Preparing Roses for Winter

Roses can be tricky to grow here in Northern Illinois. Selecting the proper type of rose is one way to ensure success in growing roses. Proper care is essential.

I have grown hybrid tea roses in the past but not very successfully. I’d always lose one or two over the winter. I did notice that the shrub roses I had required little care and always came back the next spring. Shrub roses are much hardier than hybrid teas and though you do sacrifice bloom size you make up for it in sheer quantity of blooms. Most climbing roses perform similarly. I have a chain link fence on one side of my garden and a couple years ago decided to plant a climbing rose to help hide the fence. I chose a zephirine drouhin, which is from a very old class of roses and very fragrant. It only blooms once a season but it also tolerates some shade.

Proper pruning in preparation for winter is key to rose growing success. Pruning any plant encourages new growth. This new growth will be very weak and will not survive over the winter. It will add stress to the plant and could end up killing the entire plant. It is important to wait until the rose is fully dormant before doing any pruning, such as you might do to fit a rose cone over it.
Yesterday I was planting some bulbs around my climber and I was stunned to see how much new growth has occurred this fall. There are new lateral branches emerging from the main canes as well as 6-8 inches of new growth at the end of the main canes. This rose is now where near dormant.

Winter Pruning Tip: Wait until all the leaves have fallen from the rose before pruning. If you use rose cones don’t put them on until the plant is fully dormant and can be safely pruned to fit under the cone. Some years this may not occur until late December! Alternatively, you can use rose collars. These are tall strips of plastic that wrap around the base of the plant and allow you to backfill with top soil or garden soil to protect the rose. Also, remember, the purpose of winter protection is not to keep the rose from freezing but rather to keep the rose in a chilled state and avoid the temperature fluctuations from mid-winter warm ups.

If you have shrub roses, you really don’t have to do much to prepare them for winter. You’ll never get them to fit under a cone or get a rose collar around them. They really don’t need the protection anyway. Next spring just prune out any dead canes or branches and give it a good shaping.

Most climbing roses bloom on old wood from last year’s growth so you don’t want to prune in the fall. You can selectively prune out dead canes in the spring or if you have to cut them back do it right after they have bloomed

If you have questions about what kind of rose you have, check with the Countryside greenhouse staff.

Fall Lawn Care

I spent most of the day raking leaves. What a chore-- and a waste. Leaf compost is such a great addition to the garden soil. Really, adding any type of organic matter can improve just about any soil. Soil too sandy? Add organic matter. Soil to heavy? Add organic matter. Soils to alkaline? Again, add organic matter. Alot of people like to use mushroom compost, which contrary to its name, is not made from mushrooms but rather the compost (the straw from horse manure, poultry litter, ground corn cobs, rice hulls, etc) in which it is grown. It can be high is salts and is not the best compost to use in our heavy clay soils. Since we have so many leaves this time of year, why not compost them instead of burning them or adding them to land fills?

My neighbor down the street piles all of his leaves directly on his veg. garden and then tills them in right before he plants in the spring. If you don't have too many leaves to deal with you can just run them over with the mower and shred them. Don't leave too thick a layer (you may want to mow several times or rake them out) since they will smother the grass which leads to many more problems next spring. Also make sure you rake the leaves out of the flower beds because a thick layer of leaves will also smother your perennials. You could rake back in shredded leaves because they break down much more easily than non-shredded leaves.

I have a rotating composter so I am going to shred the leaves with the mower and then add them to the composter. I am hoping to get a good ratio of brown (leaves) and green (grass clippings that are high in nitrogen and gets the whole process started). I am also going to make a more concerted effort to add appropriate items from the kitchen to the composter. I did this last year and got a nice batch of compost but then sort of lost interest. My brother just digs a shallow hole off to the side of his yard and fills it in with the leaves and a few shovels full of dirt to start the composting process.

As we go into the winter season, you might want to consider giving the lawn one last feeding with a low nitrogen fertilizer (10-1-10 is a good analysis) but one that is high in insoluble nitrogen so that whatever the grass doesn't absorb this fall will still be in soil for the grass next spring.

Also begin to lower the deck on your mower. Usually we recommend a mowing height of 2-3 inches but as you get close to your last mowings gradually lower it to 1-1.5 inches. This will help prevent winter diseases like snow mold.

The Big Freeze

We are supposed to get a hard frost tonight so for all intents and purposes our growing season is over. Last weekend I brought in my tropical patio plants after a touch of cold got my taro. It is recovering but several of the leaves are toast. At the last minute today I decided to try to over winte my rosemary plant. I like cooking with fresh herbs and it was great having an herb container right outside my kitchen door. The basil had gone to flower months ago, but the thyme and rosemary were doing well. Thyme is a perennial, even here, but not the rosemary. Since it was going to die anyway I figure I don't have anything to lose by bringing it indoors.

There are a few things to remember about bringing plants indoors. More than likely I will have brought in a few unwanted guests (insects) with my plants. I can use systemics on my tropicals but not on edible plants. I can get sticky traps and wipe down the plants to try and physically remove any insect eggs from the leaves.

