March Meeting

Location/Time

DATE: Thursday, March 26, 2009

LOCATION: Taltree Arboretum & Gardens

71 North, 500 West

Valparaiso, IN

PROGRAM: “Pruning Seminar ”

by Karl Bapst

TIME: 7:30 PM

Meeting & program, followed by refreshments

2009 Officers
President Adolph Ferber 219-836-1476 adolphferber@att.net 1st Vice President Patricia Stimmel pstimmel@taltree.org 2nd Vice President Sam Dimaio sdimaio@verizon.net Show Chairman Karl Bapst 219-956-3936 rosenut7673@embarqmail.com	Treasurer Kathleen Vargas Kittyvpu75@yahoo.com Secretary Lisa Mella Mella1265@yahoo.com Editor Yvonne Peterson 708-895-4811 Yvonne.peterson@am.jll.com or yiv1943@sbcglobal.net

Calendar of Events

February 22 Presentation by Dale Fadley – “Where We Find Roses”

March 26 Pruning Seminar – Karl Bapst hopes to have roses for everyone to practice on. Bring your own pruners

April 30 “Color through the Seasons” by Jean Starr

May 28 “How to Show Roses” by Adolph, Dale, Karl

June 14 Duneland Rose Show, Westfield Shopping Town – no regular meeting

July 30 Stan Sims – “Caring for and Growing Better Roses”

August 16 Date tentative - Garden Walk and Picnic

September 24 DRS members’ “Small Rose Show”

October 29 tbd

November 19 Annual Potluck Dinner

Consulting Rosarians

Have questions about growing roses? Consult an expert.

Karl Bapst, MR 219-956-3936 rosenut7673@embarqmail.com	Adolph Ferber, CR 219-836-1476 adolphferber@att.net
Clarence Albers, Emeritus Consulting Rosarian	Norm Backus, Emeritus Consulting Rosarian
Agnes Medvecz, Emeritus Consulting Rosarian

Letter From the Prez

by Adolph Ferber

Dog Days of February/March

In many respects, the February/March period is probably my least favorite months on the calendar. Administratively speaking, there is plenty of rose business to do for 2009 -- filling out paperwork, communicating with other board members about upcoming rose shows, scheduling speakers, etc. But in reality this is not a big deal because I am blessed with very capable officers who do 99.9% of the “leg work.”

However, I’m really referring to something more serious in nature and that is having the opportunity to talk to my roses. Obviously right now one can’t do that because of wintertime and observing nothing but canes from a distance is for the “birds”. Besides I don’t have any roses to talk to now but that will be changing shortly. I just recently bought 5 hybrid teas and 4 miniatures. I expect that number to grow exponentially in the future. If you haven’t ordered your roses, don’t wait. There’s an excellent selection of roses being offered by the society and sales will be brisk.

Yes, these truly are the dog days because I’m tired of being cooped up inside the house -- aren’t you? I’m a warm-weather freak who enjoys the outside and fussing with my roses every day. If you get the impression I am “chomping at the bit”, you are so right.

Looking at the same rose catalogs over and over again is becoming old hat. I want to view the real thing and not pictures. I envy you guys with the green houses -- you are so lucky.

One saving grace is the availability of many books and magazines out there on growing good roses. Fine and dandy but I want to put into practice all the tips I’ve learned. In other words, I want to get down and dirty right now but obviously that is impossible.

There is a glimmer of hope though and some light at the end of the tunnel. Spring is just around the corner, I think. So I will putz around the garage cleaning, oiling, and sharpening all the garden tools. Look out pruners, saws, loppers. Naturally I will take an inventory of rose supplies and visit all the local garden supply stores looking for the best deals. Remember, fungicides and insecticides have limited shelf lives, so check it out.

Congratulations Donna Briggs of Sauk Trail Rose Society for receiving ARS Consulting Rosarian accreditations. It’s a worthwhile achievement and I am sure you’ll be an excellent source on growing good roses.

See you at the next meeting,

Caio.

Karl’s Korner

by Karl Bapst

Warm weather has finally arrived and along with it comes our desire to begin gardening. This urge to get out and work in the yard often leads to removing winter protection and pruning too early. After the past two years of getting burned, many of us learned our lesson on doing these chores too early, but many more of us forget and are in a rush to clean things up. A couple of warm days get our juices flowing. After being shut up in the house all winter we throw caution to the wind and get to work. Many bushes are lost or get overly stressed by early pruning and late freezes. While they may survive the growing season, often they just barely make it and then succumb to the cold the following winter.

