Co-President's Message

One of my goals as co-president this year is to encourage every member to find a club-related activity that they will enjoy and that builds up the club. If you are interested in getting even more involved, just ask any board member for ideas, or bring YOUR ideas to the board! TVRS members are a continual source of inspiration and imagination. Keep up the good work-and most of all, enjoy yourself!

Lucky Star Wish List

Most of the people who donated money to buy mulch have generously agreed to have their donations used for the labor of placing the mulch on the garden beds. But the task becomes getting mulch from one big pile to a bunch of smaller piles around the garden.

My wish is for someone to appear who can move the mulch to smaller piles near the selected gardens which are planned to receive a minimal blanket of this fine nutritional mulch.

I'm hoping someone who owns or knows someone who owns a skip loader with about a 1/2 cubic yard shovel will donate all or part of their fee to the task of moving the mulch. Failing this wish, my second best is wishing for someone to contract at a reduced rate to move our mulch.

Donations to our 501c(3) organization are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law for this community beautification project. Anyone donating will be added to our list of recognized donors posted at Rose Haven.

We have often said that the Rose Society was born under a "lucky star." I'm wishing upon that lucky star. Won't you help make my next wish come true?

Co-President's Message

TVRS Membership

New Members

Rose & Arts Festival Dress Rehearsal

Several of our Society members met at the Community Recreation Center on Rancho Vista Road. We poured over the room layout prepared by Linda Black and spent several hours measuring, discussing, deciding, agreeing, reconsidering. At the end of the five hour dress rehearsal we were all comfortable with how the room will be set up and decorated two months from now when are Rose & Arts Festival opens for the fourteenth year.

Our next meeting will be at 1 p.m. on Thursday, March 20 after refreshments at our member meeting. Feel free to join the committee!

Congrats or HOORAY or ???

The Compost Challenge has once again demonstrated that TVRS was born under a lucky star. Ed Campos from CR&R, the green waste business that provides Rose Haven with free trash pickup, has generously multiplied our effort 400%! We will now have 160 cubic yards of composted mulch delivered to Rose Haven free of charge.

Those members mentioned above have each approved the use of their funds to pay for related garden projects. One such project will be distributing the mulch to individual garden areas. Lacking any volunteered service, we may also need to hire someone to operate a skip loader to move mulch from the larger piles to smaller piles closer to each garden. The next task will be to use wheelbarrows to deposit smaller piles in each garden to be spread evenly.

Member Meeting Program

A light buffet luncheon will be served around noon. Guests are welcome.

Birthdays This Month

Enrich Your Compost Pile, While Saving The Planet

Rose Haven Update

March begins the fertilizing and watering programs. Also, the mulch project will get underway so all the plants will receive all that added nutrition and the roots will have extra protection and use less water in those hot summer months. Wednesday and Saturday mornings are the days volunteers can still give attention to those areas that need extra help.

Perhaps a trash enclosure doesn't sound especially inviting, but you should see ours. Not only does it hide the ugly trash bin, it's especially good looking. Several "Fourth of July" climbers were planted around the enclosure, so by summer our parking area should look quite festive.

Again, thank you to all who helped prune, weed, rake, and donate for the mulch. The garden appreciates your support and invites you to enjoy its beauty. The address is 30592 Jedediah Smith Road, Temecula. Please refer to our web site for a map and photos, or pick up a map at our member meeting.

Youth Gardening

Late in the afternoon this past Monday, a small group of Rose Society and Garden Club members met together at the Pujol Street Boys & Girls Club for the planting workshop Kathy Katz had organized for Club youth.

Kathy had found organic potatoes that were sprouting at Henry's Market. She and our new Society member Carol Hudson had taken an excursion last week to an iris farm in Corona where they were given a generous number of iris clumps. Another Garden Club member and I provided additional support the day of the event.

The four of us went to work separating the iris clumps, making fans of the leaves and trimming the roots. There was no preparation necessary for the potatoes. A card table, three bags of planting mix, some trowels, a couple pair of scissors and a bunch of one gallon black pots (hauled in Kathy's truck) turned out to be all of the equipment we needed. Oh, yes, we had also all brought along both enthusiasm and a spirit of fun.

The four of us set to work for about a half hour, figuring out what we were going to do and doing it! before the Club youth bounced out to our workshop area, eager to participate after their afternoon snack.

Kathy gave each of them a potato, having them examine the sprouting eyes. She showed them how to plant the whole potato in the black plastic pot. Boys & Girls staff made certain that each person's name was written on a popsicle stick so each child will be able to identify their own potato pot.