Usually the plant will undergo a kind of "culture" shock when brought indoors. Even the sunniest spot in your house is not the same as being outside in the sun. You may notice the leaves drooping or even dropping. Resist the urge to water unless you have checked the soil and found it dry. Dropping leaves is a natural part of the plant's effort to acclimate itself to its new environment. Eventually (hopefully) the leaves will grow back and these new leaves will be acclimated to the new conditions. Also, resist the urge to fertilize. Feeding a plant when it is not growing much causes the new growth to be weak and leggy.

I have a spot behind my kitchen sink that is pretty sunny and also conveniently located for cooking so that is where my rosemary will go. I hope it likes it there.

Another factor in surviving winter months for all house plants is humidity. When the furnace is running it really dries out the air and this is bad for most plants. Most plants like about a 50% humidity level. You can increase the humidity around the plant by misting it periodically or by placing trays of water near the plant. Lori always recommends filling a saucer with pebbles and then adding water. Put the plant on top of the pebbles so that it is not actually sitting in the water. This will create a constant humidity dome around the plant.

Over Wintering Tropical Plants

Saturday morning I stepped out on my back deck to discover the temperature had dropped so low overnight that my taro plant (colocasia) leaves were all curled. I drug it in the house and no permanent damage seems to have been done. So we all probably need to think about bringing in our tropical plants and digging up the non-hardy bulbs in the garden. Some plants do seem better able to handle the stress of being indoors than others. My hibiscus and jasmine do just fine, but the Princess Flower I tried to overwinter last year made it to about February then just died. I haven't had much luck with gardenias either. So I guess what I am saying is that as beautiful as some plants are it's just not worth the effort. Pitch them onto the compost pile with no regrets.

Another thing to be mindful of when bringing plants indoors, is what else you may be bringing in. Insects often lay their eggs on the undersides of leaves or in the soil and when you bring plants into a warm room the eggs will hatch and now you have an insect problem. There are many products on the market suitable for houseplants. Ann Larson from the Countryside greenhouse recommends cleaning the plant leaves with an all-purpose cleaning product we sell. You can also use systemic insecticides or sticky traps.

For my hibiscus and jasmine, I just drag them into my dining room, where they apparently get the right amount of sun because they do just fine. The hibiscus has even bloomed in there in January-- what a treat that is!

The canna are also easy to overwinter. I just let them die back in their containers and put them, container and all, into the the basement where it is cool and dry. Last year I did the same with the taro.

Other plants to overwinter:

Gladiolas-- When the foliage has died back, use a garden fork to lift them from the ground. Let them dry and clean the dirt off. Place them in a box with some peat moss or shavings and put them in a cool dark place. When the soil has warmed up in the spring you can plant them again. When you are digging you will find tiny bulblets--baby glads, if you will. Store them as well and replant in the spring. It will take a few years before they are big enough to bloom, but they will eventually.

Dahlias-- This is another garden favorite known for its large colorful blooms. These are actually tubers, and they can be over wintered as well. After the first frost, use a garden fork to lift the tubers. They can be quite large so be prepared. Let them dry for a day, and then cut off the stems, clean off the dirt and store in a box with peat moss or shavings in a cool dark place.

One of the benefits of overwinter bulbs and tubers is that you are saving older more productive tubers and the result the following year should be bigger blooms.

Travel in Guatemala

Mike in the greenhouse has a saying, “Everything is a perennial somewhere.” (The corollary is “Perennial does not mean eternal,” but that is a topic for another day.) This was really brought home to me last month when I spent a week in Guatemala with my dad and the Bend, OR area Habitat for Humanity group building houses.

Guatemala shares its northern border with Mexico and its southern border with El Salvador. In the 90s many US companies had textile plants in several Central American countries sewing garments. These business have now moved elsewhere in the search for cheaper labor and their economies have really suffered. Our build site was in the western highlands town of Quetzaltenango, which means “place of the quetzal,” their national bird and name of their currency. Their were about 15 people in our group. My dad, Fred, was the oldest participant at 78 and the youngest was 16. It was a great group of people and we were able to shave about a week off the normal time it would take to finish these very basic concrete block houses.

But, back to the plants...
One of my favorite tropical plants is Tibouchina urvilleana or Princess Flower. It has masses of purple flowers and velvety leaves. It is zoned 10-11 so it does not winter over here in Crystal Lake, IL. Mike and I have both tried to over winter it indoors. It makes it to January or February and then croaks. Naturally they thrive in Guatemala where I saw it planted in many town parks and plazas and about 5' tall.

Impatiens (shade) and pentas (sunny and attracts butterflies and hummingbirds) are used as annual bedding plants here. There they can winter over from one season to the next and get the size of small shrubs. I saw a New Guinea Impatiens with stems the size of your thumb. I will say there is a tradeoff. None of these were blooming in years 2 and more the way they do in year 1. I don’t know if this was because they weren’t getting fertilized or if they were just “fatigued” and needed a good pruning.

Another plant I saw reach its full potential was croton. Ann Larson sells these in the interior plantscape department. They have large yellow/bronze foliage and make a great house or office plant. I have seen them used in the borders at the Boston Public Garden to great effect. In Guatemala they were as big as small trees. Unbelievable.

