September Pruning

Hi all as most of you know we had holidays when the roses should have been pruned, bad luck roses. the three photo's below will show what can happen whilst away.
The first shot is at planting in Sept 2014.

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The next shot is what we got home to on the 24th Aug,

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This bed did receive 100ml of pure rice hulls, in Feb/March, so go figure why.

The last shot is the pruning done over the w/end, check the truck, Also you will notice the Clb Peace got a makeover to the right.

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Now onto the rest of the beds/roses, future installments to come.

what is all that green mulch doing outside of the rose bed.......is that where the rose bed extensions going... ?

Which shot John. ?

In the bottom photo along the other end of the verandah is the next bed(2016), to be rotary hoed again, mulch/straw/rise hulls, what every I can find.

The middle photo, green weeds are on our side of a levy bank which stops the river and creek flooding us. To be sprayed out and planted out with more roses.

First shot is Summer grass and Rye grass, under that is Couch.

Nice work roseman a late prune is better then nothing a bit of food for the roses and sun and new shoots will come up everywhere.

Thanks Danny, only five more beds to go. Yes water and food, very important, water we have plenty, food we are using lots of worm juice.

I find worm juice is good for new bareroot bushes and once you have pruned sprayed with a gun promotes a lot of growth.

I'm going to be pruning late too. It has rained SO much this winter that I haven't wanted to go outside at all.

We had two days of spring weather on Fri/Sat but it's back to wintry weather now.

PS: what do you do with all those prunings David? I am going to purchase a Silent Shredder from Bunnings (Ozito or Ryobi brand) to mulch up all my prunings this year. They are about $300 and get rave reviews.

For those further north, they can even mulch palm fronds.

muscovyduckling wrote:PS: what do you do with all those prunings David? I am going to purchase a Silent Shredder from Bunnings (Ozito or Ryobi brand) to mulch up all my prunings this year. They are about $300 and get rave reviews.

For those further north, they can even mulch palm fronds.

then leave them in a compost pile for 2 years before using it as mulch...

Zoe,when I get my "bum" into gear I will endeavour to strike cuttings, that is one option. The other is just throw them away. I have enough material for compost so they will not be used. As for your "Mulcher", check out all the options, these include they size to which they can shred, do they have a side shoot for "bigger" branches. is there somewhere to get repairs and spares.
To be honest I am none the wiser if "rose prunings" should be or not used. As John said, leave at least 2 years so they are "completely" composted.

We have an old mulcher "somewhere". I think it was the father-in-law's and I remember spending all afternoon mulching up sticks and leaves etc and ending up with a couple of barrow full.

I think it cost more in fuel that it would have to have purchased mulch and I would have had the afternoon free.

I did try it to chop up horse manure one time but the exit shoot used to get clogged up. It was okay on the really dry stuff but hard work.

There has always been a very good reason for NOT mulching rose prunings for your compost. The reason is ---- you will have thorns in your compost, a very big OUCH if you are going to pick up with your hands.
I hope this helps

Bob Dawson who owes Dawsons ' Rose Nursery put me on to mulching the rose pruning years ago......apparently he has a good mulching that basically pulverizes the cuttings. He also has over a 1000 roses to prune each year....

We usually burn ours prunings. A bit hard in the urban situation but where we live it is not an issue.

The ash then gets shovelled onto the gardens.

Good work Gary, potash to the garden.

The Lazy Rosarian wrote:Good work Gary, potash to the garden.

Yes but I understand that you need to get it into the soil pretty quick as the potassium levels drop in it. Not sure how. We usually have dead branches etc in the fire as well so we get a bit of ash.

I read also that the ash contains calcium so can be used to lift the PH so if you live in an alkaline soil area it is not a good idea to use it.

Finally remember that it does not contain nitrogen so you cannot use ash alone as a fertilizer. Probably a mix of the ash with a pelletised chicken manure (which is high in N) that contains trace elements would be a reasonable fertilizer.

Did you get any of the rain today? It's raining here at present (not real heavy but steady) but it is expected to clear tonight. Every time I go to take some photos it starts to rain. Our Clg Souvenir de la Malmaison that we planted this time last year has spread out to be a metre or so high and a couple of metres across. It has been covered in flowers for the last 2 months and there are still buds all over it. Unfortunately We have not put anything under her to give some support though she is standing up okay. There is one at Ruston's at Renmark which is not supported and looks great.

Gary, if we do have any ash left from the fires here we add it to the beds with other material and liquid fert, we have been using lots of worm juice. The other thing we do is pace it in a bed which is not planted out and incorporate it to build up the organic matter, this might be done over twelve months.
As for your Clg Souvenir de la Malmaison, I would love our two to do the same, they are not. Our soil here is great, but, it is black loam, good growing soil for Lucerne as the entire river flat is sown to it. As it is a fine loam it takes a lot of time and energy for 'plants' in general to get thier roots down. The only way I have gotten around this is  apply lots of water and a combination of ferts.

David, can you get hold of wash river sand?.... then mix it up 50/50 with your loam and put it in your planting hole(big)....

I can John at a cost, my method is to beg, borrow or steal whatever I can from around the farm that will break down, If I haven't told you before my middle name is :Scrouge". The other thing is I am making complete beds from scratch will lots of room, so the over all bed/garden is the same consistency( I Hope).
Apart from the existing beds there are two new one's, plus an area down the back which measures 40 x 30 metres to plant out some rootstock/ growing on beds for other plants.

can you experiment with two small beds side by side....one with normal loam and another with sand loam mixture and then plant identical roses in each...say two or three roses in each of the same age and breeder...could prove interesting....

That can be done and will be done.

The Lazy Rosarian wrote:That can be done and will be done.