Your Questions Answered

We have put together a list of some of your most common questions, along with our answers.

Do you have any questions for Brian? Please send us an email and we'll do our best to help you.

Care

Blackspot is one of the diseases to look out for as we head into Summer and roses can be particularly susceptible during times of stress when the health of the plant declines. It’s a soil borne fungus present at all times, that attacks the leaves of your rose causing dark spots and yellowing. The leaves with black spots drop prematurely and the whole rose plant can even completely defoliate.

Like any disease, prevention is better than cure and it’s important to build up the health of the plant so that they are in a stronger state to fight the disease. Regular watering and feeding with an organic based fertilizer are the basic rules to grow healthy and strong plants. A regular application of sulphate of potash - about 100 to 150 grams per bush four times a year – will go a long way in thickening up the cell walls of the leaf for a healthier plant. And given the wet conditions the roses have lived through over the past few months, nitrogen in the soil may be severely depleted, so it would be a good idea to add a nitrogen- based fertiliser to top it up.
In high humidity conditions, do not wet the rose foliage unless it can dry within 4 hours.

While there are many sprays on the market to treat Blackspot - generally copper or sulphur- based sprays are best - an alternative natural spray for Blackspot can also be made at home. Try using two teaspoons of bicarb soda in five litres of water, and then add a couple of drops of organic detergent or seaweed extract and apply on the leaves using a handheld sprayer. It makes an excellent and inexpensive fungicide.

With warmer temperatures our roses will start growing and blooming, but they will also become easy prey to pests and diseases. It’s time to enjoy them, but also to look after their health and help them with regular feeding and watering.

Aphids represent one of the most common and frustrating pests for roses and any ornamental and productive plants.

They are are 2mm long sap-sucking insects related to psyllids (also known as plant lice), and they quickly build up large colonies on new buds, stems and leaves, by piercing the surface and sucking out the plant's juices. Their presence can quickly result in lack of plant vigour, deformed buds, flower loss, yellow leaves or even defoliation of the plant.

I suggest to remove these nasty bugs from your plants as soon as you spot them, but in a natural way, avoiding chemical remedies that could affect the plant and the soil, and could also kill other insects that are actually good for your garden.

The best plan of attack with aphids is to encourage their natural predators - lacewings, hoverflies and ladybirds - to thrive and to let them keep the aphids under control. By having a healthy garden and not using chemical sprays, these predators will be present and will help your roses.
When aphids are already attacking your plants, try picking off or squashing their clusters around the flower buds and the new growth using your fingers; squirt them away with a jet from a garden hose or brush them off with a small paint brush.

If their population swells beyond a manageable number, the basic nature of a mild household organic detergent makes it perfect for getting rid of them. Every 2 days and for 2 weeks, dilute a few tablespoons of organic dish soap in a small bucket of lukewarm water and use a sponge or spray bottle to apply the mixture to the plants where aphids have taken hold.

Ultimately, the best way to control aphids or any other disease in your garden is to build up the health of your plants by feeding and watering appropriately and regularly, because happy and healthy plants are always more resistant to stress and diseases.

Just like we are doing in the Nursery, June and July are good months for digging out roses.
It’s a perfect opportunity for making changes to your rose garden, as the plants are dormant and are very robust.
The soil should be reasonably moist so digging out the roses is straightforward.
Dig around the rose, allowing at least half a metre space from the main plant.
Gently ease the rose out of the ground, ensuring that the root ball is kept intact. Once out, the rose can be pruned back to its main stems, removing any thin or diseased stems.
You can also trim the roots to around the same length as the rose itself.
For transporting the rose, place a couple of handfuls of moist peastraw, lucerne or other type of mulch around the roots and wrap up with newspaper.
However without doing this the bareroot roses should be fine for up to a month provided that they remain constantly damp, ideally in damp newspaper or a plastic sleeve, and not exposed to sunlight or wind.
Your roses are then ready to pass onto someone else.
The roses should be planted into their garden as soon as possible – and watered in well – to allow them to recover from their uprooting.

Choosing

A great question when you are faced with such a huge number of types and varieties to pick from.