After the potato planting, they each chose an iris rhizome to plant. They were able to examine an iris in bloom near where we were working. (Several years ago as one of our other planting projects, we had planted iris as part of a landscape project for the Boys & Girls Club.) The last task was to make certain their pots were watered and stored in a convenient place for them to check on the progress of their potato pot and their iris pot.

Before returning inside, many of the children asked for a potato and an iris to take home to plant with their families.

What about the old boots? Next month we will show them how to plant a mini rose using old boots and shoes as containers. All three projects will be entered into our Youth Division.

Rose & Arts Festival Blooming Art

Artists began creating original works of art. During our dress rehearsal, the art pieces were received and our Signature Painting was selected. This signature piece will be an important element in our Festival publicity.

At our March 20 member meeting we will have flyers and cards for publicity distribution. We will also have several paintings for members to choose from and interpret the painting with a floral arrangement.

Buggin Your Garden

One of my most memorable moments in gardening was the first time a green lace wing fluttered out from a rosebush. This sight seemed to be one of those times when what you are doing is validated. I had been working on returning my yard to as natural a process as I could. I had thrown out or given away all the "chemical" products that had accumulated over a three- to four-year period. I was even beginning to doubt the methods I was presently using because my results were not exactly what I wanted.

My roses had been looking good for a while, free of the major diseases like mildew and rust, but my insect population seemed very one sided. I was water blasting as often as I could while working swing shift or graveyard, whichever it was at that time. But it seemed that the aphids were back as fast as I knocked them off. So it was a thrill to see the luminous green wings fluttering through the garden, bringing me one step closer.

Since then I have enjoyed watching a procession of insects come and go throughout the seasons. I soon learned that buying a cup of ladybugs from the nursery and expecting them to stick around to take up residence is wishful thinking. But I did feel good about setting them free, and I am sure that someone's garden benefited. And sometimes a few did hang out for a while.

But from my experiences came the knowledge that beneficial insects will not take up housekeeping where there is not a ready food supply. That is part of the paradox of Mother Nature. The ladybugs are not waiting in hiding for an unsuspecting aphid to appear. They are out searching for them. The aphids upon reaching your garden somehow, as if my magic, set up base on the new growth and start doing what they do best.

When you first notice the aphids, they may already have more then a generation in the area. The reproduction of aphids is a remarkable example of how one female can produce thousands of offspring in early spring. The rate, if not kept under control, can really damage a plant. (This procreative process is characteristic of many insects that attack roses.)

By now you are asking yourself, "Where are the beneficial insects to control these damaging insects?" They are checking out the neighborhood and as soon as they find a food source they will settle in. By the time the "good bugs" arrive, you may already have what you might consider an infestation, and, realistically, damage could be done before your garden environment can balance itself. The new "good bugs" arrive, but will need time to have young to help get the large number of pests under control. Spraying with chemicals will not help, as you are killing the good as well as the bad, and when the next batch hatches out, the pattern starts all over again.

So what can you, as an organic gardener, do to help? The first method of defense I use is water blasting. This is the simplest and least offensive control there is. There are many good tools to use, but I made my own blaster and it fits my needs. I don't like bending over to get on the under side of the leaves at the bottom of the bush, which is usually where a lot of the bugs are hiding or laying their eggs. So, I took a 3- to 4-foot length of 1/2-inch PVC pipe (depending on how tall you are), attached a connector for a garden hose to one end with plumbers glue. On the other end, I attach a fitting for an irrigation nozzle. I use a 90° nozzle. That way I can focus the spray where I need it, and it gives a strong enough blast to do the job. (E-mail me if you need better details, but this one should cost about $10 to make.)

This method of knocking off the bad bugs will help keep them under control until the good bugs can catch up. Becoming familiar with all the bugs in your garden - good and bad - will help you know what plan of action will best help. (I only had to water blast once this spring before my garden reached balance.)

Most of us know what ladybugs, green lace wings and aphids look like, but can you identify the green worms that are eating your buds or lacing the leaves? A ladybug lays about 20 yellow, oval-shaped eggs in clusters, usually on the underside of leaves. When it hatches, the "alligator-shaped" larva is black with orange spots. Its size grows from a few centimeters at birth, eating itself up to 1/8 inch. At this stage, the larvae are consuming aphids, scale and other soft-bodied insects for 12 to 14 days. They then pupate to the adult and continue eating.

I recently saw a green worm on a rose bud, but on closer inspection saw no damage, and it was not eating the bud. I took a digital photo, went home, downloaded the image, did a Google search and found that what I had observed was the larvae of a hover fly (Syrphidae).

To assume, that just because it is a little green worm it is bad, is not necessarily true. I learned a very important lesson from this and am now taking more pictures and doing more searching. I don't judge a bug by its outward appearance. In fact, I have a picture of a little red worm that I am searching out now. There actually is another fly that is a predator, and that is the tachnid fly, and there are probably a lot more than I am aware of.

