Temecula Valley Rose Society

Co-President's Message

This summer we will enjoy the best time of day in the garden: early evening. On Saturday, June 24 the City of Temecula will invite the community to Rose Haven for the 'Night of the Luminaries'. There will be music, candlelight and strolling among the blossoms as dusk descends into dark. Take the shuttle from the corner of Ynez and Santiago, which will run continuously from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m.

July will be very laid back as no meetings are scheduled for the entire month! Members and guests are invited for a Summer Supper in the garden from 6 p.m. until dusk on Saturday, July 29. At our June 15 Member meeting we will talk about what we want to eat — potluck, catered, or brown bag.

August — always hot so we will be cool with our Tomato Tasting Festival on Saturday, August 26 (6 p.m. to dusk). We will taste what is growing in the Tree of Life, our own gardens or our favorite Farmers Market. The hope is to celebrate a wide variety of tomatoes. Come prepared to share why you love the tomato you bring to the party.

See you on Thursday, June 15 as we look forward to a summer of sizzling fun.

Roses Past And Present – XV

Continuing from last month we are making the transition from the generation of Old Garden Roses to that of Modern Roses. As mentioned, this transition took a little over 30 years. The first "modern rose", La France, a cross between a hybrid perpetual and a China tea, was bred in 1867. These new "Hybrid Tea" roses became very popular and by the year 1900 had pretty well taken over the rose market. It was also at this time that OGR's began falling out of favor. There were many reasons for this change in attitude by the rose growing public, among these were the numerous advantages of the newer varieties such as color, fragrance and ever-blooming plants. As a result the public became interested in roses, whereas in prior centuries rose gardens were the domain of royalty and nobility. Now however, the average citizen could indulge in our hobby because of the proliferation of newer and newer varieties.

BUT, the OGR's, which were in danger of falling into oblivion, were rescued by a few OGR lovers who felt that the old roses still had value and should be revived. These breeders set out on a campaign to keep alive the respect and love of the OGR's. It is to these people that we owe a debt of gratitude for the present appreciation of these old roses. Most notably among these breeders was a gentleman by the name of Graham Thomas. In fact, he is so respected that there is a rose named after him which we have in our Hall of Fame area. Please stop by to pay your respects to Graham Thomas, without whose efforts we might not have our Old Garden Rose section.

A word of caution to anyone owning or contemplating hybridizing a La France!!! This, the first Hybrid Tea, is reported to be sterile and therefore unable to reproduce. So, don't even try!

Next month, directly into MODERN ROSES.

Grocery Cards Benefit TVRS

Member Meeting Program

Life is all about change. Together we will explore the changing face of our Society. What programs are we interested in for the future and what do we do about lunch? We will share from our library both books and videos plus share our roses in the Little Rose Show. We have postponed our Deconstructed Rose Show for Photography and Blooming Art — we will plan for those in January and February of 2018. We will also have a Question-and-Answer Exchange. Think of this as our start of summer, we are kicking back and enjoying a very relaxing meeting.

A light buffet luncheon will be served at 11:30. Guests are welcome.

June Birthdays & New Members

Birthdays   Tony Merritt, 6-3; Sochi Rumbold, 6-19; and Peggy Whitney, 6-30. And we also say farewell to Peggy, who is moving to Prescott, AZ. You will be missed, Peggy.

New Members   There are no new members this month.

Little Rose Show

Our Little Rose Show resumes at our member meeting this month. The classes are the same as always (just like our Rose Show in May). If you have roses that don't fit those classes or you don't know their names, bring them anyway. We have an unjudged class just for them. We had about 16 people who participated last year. Let's double that!

Rose Haven Garden

On Saturday, June 24th the City of Temecula will host "Night of the Luminaries" at our garden. This annual event has been so enjoyable and we are excited to show off the garden and meet new guests. Time is 7 to 10 p.m. Members and guests are invited as well as the public.

The Education Pavilion is virtually finished. It is usable now, and just in time for the "Night of the Luminaries" mentioned above. The area was set aside several years ago as we desired having a structure where classes could be held throughout the year. We applied for grants from several organizations, but to no avail. Through a generous donation from Rebecca Weersing we finally have a lovely space where we can hold our Families in the Garden, educational seminars and other events.

Our next garden committee meeting is Wednesday, June 28 at 9:30. We will discuss projects to improve areas in the garden. Members interested are always welcome to attend the meeting. Rose Haven garden is located at 30592 Jedediah Smith Rd. in Temecula.

The Education Area Before

The Education Pavillion

Youth Gardening: Tree of Life

Spring/Summer vegetables that were planted in April and May are doing well. We have small spaghetti squash already on the vine which should produce a squash big enough to eat by the end of the month. We also planted Honey Baby Butternut Squash, Sweet Meat Squash and Honey Bear Acorn Squash that are not far behind the Spaghetti Squash and will be producing soon.

Our carrots continue to be a fun opportunity for young children who stop by to see who can pull the biggest one. Of course, they also enjoy eating them. Our potato plants needed a little help again as "critters" again started chewing off all of the leaves. The students put cages around them and we hope that will solve the problem. Our 5 tomato plants are starting to flower and they are joined by 3 volunteer tomato plants that came up on their own (one that is doing very well in the succulent bed). I hope everything is going well with your tomato plants that I handed out in March. I would love to get your feedback.

I had some interesting things happen in my home garden that I thought were noteworthy as it is a test garden for a lot of the things that I do at the T.O.L. This year due to the mild winter I had many tomato plants that made it through the winter. Due to this I started harvesting and eating my sweet garden tomatoes in May this year. If this continues I will have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year.

