Planting a Rose ???

I was just wondering if anybody has had any experience planting with this method.
I was having a chat to Melville Roses here in Perth about planting roses, their advice was to dig a whole about 1/2mt wide and deep, then fill the whole with half potting mix and half sheep or cow manure and add some loam. Then create a hole for the rose and add a handful of Osmocote.

Paul as mentioned in other threads over time and if memory serves me right Finbarr has also advised similar. My method is to make the roughly double of what you need, reason for this is two fold.
1. If the rose is barerooted it has no feeder roots, the plant once it gets going has open/loose soil/medium around it to establish, then it can begin to feed it's self rather than trying to get from a hole and into the surrounding local soil. I believe in the first two weeks it is very important to give it the best chance of survival.
2. If the plant is coming from a pot, it is likely(not always) pot bound, so then the roots need teasing(some people agree, some disagree). The roots closest to the edge of the pot are the feeders, so they again need room to expand into the insitu soils, so a less dense soil is required as this aids the transition.
From my perspective I am not one that uses slow release, I prefer liquid as the plant can take it up more readily.
Hope this helps and is only my method which I use.

Wonderful. I am copying all this to a Word document. The instructions satisfy all my own instincts regarding the use of potting mix when introducing a rose to the real ground. ;-)

I tried something special with one of ours that I planted before the rains.The soil where I planted it is not all that flash being sandy and does not absorb water all that well.

I dug a hole about 2 feet deep and probably 2 feet diameter. I spead a layer of lime and mulch (a ground up fig tree actually), put on a few inches of dirt, more mulch and lime and some chook poo stuff more dirt and repeated until I had refilled the hole.

I then got my shovel and dug it all around to stir and mix it up.

I then dug a whole twice as large as the pot and took the rose, potting mix and all and sat it in the hole. The roots were pretty good so I did not tease them out though I would have if the plant was pot bound.

I them moulded a few inches of the "soil" that I had pulled out of the hole around the potting mix and then mixed up more of the chook poo stuff and lime and soil and mulch and filled that in around the potting mix mould.

I watered well and sat back. It did ok sending out a couple of shoots and flowers and then we had 400mm of rain and it just took of. If you stood there long enough you would see it growing.

The rose is a Comm de Larbathe Climber and we are gowing it on a pillar.

Now after saying all of that after the 400mm of rain and before the next 100mm (the next week) we went around and gave everything a good dose with the chook poo pellets mix stuff (called kickalong up here) and seroiusly I have never seen the roses grow as well. The new growth on the teas is a maroon sort of colour and it beautiful.

The problem is we have the Brisbane and Darling Downs HRIA groups coming over in April and we are going to have to de bud the roses in 3 weeks so we can have flowers for all of them to see.

I really hate the garden but I need to torture myself to keep my self belief going.

Chook poo is such a polarised subject. Kordes advises NOT to use chook poo (maybe creates too much alkalinity?), but there goes the expert balinbear, swearing by it.

(I use a specialised Kickalong product for a few natives, and they love it, ie haven't died).

So what's a person to think?????????

I guess if you live where the soil is alkaline you may not use it but with our soil having a PH of 4 - 5.5 it is fine.

betsyw wrote:Chook poo is such a polarised subject. Kordes advises NOT to use chook poo (maybe creates too much alkalinity?), but there goes the expert balinbear, swearing by it.

(I use a specialised Kickalong product for a few natives, and they love it, ie haven't died).

So what's a person to think?????????

The important part is that the chook poo isn't smokin' hot straight out of the chook shed. Aged manure is perfectly fine (and it doesn't take all that long either).
I think also that there is a certain "go for the lowest denominator" when it comes to instructions. For the Average Person out there who Isn't A Gardener it's a good instruction. It saves on explanations and provisos.
Also, it's a good instruction when planting bare root roses.
Planting potted roses that are actively growing makes life a little easier.

Don't forget there is chook poo and there is chook poo.

Gary I guess the rain would have helped the other 4

When planting potted roses, is there a risk of manure (aged manure) burning tending young roots? I'm talking about cow manure sold in bags in nurseries. I was planning on holding off the manure and just top dressing when there was signs of growth, as this is what I had been told. But if both Roseman and Balinbear recommend using manure when planting, that's what I'll do.

The thing to watch out for is "hot" manure Silky. If I am not wrong Gary(Balinbear) would have used old materials and let them settle bit prior to planting. In my case I use anything old. I do not stick to a recipe, what I have laying around or can scrounge normally.

I use the bagged manure sold in nurseries as I don't have access to farm type supplies, so there wouldn't be any chance of damage from fresh stuff. A friend has been promising to bring me down some dried manure from her horse paddock, but haven't seen any yet. She's been too busy on fire alert for CFA. I'll use hers maybe for top dressing if its old enough.
When you say "settle bit prior to planting" do you mean days or weeks in rose bed prior to planting?

Yes it was the peletized stuff. Would not do it with fresh chicken poo.

I doubt cow manure would burn any roots.

Good-o. Thanks Balinbear

this is the cow manure I use, you can usually get 4 bags for $19.50 from Better Pets and Garden. I never have any problem with weeds.
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That's a great price Paul. I pay about $12 a bag!!

silky....I think Bunnings sells them for six or six fifty a bag...