But, there are those other green worms such as the "rose slug." This pest is the larvae of the sawfly and damages your rose leaves, leaving them looking lacy with a cellophane texture. Because it looks like a worm, many people spray chemical sprays they use for caterpillars, only to realize that it doesn't work. The fairly recent discovery of Spinosad has been a great boost for anyone needing help in combating this green worm. Spinosad is man-made and a bacteria and is deemed a good product by organic standards. Spinosad works on all chewing insects, but make sure to spray the underside of the leaves. One caveat is that it will stun honey bees if sprayed directly on them, so the best thing to do is avoid spraying when the bees are most active (early morning and early evening ). I know of two products utilizing Spinosad. Green Light has one in most nurseries. Rosemania has Spinosad under the name Conserve. I have used them and find that both work. (There may be more sources in your area.) Since it only affects chewing insects, there is no damage to the beneficial insects. (If any of you have tried this product against the Japanese beetle, please let me know your results. The bad part about this is that they still have to ingest it to be effective, so there will be some damage. If it can slow the population, it may be of benefit.)

In my garden, I grow many types of butterfly- and bird-attracting plants. When the small finches make a pass through my garden a twittering, fluttering and generally raising a ruckus, I watch them go up and down the roses just eating away. When they are done and moved on, the silence means there are less bugs then before. Birds do not make a noticeable impact in any war on bugs, but anytime I see one with a grass hopper in their beak, they get a thumbs up from me. Just enjoying the music they make, the grace of their flight, the fights at the bird feeder, and watching them raise their young make me appreciate more my methods of gardening. Many butterfly larvae have voracious appetites, but generally don't bother roses. Instead, they will choose their host plant. Spraying your roses would not really affect them as long as "they" follow the "rules."

Of course, there are exceptions, as in the cabbage loper or moth. This small white moth, with a black spot on its wings can be seen cavorting in many gardens now. They flutter around and lay an egg here and there to allow the larvae their own leaves to destroy and generally mess up any plant they hatch out on. They can be controlled with general applications of Spinosad, about every two weeks. Or, as soon as you see the start of damage, you can apply Spinosad or try picking them off or squashing them.

The method and regularity depends on the level of damage you will accept. Which is basically what organic gardening is all about. With the new earth-friendly products we have, it is a choice as to how much you want to do to achieve your acceptable results. One result, I couldn't accept was being stung by a wasp or yellow jacket. I normally don't bother them as they are good for the garden. Well, this day my wife was washing off the front of the house and, without knowing it, hit one of those paper wasp nests and they took out after her. I came around to see what was going on, and they came after me. One got under my glasses and stung me about 1/2 inch below my eye. Needless, to say, that nest is gone. I discourage their nest building if they are in an undesirable area, but I still have respect for wasps and bees and what they do.

There is a family of wasps called parasitic wasps. They search for a host insect - such as aphids, white flies, scales, leaf miners and caterpillars -and lay their eggs in or on the body. When the egg hatches, it kills the host, as it is their food source. These wasps are of various sizes, but are rarely seen.

Any discussion on life in your rose garden wouldn't be complete without mentioning spiders. I think everyone knows that spiders do a lot in the ecosystem of balancing out nature. I'm not crazy about walking out in the morning and running into a web full face, but their value far outweighs the down side.

There are more living parts to a garden, but realizing what are good and how they help makes letting them exist an integral component of your reaching that balance. This can be achieved by a little patience, ingenuity and knowledge. I hope that sharing my experiences with you will bring about more interest in finding out what good guys you have in your garden.

Rose Care FUNdamentals

I prefer organic fertilizers to chemical ones because organics foster better soil development, and because they are less concentrated and their nutrients are released more slowly, allowing fewer nutrients to leach into the ground water supply. This is one reason I apply a layer of composted mulch over the entire garden surface each year; this has the added advantage of reducing the amount of fertilizer needed per application.

Establish a minimum monthly feeding program, preferably twice a month. In my gardens I make one of those feedings with fish emulsion to ensure balanced nutrition that includes essential micro-nutrients that some soils lack. L&M Fertilizer on Del Rio in Temecula is a good source for your garden needs. Employee Susan is very knowledgeable and can help you with your selections. (L&M is a club sponsor and will give members a 10% discount on their purchases.)

If you haven't finished pruning (and I have not!), don't worry! Just complete it ASAP! New growth has already begun making side buds easier to see so you will be more certain about where to make cuts. Caution: As you prune, be careful to not knock off the young growth! Also, prune a little higher up, like 24-30 inch height instead of 18-24 inches; higher pruning generally promotes earlier blooming.