Roses Down Under

Today i find it hard to believe that it's the first day of autumn. This morning when I walked around my garden it was calm and summy, and very quiet because the big machines working on the large subdivision next door don't work on Sundays. So I enjoyed the brief respite from the din, having my own quiet garden back again.

Although it seems hard to believe, the darker mornings and the earlier sunsets are signs that autumn is coming and the roses will soon be blooming their last, so enjoy them while you can. Now is the time to go around the garden with a more critical eye, deciding which roses are perhaps not living up to what you expect, and certainly in my case, there are some which are so covered in rust that i think it would be better to dig them out.

If you do have plants which are going to be discarded, it is a good idea to dig them out some time in the next few weeks while the weather is nice. The hole where the rose was should be forked over to make sure you have taken out all the dead root pieces which will still be in there.

There has been talk for years of 'rose sick' soil, which people said happens when a rose has been dug out. They said that another rose planted in the same spot would never thrive and that was because the soil was 'rose sick'. This always implied to me that somehow a rose plant could contaminate the soild. Certainly if you want to plant another rose where you have dug one out it is better to replace some of the soil, but my honest opinion is that it is more that roses are gross feeders and when a rose plant has been in the same position for some time it depletes the soil of all the goodness which has been in it. Because of that, a wheelbarrow load of soil should be taken out of the hole and replaced with other soil from your garden taken from places where neither tomatoes, potatoes nor roses have grown before. If you have some homemade compost, mix a lot of that into the hole too, as it adds humus and some welcome race elements. If this is done in the autumn it gives the new soil time to settle and it will be all read6y for the new plnts in early winter.

I have been looking carefully at the perennials and annulas which I've been growing among the roses this year. Most of them have been very successful and i will be leaving them in position for next season - hollyhocks, delphiniums, foxgloves and lupins added spiky height, and others like various daisies, geums, and pansies were colourful mounds. Some of the daisies, alas, grew too well and have overwhelmed some of the smaller roses, so i will dig them out in the late winter and plant them in other places in the garden where they can spread to their heart's content.