I also had many volunteer pumpkins sprout in and around my compost pile this winter. I let them grow and they subsequently took over the bed where my onions were growing. I considered taking them out as I didn't want to lose the onion crop and I thought it was too early for pumpkins to grow. I left them in and to my disbelief I now have many pumpkins (one that is large and already orange) and the biggest onions I have ever had. Who would have known that these two vegetables would be companion plants? Keep trying new things in your garden, you never know what may surprise you.

Students Harvest Beets

Pumpkins and Onions

Rose Care FUNdamentals

Keeping vegetation approximately 8 inches from the soil level will help as well. Typical mature, full-size hybrid teas in Southern California soil require about 6-9 gallons of water a week when temperatures are high. As temperatures rise into the 80s the rose will require about 9 gallons of water per week. In the 90s, the rose will require about 12 gallons per week and even more. These figures are rough and based on the amount of water needed to maintain the highest level of show quality; the rose will stay alive on considerably less." In 2015 water agencies advised customers to "Water...roses no more than once each week...with three to four gallons of water, allowing it to soak in slowly." I think you'll agree that "three to four gallons" is "considerably less" than the recommendations for maintaining the "highest level of show quality."

The past few years of drought experience has made gardeners aware that we must be watchful and learn how to efficiently manage the amount of water we apply in our yards. The strategies I will discuss here are: .
  ● Delivering water efficiently .
  ● Keeping water in the soil using mulch .
  ● Allowing your roses a summer dormancy period

Delivering Water Efficiently: Drip systems provide the most efficient way to deliver water to your roses because they don't produce a water spray that can be carried away by winds, and because they deliver water slowly, allowing it to soak deep into the root zone rather than running off. If you have a drip system, be sure it's in good shape before you cover it with mulch! Open each irrigation valve one at a time and inspect how it is performing. Repair any leaks, including emitters that are spraying from their attachment point on the tubing—you may have to remove the emitter, insert a "goof plug," and install a new emitter an inch or two away from the original one. My gardening friends are recommending the more efficient drip system called netafim. Find the information at netafimusa.com

One more thing: You'll want to estimate the volume of water the system is delivering so you can better manage your use. For example, if every rose has two emitters that deliver 8 liters (about 2 gallons) per hour, then to deliver 4 gallons to the plant you'll need to run the system for an hour. This should work well in a typical loam soil. You want the water to soak down at least 12" for optimal rose health. A loam soil doesn't allow water to just run through it, so irrigating for an hour at a time can be fairly efficient. On the other hand, if your soil is particularly sandy—which allows water to permeate more quickly—an hour of irrigation may waste some of that water, and you might be better off running the system twice a week for half as long. Experiment! After all, gardening is a scientific pursuit.

Mulch: If you have read my past columns you know that I have been advocating the application of a deep layer of mulch for years. Mulch provides many benefits. It moderates the soil temperatures, retains moisture and allows it to spread more uniformly throughout the root zone, discourages weeds, and maintains a soft soil surface. A four inch layer of mulch is recommended. I highly suggest composted mulch. There are many materials you can use, and you might want to experiment with a variety of them, but you will probably get the best results if you don't mix them in any one garden bed.

One material that some gardeners have in abundance is pine needles. They provide an airy cooling barrier and break down very slowly to impart a more acidic soil environment which makes mineral nutrients more available to plants. Another material is any size of wood chip specifically intended as mulch; I recommend the finer cut forms. Possible drawbacks: if not specifically manufactured for garden use is the potential for matting due to fungal growth, which can make the wood chip layer impermeable to water: the need to apply added nitrogen to break down the wood fibers.

I prefer composted mulch that is light and fluffy (so it doesn't pack down) and contains a higher proportion of hummus (so it slowly integrates with and enriches the soil). One drawback of composted mulch is that after several years you may find that your garden soil level has risen. If this ends up burying the bud unions, it can be helpful to "lift" the rose—essentially, digging to release a large root ball, levering it up, filling in several inches of good garden soil beneath it, and then resetting the root ball in the hole or maintain a clear well around the base of the bush.

Whatever mulching material you choose, be careful to NOT apply it up to or over the bud union. Leave an area around the base of the plant of about 12" diameter. (If you can maintain that distance, then as your composted mulch disintegrates it will not raise the soil level around the bud unions.)

Summer Dormancy: Allowing your roses to go dormant during the hot summer months will reduce water use as well as the stress on your plants. You won't be missing out much because if you allowed your roses to power through the summer, most blooms would be of poor quality and have burned petals and leaves. So as your roses complete the current bloom cycle, remove only the petals as the flowers fade-do not deadhead them-that is, allow hips to form. This will discourage new growth and flower formation, thus reducing demand for water. Remove any fallen leaves and discard them along with the petals into your green yard waste bin-do not compost them! (It is always a good practice to keep the garden clean in order to reduce fungal diseases and insect pests, particularly in hot dry weather.) Do not remove burned leaves because they provide shade for the cane which can be damaged or killed by sunburn! Discontinue your feeding program-we do not want to encourage growth at this time because it will only stress the bush more.

In summary, until at least September: .
  ● Make sure your water delivery system is operating efficiently .
  ● Apply 4" of mulch over the entire bed .
  ● Remove petals as flowers mature .
  ● Allow hips to form .
  ● Do not prune or cut back .
  ● Leave brown leaves on the plant .
  ● Do not feed

Doesn't look like much work, right? Well, since you'll be taking it easy for the summer, go visit Rose Haven.

For more ideas, visit TVRS' Rose Haven garden at 30592 Jedediah Smith Rd., Temecula, as well as our web site at TemeculaValleyRoseSociety.org/index.shtml. Spread the joy of roses!