Here are a few things to consider which may help you decide:

Do you have a colour preference? Sometimes a garden bed will really suit a statement of colour by choosing roses of either the same colour or variety or ones that are closely matched. Alternatively you may want to introduce some colour to your garden and so might want to “sprinkle” a mix of colours amongst your existing plants or just have a riot of colour.
Height and spread of rose bushes are another factor to consider, you can use spreading or ground cover roses and plants at the front of a garden bed and graduate to taller bushes in the middle to back and perhaps even use stem or standard roses at the back. Spreading and ground-cover roses are fantastic planted in large beds and make good landscaping ground-covers.
Do you need roses that are drought tolerant? Disease resistant? Handle the heat? Choose a variety that best suits your climate.
Fragrance can also factor in to making a choice of which rose to plant. You may or may not want a rose that has fragrance. The choices are many, and you should be at least able to find a colour of rose you like that is either fragrant or not.
Lastly, what type of rose would best suit your needs? Do you want an upright hybrid tea bush with long stemmed single blooms? Or do you prefer a floribunda with bunches of blooms, or maybe you want to use a climbing rose to have summer cover and colour, or some potted miniatures for your smaller garden spaces? Whatever your needs are there should be a type of rose plant that will be suitable.

In short, the majority of roses prefer full sun, however there are some that may grow in part shade, like Fabulous, Gallipoli Centenary Rose, all Icebergs, Knock Out and Rugosa varieties.
Roses prefer a lighter soil that is well drained, particularly as they love water.
If it’s heavy soil and they are regularly watered the plant’s roots become boggy and wet and the plant will struggle.
If you do have heavy soil you can apply some gypsum to lighten it up and add plenty of nutrients.
The challenges with sand are that there are very few nutrients and the soil dries out quickly.
However, Rugosa roses perform exceptionally well in sand.

Some of our most sought after roses at the moment are the ‘patio roses’ – they are 60cm high standard roses that are ideal for more compact gardens or outdoor patio areas.
For example, planting them at regular intervals along a driveway creates a very pretty yet formal hedging style rose at a good height that won’t disrupt walkways or impose onto other areas.
As the name suggests they would also be ideal for patio or outdoor areas where tables and seating form the centre point and which don’t want to be crowded in by foliage.
There are many varieties of Delbard patio roses.
Head to the listing here to view them.

Flowers

Many people ask us how to make their cut roses last longer in the vase.

By following a few simple tips your roses should last at least a week longer than usual.

Cut from plants that have been well watered.
As soon as you cut, put the flowers into a full bucket of water where they should sit for about half a day prior to putting them into a vase.
If you need the flowers to open up a bit faster add about tablespoon of sugar for every litre of water.
Change the water daily, or top it up to prevent bacteria building up in the vases’ water.
You may also like to ask your florist for a commercial form of conditioner – called Chrysal – that will help with keeping the roses looking fresh for a longer time.

In this short instructional video clip Brian Wagner - rose grower at Wagner's Rose Nursery in South Australia - shows how to easily and quickly deadhead your roses, to have new blooms in 6-8 weeks.

Locations

Yes, we have tested planting bare rooted roses all year round with success. If you are in warmer weather, you will need to water adequately. Water 3 times a week with a deep water which equates to 20L per rose. Water in the morning if you are worried about black spot. Wagners recommend watering with a sprinkler as you want the ground to accept the slow soak of water droplets to reach 20cm into the ground. That is where the root system is. By having a deep soak, you are training the roots to search deeper into the soil for moisture. Inadequate watering is splashing water on top of the soil. This causes run off and will only wet the top layer. The rose will search the top layer for water, therefore on hot days the shallow root system will dry out and die. If you have water restrictions and are using a dripper system, we recommend having two or three lines to soak enough of the surrounding soil and not just watering the base of the rose.

Heat and humidity are two of the biggest challenges of growing roses particularly in coastal areas of Queensland, however in general, all roses perform exceptionally well in the warmth.
Tea roses – the ‘old’ roses which are part of the Heritage Rose family- are considered one of the best suited roses for this climate. They shouldn’t be confused with the Hybrid Tea rose or Modern tea rose which both come under the title of ‘Modern Roses’.
The forerunner of the Tea rose was originally brought to Europe from China around 1810, which may indicate that they have been bred for these conditions.
They have excellent heat tolerance, are highly resistant to pests and diseases and reward with repeat flowering during winter (the dry season) if pruned after flowering in the hot summer months.
We recommend Tea Roses such as Duchesse de Brabant, Mutabilis, Lady Hillingdon, Monsieur Tillier, Lorraine Lee, Marie van Houtte and Mrs BR Cant.
Also China rose varieties perform well, and all the Icebergs and Knock Outs.
Inland areas in Queensland are all good for roses as it’s not as humid.
With the hot conditions they will require loads of watering and care should be taken that they aren’t affected by burn during extreme heat conditions.
A full listing of recommended roses for growing in Queensland can be found at the Queensland Rose Society at http://www.qld.rose.org.au/recommended.html.