Well I'm going to Bunnings in the next couple of days, so will check Neptune. I need manure and Eyes for You.

roseman wrote:Paul as mentioned in other threads over time and if memory serves me right Finbarr has also advised similar. My method is to make the roughly double of what you need, reason for this is two fold.
1. If the rose is barerooted it has no feeder roots, the plant once it gets going has open/loose soil/medium around it to establish, then it can begin to feed it's self rather than trying to get from a hole and into the surrounding local soil. I believe in the first two weeks it is very important to give it the best chance of survival.
2. If the plant is coming from a pot, it is likely(not always) pot bound, so then the roots need teasing(some people agree, some disagree). The roots closest to the edge of the pot are the feeders, so they again need room to expand into the insitu soils, so a less dense soil is required as this aids the transition.
From my perspective I am not one that uses slow release, I prefer liquid as the plant can take it up more readily.
Hope this helps and is only my method which I use.

AHHH!! roseman, I think you have shone a light on an area of planting that I now can see that what I've been doing is wrong.
(1) when dug out my garden bed and replaced the soil, I compacted the soil down hard by stamping it out.
(2) when back filling the hole, I compact in down hard so the soil is really firm.
(3) the soil is so compact that it's hard to push in a water or ph meter.

So this could be the reason why the plants I've transplanted and the new ones I've planted don't really thrive. I also do the some with potting mix in pots.

What can I do, would it be beneficial to get stuck in with a pitch folk, and loosen up as much soil as possible without digging up any plants...

paul, I dug out all my gardens to a depth of 1200mm to get rid of the white salty beach sand. Then I back filled with landscapers mix and added sheep manure that came from the dags of the sheeps and processed. When I got it to the level I wanted, I stomped on it till it went down as far as it could(about 8 inches), then repeated the process till I got the height I wanted. Stomping on it would never give me the compaction that a compactor would give, but at least it doesn't sink below the level over time. When you dig the hole for the bush, you actually loosen the soil up again. I normally compact the backfill soil after putting the bush in and then build up a trench around it. Then I feed it with seasol that has a wetting agent in it. This plant now will be watered everyday for the next two weeks (tip from an expert) before it will settle for 3 day a week watering. After a week, redo the seasol with wetting agent. Now if you have this problem with all your roses, grab a hard non bendable steel probe and poke holes all around your bush. Then put a good dose of wetting agent on(liquid)....after that, water in your wetting agent...if necessary ...repeat in a week

neptune wrote:paul, I dug out all my gardens to a depth of 1200mm to get rid of the white salty beach sand. Then I back filled with landscapers mix and added sheep manure that came from the dags of the sheeps and processed. When I got it to the level I wanted, I stomped on it till it went down as far as it could(about 8 inches), then repeated the process till I got the height I wanted. Stomping on it would never give me the compaction that a compactor would give, but at least it doesn't sink below the level over time. When you dig the hole for the bush, you actually loosen the soil up again. I normally compact the backfill soil after putting the bush in and then build up a trench around it. Then I feed it with seasol that has a wetting agent in it. This plant now will be watered everyday for the next two weeks (tip from an expert) before it will settle for 3 day a week watering. After a week, redo the seasol with wetting agent. Now if you have this problem with all your roses, grab a hard non bendable steel probe and poke holes all around your bush. Then put a good dose of wetting agent on(liquid)....after that, water in your wetting agent...if necessary ...repeat in a week

Thanks neptune,,, as soon as this flippin hot weather stops, one can get back into it.

don't forget also paul that you can go to Bunnings and buy those water probes that attach to your garden hose. It will give you depth to your watering

John, Paul has a slightly different problem to your sand, he has a shelf to contend with.
Paul, what depth is the shelf at please in the garden
If it was me I would go with the idea of a crowbar to crack the shelf some, this will also aid in drainage.
If you are using the existing garden soil/mix I would remove as much as possible or as needed to open/loosen it up(aerate it). I would be doing this as soon as possible prior to planting/replanting.
I normally let the water do the compacting for, this also leaves holes for water/oxygen/microbes/ and other things to work easily.

Dave , we have talked about this shelf before and given suggestions about it........me personally, I would grab a big mansory drill and angle drill downwards thru the limestone to the outside of the wall to create drainage. I would probably put bluestone on top of the limestone tohelp with drainage and it helps the holes from blocking up

Makes Sense John

neptune wrote:Dave , we have talked about this shelf before and given suggestions about it........me personally, I would grab a big mansory drill and angle drill downwards thru the limestone to the outside of the wall to create drainage. I would probably put bluestone on top of the limestone tohelp with drainage and it helps the holes from blocking up

Thanks David and John... David you mention cracking the limestone shelf a bit with a crow bar, unfortunatley the shelf is about 3mts deep, my soil was replaced at the beginning of spring with a vege mix. John, with regards to drilling drainage holes to the outside, this is not an option because of where the wall is situated. The below photo shows the outside of the wall, puting drainage holes would just cause a mess draining out onto a public path. As mentioned before, I have hammered a pointed metal shaft through the soil puncturing the corflute plastic to help drain through the limestone, hopefully not allowing the limestone to leach into the soil... oops forgot the photo.
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