is hanging on by a thread. Once thriving and blooming without dead stems (the miniature rose bushes don't seem to be affected like the others), this phenomena occured two days after using Bayer Advanced All-In-One Rose and Flower Care.

http://www.bayeradvanced.com/rose-flower-care/products/all-in-one-rose-flower-care

This product promises insect and disease control and fertilization for six weeks. Sound too good to be true. I've used this on my other rose bushes in the past (I know, there seems to be a trend developing), and other flowering bushes which are doing quite well. So what's the problem? As Paul James would say, I'm stumped. On the bright side, my roses are free of insects, although they do suffer from black spot. One out the three, hmmmmm. Way to go Bayer!

I'm considering drastically pruning the roses back and essentially starting over. Not the best idea during the growing season, but I'm sick of looking at anorexic rose bushes after all the time and money I put into them. Perhaps I'll also e-mail bomb the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at Auburn University until they decide to assist me.

Theory

The good news is, spring is here. The bad news...unfortunately Auburn is not on board. That's ok though. I've been researching and talking with folks and suspect that the surrounding grass (and weeds) have been fighting with the rose bushes for water and nutrients. And so far, the roses haven been losing miserably.

This morning, my husband, a friend of ours and myself dug up everything surrounding the rose bushes, in order to mulch for water retention, and to effectively fertilize. I also cut back sickly looking limbs to make them look healthier and to encourage lateral growth.

Whether my new theory and efforts work, we'll just have to wait and see. But, I'm trying.

No News

Haven't heard back from Auburn University yet. Will follow-up with a call on Monday.

Progress

Today I e-mailed the Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology at Auburn University to ask if I could mail a few clippings of my rose buses to them, to see if they can determine the problem with my bushes.

As soon as I hear anything, you'll be the first to know.

I Met Paul James

I met Paul James (only the greatest gardening guru ever) yesterday at the Greater Montgomery Home and Garden Show. Well, I saw him and attended his Q&A segment more than met him. But I got to ask him a question. Yay me!

Here's my problem...I'm trying to establish several rose gardens in my yard, but failing quite miserably. I have several varities - some engineered to withstand any condition, buy all the recommended fertilizers, soil amendments, they get the right amount of water and are planted in the right light, yet, if I don't deadhead a rose the nanosecond a petal turns, the entire branch dies. The tree itself is fine, but the branch is a goner. More often than not, I have more dead branches than healthy ones, with occassional healthy looking blooms. So what did my highly esteemed gardening hero answer? "I'm stumped." That's it? He's stumped? I traveled more than an hour for this? In my mind, Paul James was losing points big time.

He then went on the explain it doesn't sound fungal, viral or bacterial. It's probably pathological. He further recommended I send a few cutlings to the plant pathologist at Auburn to figure out what's going on. How dedicated am I to this task, when a very attractive alternative is to dig them up and replace them with any number of flowering bushes I do very well with? VERY! I love roses and damn it, I want to be surrounded with beautiful rose bushes.

So presents a terrific opportunity to blog about my rose gardening adventures this year. I'll show you pics of the before and after and keep you updated along the way. And hopefully by late summer, I'll adorn every horizontal surface in my home with rose arrangements (much to my husband's chagrin I'm sure).

Here's to everything Roses. Cheers!