Finally, because I know Lori will be thrilled to know that someone loves irisine, I saw it everywhere– in the median strip of large boulevards, at highway interchanges, everywhere where no one wanted to spend a lot of time on maintenance proving another favorite saying “Every plant has its place.”

Garden Patrol-- Jackie's Garden

I’ve been helping neighbor Dave with his fight against the creeping charlie that has invaded his lawn. We really knocked it hard a few weeks ago with the Weed Beater Ultra but it looks like we will have to hit it again before we reseed but with the weather we’ve had to take a break. So while we wait how bout another installment of Garden Patrol?

My daughter Alexa showed me this garden one day when we were out on our bikes. It belongs to the grandmother of one of her friends. What intrigued me about this garden is its complete lack of lawn area. I don’t know how well this concept would translate on a large country lot but it is fabulous on a smaller city lot. I absolutely loved the creeping jenny (lysimachia nummularia) “walkway.” You may have seen this plant used as the “spiller” or vining plant in a container, but it actually is winter hardy in our area. It takes sun or shade (in shade it turns darker green as the plant tries to capture as much chlorophyll as possible) and it likes water. It works well around a pond. As you can see in this picture Jackie has it planted with lamium, pulmonaria, geranium and various hostas.

One of the things I think is important in garden design is adding permanent structures. Jackie has done this in a couple of different ways. In the front, amidst the greenery of the perennials, is a whiskey half barrel (split longways) that is filled with red impatiens. This does a couple things for the garden: It brings the flower up closer to the viewer and it adds additional dimension to the plantings. Jackie has done a great job with texture, with the lamium, coral bells, hostas and pulmonaria. Adding the impatiens ensures that there will be constant bloom at least in this part of the garden – what a treat to have that pop of red!

The back garden is just as inviting and this dry creek bed adds some structure and visual interest to the design. If you’ve ever wanted a water element but didn’t want to make such a big commitment, a dry creek bed gives the impression of water without actually having to add the water. Jackie has integrated a small fountain at the head of the creek bed to give her that soothing sound of water in a smaller form.

Jackie’s garden is quite shady but she still likes to grow vegetables. The sunniest spot in her garden is the side yard next to the driveway. The dilemma is that she also enjoys the monarda and other sunny perennials that grow there and attract hummingbirds in the summer and didn’t want to give up. The compromise is to grow vegetables in containers. She has a few peppers in one and some tomatoes in the other.

Jackie’s Garden Tip: Jackie uses Soil Moist crystals in her potting mixes to help with the watering. In the pepper container, she has buried several liter sized plastic bottles cap end up in the soil. She poked holes in the bottom of the bottles and when she waters, she uncaps the bottles and fills them with water. As the soil dries it wicks the water out of the bottles, providing constant moisture for the plants. (This might also work with house plants when you go on vacation.)

Here's another picture of the side yard. Jackie is using arborvitae as a screen from the neighbor's driveway. Arbs are pretty fast growing. Jackie bought these a few years ago when they were only a foot tall and now they are almost 5 feet tall! I wasn’t surprised to learn that Jackie is a long-time volunteer McHenry County Master Gardener. The Master Gardener group in McHenry County is very active. As payback for the training they receive they are expected to contribute volunteer hours at the McHenry County Extension Office in Woodstock. There they man phones answering gardening questions from the public. If you have any questions they can be reached at 815-338-4747. Their annual garden walk will take place July 11 which is also the same day as the Countryside Flower Shop and Nursery Pond Tour. A great day for visisting gardens and ponds in McHenry County.

Lawn Renovation 2

As I mentioned I have been helping neighbor Dave with his lawn. He has a terrible problem with creeping charlie, also known as ground ivy, but whose botanic name is glechoma nederacea. As with most plants, glechoma family has variaties that are considered ornamental, and some that are, well, not so much. We sell a variety at Countryside that Micheal uses in mixed containers for the "spiller," that is the viney plant that spills over the side of the container. (Lori always calls it glaucoma, but it has nothing to do with the eye disease.)

Any way, a few weeks ago we sprayed his lawn with a product called Bonide Weed Beater Ultra. It is a broad leaf herbicide and does not contain 2,4-D. Instead the active ingredient is carfentrazone. 2,4-D acts by causing the plant to grow so fast it outgrows its food supply and dies. Carfentrazone acts by disrupting photosynthesis and causing the cell walls rupture. ALWAYS, always, always follow the directions on the label for application rates, re-entry into the area, and re-application intervals. Also, most herbicides work best when air temperatures are moderate, say below 85 F. And don't spray if it is windy.

You can see by the pictures that the first application really knocked it for a loop but there is still some life in it so we will have to make a second application. The label for the Weed Beater Ultra says you can re-apply in 2-6 weeks but that you should make no more than two applications per season.

I have a problem with garlic mustard. This is a problem in many areas of McHenry County. Garlic mustard is a very invasive weed and poses a severe threat to native plants and animals by aggressively competing for light, moisture, nutrients, soil and space. Where herbicides cannot be used you can hand pull the plants when the soil is wet so that you get the entire root or you can cut the second year stems to the ground to prevent the flowers from going to seed.