Choosing the Right Rose for your Garden

Choosing the Right Rose for your Garden by Kevin Lim

The many different variety of roses do pose a problem for some. This is because you will have problem choosing the right rose for your garden

To make this task a bit easier, I've added some crucial factors that you should consider, and some of the different types of roses to aid in your search.

- Color may seem like a trivial matter, but it is usually a factor to those that want to grow roses. Usually it is simply a matter of personal preference.

- The final growth height of a rose should be considered as it would be unattractive to grow roses that are higher than the area of the garden that it grows in. Some roses can grow to be as high as 20 feet.

- If you live in an area that is prone to cold winters, you would certainly want a rose that could survive during the off season.

- If certain fragrances invoke an allergic reaction, you would want to plant roses that have a softer fragrance than the others.

- You would certainly want to learn what the advantages and disadvantages would be if you were to choose certain roses over others.

- You will want to consider the size of your garden space, so that you can ensure proper exposure to the air and other elements as well. - If you are hoping to make your roses into bouquets, you will want to know if they can be cut. Hybrid teas can. Some roses will fall apart at the petals if they are cut.

- Other flowers and plant should be consider to compliment the rose's environment. It is important not to add plant that will damage the environment that the rose thrived on.

After you get a sense of the type of roses that you would like to plant, you will naturally want to know which type of rose's best fit your ideas for planting.

There are too many to list here, but I can list some of them for you. You should consult your nearest garden center for advice on whether your choice is fitting to your garden's abilities.

Landscape roses
For novice gardener, land scape roses are good choice. They are disease resistant, and require a little bit less maintenance. Novice are advise against hybrid teas.

Climbing Roses These roses grow vertically up as they are trained to do so. This is the basic different compare to regular roses. Most people like to use these for trellises, or buildings. Some of them are hybrid teas, wichuraine, and large flowered climbers. These are beautiful addition to anyone's house.

Shrub Roses Shrub roses like the beautiful rugosa are both long blooming, and disease resistant. These are also great for the novice planter. They are gorgeous even when they are not in bloom because the foliage is so pretty.

Old Garden Roses These roses are not very good for those with severe allergies to strong fragrances because they have a strong fragrant odor. They can bloom for a prolong period if they are disease resistant.

The Modern Rose These are very special roses because they are the result of cross breeding the hybrid tea with the polyanthus. Floribunda is what they are being referred to. They are a beautiful combination of the best those two flowers have to offer. They are long blooming, fragrant, and they are great for cutting.

Miniature Roses

Miniature roses are exactly what they sound like. Even with a smaller blooms, they posses all the fragrance and beauty of any other roses. These particular roses are great for indoor planting.


Copyright (c) 2009 Kevin Lim



You can visit Kevin website at www.speakingroses.com.sg or simply click Singapore online florist

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Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Perennial Herbs

Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Perennial Herbs by Mark Perlik

By definition, a perennial plant is one that lives for more than two years. In contrast, an annual plant germinates, flowers, and dies in one year. This article is about herbaceous plants, which are perennials. Woody plants such as shrubs and trees are also considered perennials.

Perennials grow and bloom during spring & summer. They die back during the autumn and winter, returning in spring from root stock rather than seeding as an annual plant does. So, you don't have to re-plant perennials each year because they come back by themselves. In harsher climates, many perennial herbs are treated as annuals, because they cannot survive the winter outside of their natural environment.

Perennial herbs originated from and grow best in temperate climates, which are the regions between the tropics and polar circles. Flavor comes from oil in the cell walls of the plant. Spices, on the other hand, come from tropical climates.

Perennial plants have stems that die at the end of the growing season. Parts of the plant survive under or close to the ground from season to season. New growth emerges from tissues on or under the ground such as roots, caudex (a thickened part of the stem found at ground level) or from various underground stems: bulbs, corms, stolons, rhizomes and tubers.

It is recommended to start most perennial herbs from young plants. Should you choose purchase seeds, be sure to get the best quality organic seeds. I personally like getting seeds from a source that also sells medicinal herb plants and seeds because I feel that they are more caring about the quality of their plants.

Here is a short list of perennial herbs that I like and recommend:

Echinacea- Used to prevent common colds medicinally, this plant has large, showy flowers that bloom from early to late summer.

Sage- Evergreen, with woody stems, grayish leaves, and blue to purplish flowers. A member of the mint family. Native to the Mediterranean. Has medicinal and culinary uses.