Ordering

Yes, the roses can stay in this packaging for up to 8 weeks as they are packed with damp newspaper in a plastic bag. The roses like this environment and some varieties can be so happy that you may see new white shoots sprouting on arrival. These should be trimmed off as they have not seen sunlight. Plant as normal and see them flourish.

You can keep your bare root roses in the box for weeks without problems, as long as the plants are damp. So, check their roots every week, make sure they are wet, spray some water on them if they start drying out and keep them wrapped in wet paper and plastic, inside the sealed box and in a cool spot.

Alternatively - if you can - put the bare root plants in small pots, with some potting mix, and water them regularly.

Planting

April is a good time to start preparing the garden bed for the new bareroot roses you receive in winter, as there’s plenty of time for the bed to decompose.

First, determine which type of soil you are dealing with.

The best type of soil for planting roses in is loam – it’s essentially a mix of organic materials (compost, old animal manure, leaf litter), inorganic materials (soil), water and air. An easy way to test for the quality of loam is to take a handful of soil, squeeze it and it should generally stick together.

If your soil isn’t quite at the right consistency, don’t panic. It’s an easy process, but just takes a bit of time. First add loads of organic matter to the bed, as it will only do great things for your rose garden. This could include decomposed compost, leaves, dried vegetable matter or grass clippings, mixed in with animal and bird manure – like chook and pidgeon in small quantities: it’s very strong but also very good - or if you don’t have access to that, a healthy dose of blood and bone. Adding gypsum and liquid seaweed into the mix will go a long way to adding nutrients to the soil. Liquid seaweed in particular is an excellent soil conditioner and can be applied weekly – it will have the added bonus of feeding the worms which will do all the decomposing work for you. Next, till the soil in the rose bed, making sure not to disturb the roots of any existing plants in the bed.

Finally, mulch the area with pea straw or lucerne hay. With weekly watering the patch will ‘bed down’ and decompose nicely providing the perfect home for your new bareroot roses.

Spacing your roses

Bush roses - 1m to 1.2m (closer if the plants are the same variety and you want to create a hedge)
Standards and groundcovers - 1m
Miniatures - 0.5m
Climbers - 3m to 5m, depending on the variety of rose

For newly prepared beds, mulch helps retain moisture levels especially during warm, windy autumn days, and can also minimise the damage from frosts by creating a thermal layer between the soil and the plant.
Mulches come in various forms but we suggest using bean or lucerne, or a bark based organic mulch, all of which have a coarse characteristic.
Finer mulches such as sawdust or woodchips can have a drying effect and are often detrimental to the plants.
Allow at least 20 - 30 centimetres space around the base of each plant, otherwise during extreme heat the mulch will reflect the sunlight onto the plant which will burn it and it could die.
A solid soaking prior to applying the mulch will make sure they’ve had plenty of water.
Remember if you’re adding a slow release fertiliser this should be done prior to watering as it is too potent and can cause burning if applied directly onto wet soil.

Spring is the perfect time for mulching your roses. Brian Wagner, rose grower and owner of Wagner's Rose Nursery, in South Australia, shows how easy is to mulch your roses and prepare them for the hot season.

April is a good time to start preparing the garden bed for the new bareroot roses you receive in winter, as there’s plenty of time for the bed to decompose.
First, determine which type of soil you are dealing with.
The best type of soil for planting roses in is loam – it’s essentially a mix of organic materials (compost, old animal manure, leaf litter), inorganic materials (soil), water and air.
An easy way to test for the quality of loam is to take a handful of soil, squeeze it and it should generally stick together.
If your soil isn’t quite at the right consistency, don’t panic. It’s an easy process, but just takes a bit of time.
First add loads of organic matter to the bed, as it will only do great things for your rose garden.
This could include decomposed compost, leaves, dried vegetable matter or grass clippings, mixed in with animal and bird manure – like chook and pidgeon in small quantities: it’s very strong but also very good - or if you don’t have access to that, a healthy dose of blood and bone.
Adding gypsum and liquid seaweed into the mix will go a long way to adding nutrients to the soil.
Liquid seaweed in particular is an excellent soil conditioner and can be applied weekly – it will have the added bonus of feeding the worms which will do all the decomposing work for you.
Next, till the soil in the rose bed, making sure not to disturb the roots of any existing plants in the bed.
Finally, mulch the area with pea straw or lucerne hay.
With weekly watering the patch will ‘bed down’ and decompose nicely providing the perfect home for your new bareroot roses.

Brian Wagner, from Wagner's Rose Nursery in Kalangadoo - South Australia - shows you how easy and quick is to plant in the ground a potted rose; how deep the hole has to be, how much fertiliser to add and how much water your new rose will need for the first days.

