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Timing Your Garden for a Rose Show
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By: John Sheldon
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You've made the decision to enter the rose show and think all you have to do now is water, fertilize,
spray and wait until it's time to harvest the roses. Right? Well, not exactly. You will undoubtedly have
roses at the time of the show but will they be the ones you want? You see, every variety has a general
recycle time, the time from when it was last pruned until it blooms again. Some recycle as fast as 40-45
days, most a little longer 45-55 days and some take a long time to recycle 55+. Many factors contribute
to the cycle time: the amount of water they received during the growing period, how much fertilizer they
received, how many sunny days, temperature, the health of the plant, number of petals etc. Many of these
variables are controllable especially the most important one, the cut date. Not the date they are harvested
but the date they were last cut prior to harvesting. Knowing that First Prize cycles fast, helps you know to
start your "cut back" 40-45 days ahead of the show. For example, our Show this year will be held on June 2nd
Rose, therefore, 45 days before June 2nd is April 18th so you would cut one cane from each First Prize bush on
April 18th. On April 19th you would cut another one and so on for a week. If you only had a few bushes you
could cut one cane every other day. This increases your chances of having a First Prize ready on the show date.
Knowing Uncle Joe, has a long cycle time 55+ days, I would start to cut back much earlier. I would make my first
cut on Uncle Joe 60 days before the show date. That would be April 4th and continue each day for the next week.
Now that we have the concept but how do we know how long it takes for each variety to recycle? A general
rule of thumb is, the more petals a rose has the longer it takes to recycle. A better way to ensure you'll
have the roses you want when you want them is to "time" your garden. While the exact number of days will
always vary you can get a good idea of how long any given variety takes by timing it. The process is simple
and goes like this. When you prune the rose take a piece of non-fading color-fast yarn (embroidery floss
works even better) and tie it around the terminal leaflet of the first leaf just below where you made your
cut. Then on a piece of paper write RED (meaning the color of the yarn used) and the date you used RED,
in this case, July 17th. Continue to use RED that day for all the canes pruned regardless of variety.
The next day switch to a different color of yarn, say BLUE. Then write down "July 18th, BLUE" indicating
BLUE yarn was used for all the cuts made that day. And so forth for the next few weeks. A lot of people
skip a day between prunings. Remember this is not an exact science. One of the most critical factors in
determining recycle times is the degree of dormancy of the eye you prune to? A dormant eye could add well
over a week to your time an eye already growing will recycle much faster. Ideally each eye would be "plump"
but not have started to grow yet. When you start harvesting the roses write down the name of the rose, color
of the yarn and date it was harvested. To make it easier I write down the date at the top and then list all
the roses harvested on that date with the color of the yarn beside their name. You can then calculate the
exact number of days each cane of any given variety took to recycle in your garden. I like to throw out the
longest and shortest times for each variety and then average the remaining times. This gives me a general
idea of how many days ahead of next year's show date I need to cut back that variety to have blooms ready
for the show. Good luck and I hope you all come away winners.
*****
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