Lavender- Also a member of the Mint family, with medicinal and culinary uses. Native to the Mediterranean region south to tropical Africa and to the southeast regions of India

Thyme- A good source of iron. Often used to flavor meats, soups and stews

Sweet Marjoram- Sweet pine and citrus flavors. Indigenous to the Mediterranean area. Known to the Greeks and Romans as a symbol of happiness.

Chives- A member of the onion and garlic family, like a tiny green onion, cylindrical, hollow stems with flowers on top.

Mint- Aromatic, cooling. Good for digestion. A genus of 25 species, and many hundreds of varieties, of the Mint family. Must be grown in pots or contained in a garden due to its invasive nature.

Oregano- Widely used in Greek and Italian cuisine. Often used in tomato sauces, with fried vegetables, and grilled meat. Along with Basil, it is used in many Italian dishes.

Savory- Aromatic. Related to Rosemary and Thyme. Used mainly for seasoning game meats and in stews. Also good for seasoning beans.

Lemon Balm- Related to Mint. The leaves have a gentle lemon scent. At the end of the summer, small white flowers full of nectar appear, which attract bees. Has several interesting culinary and medicinal uses.

There are many others. You can easily find more information by searching online, or check out some of the herb books that I recommend on my website.



Mark Perlik loves herbs and all of their medicinal and culinary uses. He is a licensed acupuncturist in California. He has developed http://mygrowingherbs.com to help others find information and resources about growing their own herbs at home.


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Preparing to Grow Roses, or Laying the Foundation

Preparing to Grow Roses, or Laying the Foundation by Adrian Kennelly

Having chosen the location and decided upon the size and shape of your beds, you are next ready to prepare the soil. Rev. F. Page-Roberts, an ex-president of the National Rose Society of England, has said: "After years of rose-growing in places far apart, I think it is not so much the soil and the climate, as the care and skill of the cultivator that wins success."

A very successful grower of roses in New York state once remarked to a meeting of his rose society: "I would rather plant a 15-cent rose in a 50-cent hole than plant a 50-cent rose in a 15-cent hole." He was wise. The author recalls visiting a successful private rose-garden in New England one day when the roses in one bed were being moved. Those roses had well- developed roots 3 feet long, because the bed in which they were growing had been prepared to that depth, and the top- growth and bloom had been luxuriantly magnificent, testifying to the value of deep and thorough soil-preparation.

When Noah laid the keel for the ark, the placing of those foundation timbers was relatively not more important than is laying the foundation for future years of rose-growing, for those periods - not only of flood but also of drought - through which your roses must pass and later come up smiling.

Now ample drainage is one thing that must be provided, if you are to court success. "Wet feet" are no more conducive to health and happiness for roses than for children. Examine your soil; if there seems a need, provide drainage. Remove the soil from your bed to the very bottom. Place there a layer from 4 to 6 inches deep of stones not larger than your fist, broken bricks, clinkers, or other suitable material that will readily "take" the water from above. The soil is seldom so retentive as to require tiling to take the water away and, indeed, nine times out of ten no artificial drainage at all will be needed.

As to soils, the good loam so often found directly beneath the sod is excellent, but is greatly improved by being broken, even pulverized, to a depth of at least two spades and thoroughly mixed with about one-third its bulk of rotted manure. Fresh manure must never be allowed to touch the rose roots. Indeed, the more thoroughgoing way is to make sure of the nether layer of soil by removing the upper one.

First of all, peel off the sod (it will produce excellent compost; see section on "Fertilizers" that concludes this chapter); next take out the top layer of soil to the depth of 1 foot and pile it nearby. If
the soil below that is good, rich loam, or a fair mixture of clay and loam, it may remain. Loosen this with a garden fork to a depth of another foot, preferably not upturning it, and mix with it well-decomposed manure, and then put back the top layer of loam in which to plant your roses.

If, on the other hand, you find the subsoil poor, barren, and unproductive, you may have to remove it altogether. Haul it away and put your chopped-up sods in the bottom, grass-side down, to rot and make future plant-food. If you have ready from the previous year a compost made by mixing one-half or two-thirds of sod with the balance of manure from the cow- stables, use it in the bottom of your bed, and thus insure a future storehouse of rich nourishment for your roses.

Another hint: A few broken bones may be mixed with the soil in the bottom of the trench, say a peck for a bed holding a dozen roses. These will decay slowly and furnish plant-food for three or four years to come.