Just follow these simple steps to give your new plant a good start:

Put the bare root rose in a bucket of water for 24 hours before planting.
Prepare your rose bed. The bed should be in a sunny position, free from competition from shrubs and trees. Enrich the soil with fertilizer and compost. Clay soil will need gypsum.
Dig a hole, approximately 30cm x 30cm x 30cm. You could place a handful of organic fertilizer at the bottom of the hole. Make sure you have a buffer of soil between the roots and fertiliser to prevent root burn.
Bud union (where the rose is budded) should be just above ground level.
Backfill with soil until the hole is half full. Add a bucket of water. Fill the rest of the hole with soil when the water has drained away and water again.

You'll receive a card with instructions and tips in the box with your roses, and you can also watch Brian planting a bush rose in this video.

The right start for your roses

By Brian Wagner

Roses are deciduous plants; they shed their leaves in winter time and stop flowering until the weather starts getting warmer and days get longer. Once a year, in the coldest months, they become dormant plants, just bare sticks with nothing on them, and this is their strategy to survive harsh weather conditions and have a rest.

That’s why you’ll find bare root rose plants in winter time only, and the rest of the year you’ll only see potted roses for sale at our nursery and in all garden centres.

Winter is certainly our busiest season at the nursery; we have to pull out thousands of plants, prune them, grade their quality one by one, and select only the best plants for our market. Then we pack the roses and post them to our customers everywhere in Australia. We work most of the time outdoors, in the field, no matter how the weather is, and you can imagine it’s not fun at all when it rains, it’s cold and we have to work in the mud all day…

Weather conditions can impact our production a lot, and every year our budding season is different; it’s really hard to predict when we’ll finish digging.

As soon as you receive your new roses, there are a few simple things you will need to do to give them a good start and enjoy their flowers in spring time.

Planting

Prepare your rose bed. The bed should be in a sunny position, free from competition from shrubs and trees. Enrich the soil with an organic fertiliser and compost (not mushroom). Clay soil will need gypsum. Watch the video on how to prepare the soil for your new roses.
Dig a hole, approximately 30cm x 30cm x 30cm. You could place a handful of organic fertiliser at the bottom of the hole. Make sure you have a buffer of soil between the roots and fertiliser to prevent root burn.
Leave your bare root rose in a bucket of water for 24 hours before planting.
Put the rose in the hole, making sure the bud union (where the rose is grafted) is around 2-3cm above ground level.
Backfill with soil until the hole is half full. Add a bucket of water. Fill the rest of the hole with soil when the water has drained away and water again.

Watering and Fertilising

A young rose needs more attention and to be fed more often, to get ready for spring time.

Make sure your just planted bare root rose receives 20 liters of water 3 times a week.
Do not fertilise it until the plant grows a canopy of leaves. When you have leaves on the plant, fertilise a little and often: sprinkle on and water in well.

Pots & Potted Roses

Yes, all roses can be put in pots but there are a few things to remember.

The bigger the pot, the better. We suggest the minimum size of 40cm x 40cm x 40cm
Use a good quality potting mix. We recommend a slightly acidic blend that is suited for Roses and Azaleas
Plant with the graft above the soil by 2 - 3cm
Water your pot everyday in Spring, Summer and Autumn. Every second or third day in Winter - depending on your rainfall. Never let the potting mix dry out. Dry potting mix will repel the water and the water will run down the sides and not actually soak to the root zone.
After 6 months you can fertilise with a 1/2 handful of fertiliser monthly and water in
After 3 - 4 years you must replace the potting mix. Do this in winter time when the rose is dormant. Take out of the pot and remove as much old soil as you can. You are allowed to trim the root system but try and keep the top and the bottom roughly the same. Repot (this is the time to upgrade the size of the pot if you wish) and watch your rose thank you for your efforts.

A rose in a pot needs the same attention as any other rose in your garden.
After a few years of being in a pot, the rose is likely to develop a very strong and vigorous root system, and this will often be seen ‘above ground’, that is, in the rose plant’s foliage and flowers, as a distinct loss in vigour.
It means it’s time to repot it.
Take it out of the pot and reduce as much of the root ball as you can by pulling out the matted roots.
You can even cut some of the roots back to reduce the size of the root ball.
Plant it back into a larger pot with fresh potting mix and fertilise, mulch and water it well.
You should be rewarded with a more vigorous plant in the next season, that will continue for the next few years.

Gardening with roses in pots can offer a world of opportunity for those people keen to create their own slice of rose garden heaven in smaller spaces.
There are many roses ideally bred and suited for this very reason, and most come under the heading of Miniature/ Climbing miniature, Ground cover, Floribunda shrub roses or Patio roses of 60cm/2ft high. Indeed, with the exception of large climbers, most roses can be grown in pots.