Pruning prompts the start of leaf growth and primes the pump that makes the sap begin to rise. A late freeze can freeze this moisture in the plant cells causing the cell walls to burst and cause severe dieback or even plant death. Fall’s gradual cooling and less sunlight gives a dormant plant natural protection against winter’s freezes that prevents lots of damage so colder temps in winter cause less dieback than similar temps in spring. New tender growth filled with moisture is more likely to experience damage under like fall or winter conditions

While I refer to it as a late freeze, it may not be that so much as early pruning. While the frosts we often experience around Mother’s Day can cause the loss of some leaves, it’s usually not so much that it really harms the bushes. It seems worse than it is as our bodies become accustomed to the warmer temperatures. New growth contains lots of sugar which is natural antifreeze. This allows the plant to easily shrug off those Mother’s Day frosts. This is not true for early planted tender annuals or veggies so you still need to cover them when a frost is forecast.

While we might consider a cold snap in late March or early April, a late freeze, it’s really not. It’s the natural scheme of our zone 5 weather. I resist the temptation to get out and prune so early. I try to wait until closer to mid April, even if Mom Nature tries to fool us with lush growth before that. I can always cut away growth that shows itself above a canker or damaged portion of cane. This early growth is caused by moisture and nutrients that have over wintered in the canes. If occurring above a canker or damaged portion of cane it will die anyway after that dead portion of cane can’t allow moisture to get to the new growth. That’s why some bushes put out new growth then shrivel and die. A complete bush that does this often had bud union damage that shows itself only after moisture cannot pass beyond the damage. It sometimes will not show up until much later when heat causes too much moisture loss that cannot easily be replaced.

The moral of the story is to wait until early April to remove winter protection and mid April to prune. Past experience has shown me waiting doesn’t put off bloom time. My roses still bloom in late May/early June as they do every year. Waiting also lets me avoid the spring time shuffle of applying and removing covering when the inevitable “late” freeze occurs.

You can plant any bare root bushes you get as soon as you can work the soil. If buying in a garden center or big box store, shop early when they are fresher and haven’t dried out or begun to sprout. While in Florida, I picked up a few bare root roses in body bags. They were still dormant with no or little early growth. In the past, I requested mid March shipment of fall or winter mail order purchased roses. I’ve planted many of these dormant bare roots in snow flurries. Once in the ground and covered with soil as they should be when planted to prevent moisture loss, they would stay dormant and only begin to grow after the soil heated up. This way, when it came time to prune, I didn’t have roses to plant. Some that I didn’t know where I was going to put them were potted and allowed to grow in the pots until later in the season when I’d use them to replace dead bushes or fill in new rose beds.

Speaking of Florida, My son had Don Juan roses blooming when I was there in late February. I picked fresh grapefruit and oranges off his trees. The cold snaps they had in early February made the fruit sweeter.

We went to the Strawberry Festival in Plant City. I was eating strawberry shortcake within minutes of entering the grounds. These are huge shortcakes and I had another before we left. The last place we got one, we were able to make our own. Needless to say, mine was loaded with strawberries and whipped cream. Too bad strawberries don’t travel well as prices for flats of luscious berries were low and there were vendors all over the place selling them.

We also took a day to go to the sponge docks at Tarpon Springs. The Greeks started the sponge collecting there many years ago and are still very active in the community. We ate at a Greek restaurant. You haven’t had a gyro until you eat one at a Greek restaurant. It was so big I had to take part of mine home to eat later. Their pastries are pretty good too.

A cold front came through the day before we left causing some badly-needed rain. One thinks of Florida as a wet humid climate, but winter and spring are their dry seasons with very little rain and lots of wild fires. The temps were in the mid to upper 70s except the day the cold front came through and it dropped into the 50s. It was funny seeing all the people bundled up while Nancy and I were comfortable in light jackets. The warmer weather for a couple of weeks was just the ticket to get us past the death throes of our Northern winter.

Clean up your yards on these early spring warm days but hold off a little on your pruning. There are lots of other gardening chores to keep you busy.

Until next month, remember “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

Remember,

Real Men Grow Roses, Never enough Roses,

Karl Bapst

Bits and Pieces from the Last Meeting

by Lisa Mella

The February meeting was held a little earlier in the month, on a Sunday afternoon, due to winter weather and nighttime driving conditions.

We welcomed a guest, Linda Levin, who had come to check it out after seeing an advertisement. Her grandmother used to show roses and she wants to learn more about growing roses in her poor soil.

We had a good group at the meeting and discussed the annual plant sale which will take place on May 16th at the Kopko’s. The Rose Show will be held on Sunday, June 14th. We also talked about how much work it is to put on the Annual Rose Show and how we need new blood and volunteers to help otherwise we might need to think about scaling back the show somewhat.

Dale Fadley was the speaker and he presented an excellent slide presentation on different rose gardens and arboretums around the country. He showed us pictures of the Cincinnati Flower Show, the Nashville Arboretum and other places they had found that sold roses. It was nice to see bright colorful flowers in bloom during February.