Not all roses like the same soils. The Hybrid Perpetuals, for example, love a heavy clay or loam; so do the heavier-growing climbers; whereas the Teas, Hybrid Teas, Bourbons and the like, revel in a lighter soil and a warmer one, with less than 50 per cent clay or loam, and more sand or leaf-mold. Rugosas thrive even in quite sandy soil.

It is difficult to give the roses too rich soil. If your soil is light and sandy, and you cannot well replace it entirely, it may be greatly improved by mixing a little clay or rich loam with it when trenching. If your soil seems too heavy, it can be made lighter and more open by adding sand, or even coal-ashes. To be good for roses, the soil must be such as will not quickly transmit to the roots sudden surface changes of temperature. The roots should be kept cool. If it be possible, after the soil in your bed has been prepared, give it time, say two to three months, to settle before planting your roses. If this be out of the question, press with your feet each layer of soil in your bed, as you proceed to fill it in.

The subject of fertilizers is important. While manure from the cow-stable is best, you can draw upon the horse-stable, sheep-pens, or pig-sty with expectation of good results, and "night soil," mixed with dry soil, or sand, and well composted is excellent. Chicken manure may be used with caution. Well- rotted leaves are fair, but too light except for heavy soils. Commercial fertilizers, such as ground bone or guano, may be used to advantage if handled with discretion. A rule to remember is never to let any "green" or "raw" manure come close to the roots of your roses, but see that it is buried well beneath the root reach, or applied as a top-dressing. After your roses have been planted, the best time to apply manures is just as the ground begins to freeze in the autumn. Let it serve as a protection over winter, and dig it in next spring, being careful, however, not to disturb the roots.

Far better than surface-coating is the ample supply of fertilizer placed well under the roots in the bottom of your beds before you plant your roses, because roots travel toward their food-supply. By thus enticing them downward, you develop a strong, deep root-growth down into the reservoir of stored-up food and moisture, so that, when dry weather comes, they will not hunger and thirst, as they would with only surface roots. Surface application of manure-water is quite a different matter, as that will percolate down to the deepest roots.

It is said that roses draw most upon the soil when blooming, and we find we can almost see the results from application (when the flower-buds begin swelling) of liquid manure, concocted by catching the drain from the manure-pile, or from one-third of a bushel of manure placed in a bag and soaked in a barrel of water. Apply this as a weak tea, not too strong, but frequently, say twice a week. When it is more convenient, a sprinkling of bone-dust on the surface before a rain will answer the same purpose. Even with the best care, it may prove necessary in some locations, say after six or eight years, to renew the soil or move the bed, adopting the principle of crop rotation.



This is an extract from the ebook, "How to Grow Beautiful Roses". Visit How to Grow Beautiful Roses to purchase the full ebook.

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How to Plan a Lawn Maintenance Schedule

How to Plan a Lawn Maintenance Schedule by Brian Jenkins

One of the reasons people don't bother to maintain their lawn (or have difficulty doing so) is that they believe there's too much work involved. They might simply have a problem with figuring out how often to do each of the necessary tasks, when to do them, and when not to do them.

Like most lawn care issues, solving this problem is easy, once you know how: simply create a schedule takes all the guess-work out of maintaining the lawn, and allows you to follow a set routine that tells you exactly what to do and when to do it.

How to Start

The first step in creating a lawn maintenance schedule is writing down every lawn care task that you will need to do in a single year. That includes frequent tasks such as watering and mowing, semi-frequent tasks such as fertilizing, and those you'll only do once or twice a year, such as de-thatching and aerating.

Once you've got your list, categorize them according to how often they need to be done. For example, create different categories for tasks that need to be completed more than once a week, once a week, once a month, twice a month, once per season, and once a year.

How often do you need to carry out each task? This depends partly on where you live, and partly on your lawn. Common wisdom says, for example, that lawns must be watered at least once a week during the summer. If you live in warmer part of the country, you may need to water twice-weekly. If you live in a cooler part where rain is frequent in the summer, you might need to water once every ten days, or even every two weeks. (Don't forget that one deep soak is better than two lighter ones. Aim to give your lawn an inch of water per week, but remember that it's usually better if that inch is given in one session.)

Creating the Schedule

With your categorized list completed, you can then start to create the schedule. This part requires you have something-such as a calendar, or a computer spreadsheet-that you can add your tasks to. If you prefer to do this on a computer or online, take advantage of free programs such as Google Calendar that provides you with a calendar that you can add tasks to and modify as you please (one particularly useful thing about Google Calendar is that you can set it to email you reminders when an appointment is coming up, so it's very difficult to miss a scheduled task).

You can make the schedule as detailed or as simple as you like. For example, you can choose to schedule by noting down the activities you will do each month, or you can actually schedule specific tasks for specific dates. If you choose the latter style, try to schedule larger tasks for weekends (and really big ones for holiday weekends), and smaller tasks for weekdays.
Once you've decided how you're going to make the schedule, simply go ahead and slot in each task as frequently as it needs to be done.

Make it Flexible

Flexibility is going to be an important part of any schedule you create. For example, your lawn's water needs will change according to the amount of rain you get in any given week, so don't forget to factor that into your schedule. That doesn't mean you have to go crazy creating two or three different schedules, but it does mean that in an unexpectedly dry week or month, you'll have to find time to give your lawn the extra water it will need.

If you want to create a highly detailed schedule, it might be worthwhile penciling in one or two “floating” hours each week that you can use for any unscheduled tasks that come up.

Follow It

Finally, the most important part of any schedule: the execution. Creating a lawn maintenance schedule is pointless if you don't follow it, so make sure the schedule you make is one that you're going to want to follow.

If you have a large lawn that you don't enjoy watering, for example, consider investing in an automatic sprinkler system that takes care of that task for you. It might be expensive, but you'll save yourself lots of time, and having that task taken care of might give you the motivation to keep up with the rest of your maintenance schedule!



About Author:

Brian Jenkins is a freelance writer who writes about large businesses for home owners such as Scott's, Lawn Doctor and TruGreen

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Propagating Roses

Propagating Roses by Adrian Kennelly

Rose plants for forcing purposes are generally grown from cuttings of the new wood made any time from November to February, but for most purposes the earlier date is preferable. The rule generally given for learning if the plants are in proper condition to be used for cuttings, i.e., when in bending a branch the wood snaps, does not hold for roses, as cuttings should not be made until the buds in the axils of the leaves have become firm and hard.

Some consider that the lower buds on a stem are in good condition when the flower buds are ready to be cut, while others believe that the best time for making the cuttings is when the buds begin to show colour. At any rate, the cuttings should be made before the leaf buds begin to swell.

The cuttings made as soon as the buds have formed and the wood has lost its succulent nature, will root quicker, and a much larger per cent of them will form roots, or "strike," as it is called. If the variety is a new and choice one, the blind shoots, or those that have not formed flower buds, are often used for making cuttings. While it may be done occasionally without marked injury, if persisted in the tendency will be to develop plants that form few flowering stems, and the results will not be satisfactory, so that the continued use of the blind shoots for cuttings is not to be recommended.

When the stems have long internodes, and particularly if it is a new sort, a cutting should be obtained from every good bud, but those at the lower part of the stem, and all at the upper portion that are to any extent soft and succulent, should be rejected.

The cuttings of American Beauty, and other varieties with short joints, should contain two or more buds. Cuttings should be from one and one-half to three inches long, with one bud near the top, at any rate, and with the lower end cut off smoothly at right angles, with a sharp knife. If the upper leaf is large, about one-half of it should be cut away, and the other leaves, if any, should be rubbed off.

The cuttings should be dropped into water to prevent their drying out, and as soon as possible should be placed in the propagating bed. This should contain about four inches of clean, sharp sand of medium fineness, and should have heating pipes beneath, to give bottom heat. Set the cuttings in rows, about two inches apart and three-fourths of an inch in the row, and press the sand firmly about them. At once wet them down thoroughly, and if the weather is clear and bright the beds should be shaded during the middle of the day for the first week.

The propagating house should be kept at a temperature, at night, of fifty-Height or sixty degrees, with about ten degrees more of bottom heat. During the day, it should be well ventilated to keep up the bottom heat and thus promote root development, and to admit fresh air, but a temperature ten degrees higher than at night is desirable.

In about three or four weeks, with proper care, every cutting should be rooted. The requirements for success, as noted above, are, good cuttings, clean, sharp sand, a proper temperature, shading when necessary, and an occasional wetting down of the bed, in order that the cuttings may not at any time become dry. If the house is inclined to dry out, or if the weather is bright, the cuttings as well as the walks should be sprinkled occasionally, and the ventilation should have careful attention. It is best to use fresh sand for each batch of cuttings.



This is an extract from Greenhouse Management

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