Here are a few pointers to get you started:

Pick your pot. The best ones are glazed ceramic, terracotta or concrete. Half wine barrels will deteriorate over time. It needs to have a good drainage hole.
Choose the right pot size – the bigger the better to allow for growth. For example a miniature rose will do best in a container that is at least 50cm in diameter rather than 30cm.
Use a premium quality potting mix full of nutrients and water saving elements.
Ensure they are in a sunny spot with at least five hours of sunlight a day – but water daily during the hot months!
Feed regularly with a liquid fertiliser every couple of weeks, and monthly sprays of organic solutions will avoid the onset of pests and diseases. A complete organic fertiliser applied monthly will also top up the required nutrients. Follow the instructions on the bag as to how much according to the size of the pot and plant.
Repot every two or three years to top up nutrients in the potting mix.

Pruning

How to prune your roses

By Brian Wagner

I’m often asked when it’s the right time to prune roses, and my answer is very simple: any day after the 21st June will be fine. Rose plants are dormant in winter: no flowers, no leaves, just sticks in the ground. It’s exactly at this stage that we need to give them a good “haircut” and the right start for a new big growth in spring time.

Don’t be too afraid when you decide to prune your roses, and just follow these simple steps.

Bush Roses and Shrubs

Remove half of each stem
Cut out any dead and wood (at least 3 years old)
In older bushes, create some space in the middle of the plant cutting out any central canes that look too close to each other or are spindly, and remove spent leaf matter from the middle of the plant
Prune the bush to shape

Standard Roses

We call “standard” a rose grafted on a straight stem, so it looks like a ball shape on top of a stick that can be 60, 90 or 120cm high.

Start removing one third of each stem to see what to do next
Remove dead and old wood that won’t produce any blooms
Leave the new growth and fresh wood
Prune to the shape you like
Use a wire brush to remove old bark

Climbing Roses

The general pruning rule of thumb mentioned for bushes can have serious consequences for a climber and the approach to these plants need to be different; it’s more about training and shaping the plant, than cutting and reducing their size.

Encourage the central canes to grow towards the trellis or the support you want to use
Cut off any dead or old wood, as well as spindly and crossing over canes
Don’t touch the vigorous new growth, as this will give you flowers the following spring
Remember that the main canes form the structure of the plant and the lateral canes produce the blooms. So, the main canes should be trained from the base to the top, allowing the lateral canes to grow horizontally from the base.
Space the lateral canes 30-40cm apart, and secure them on the support with a soft tie or any material that won’t cut into the rose cane
Look at the number of the main canes, decide which ones can be removed and leave as many as required to fill in the area (normally around 5 or 6)
Cut out the surplus lateral canes

For all kind of rose plants, always remember these two important tips:

Do not prune roses in a wet or rainy day, as the cut area won’t have that protective layer of woody cells that normally form in dry conditions
Be sure to clean up all the cut wood from beneath the rose you’ve just pruned, to avoid any potential disease during the growing season.

In this short instructional video clip Brian Wagner, rose grower of Wagner's Rose Nursery in South Australia, will show you how to prune your roses in winter time.

There are many theories about rose pruning and we are often asked which one is the best. Brian just follows two main rules when he prunes his roses:

cut the old wood,
prune to shape.

Brian suggests to start pruning your roses anytime after the shortest day of the year, this can vary however depending on where you live, but in the southern parts of Australia anytime after June 21-22 is fine.

In June 2020 Brian Wagner ran a live Facebook video broadcast from Balnaves Winery in Coonawarra, South Australia, where they have a beautiful and large rose garden. The workshop was all about pruning, during the workshop Brian also answered many questions from people all over Australia. This is a long video, but there are some fantastic tips along the way, we hope this helps anyone that may find the idea of pruning roses daunting or scary, it's not! So join Brian Wagner as he demonstrates what he knows about pruning roses, and much more.

Watering

Watering Roses – less often but longer

by Brian Wagner

With the start of spring, we receive quite a few calls and emails about roses not thriving as they should and once questioned, in the majority of cases we understand that they are simply not getting enough water: the plants are quickly watered with a hose or a watering tank just for a minute, even if every day or every second day. Unfortunately, this is not enough; the water is not reaching the deepest roots and that’s why the plant is not growing or blooming.

A good way to check if all the water you're giving is enough for your plant is to dig a spade depth hole nearby the rose, the day after you watered it and check if the soil has got moisture or it's still dry.

Deep watering is the way to have beautiful roses. Water your roses for 10 or 15 minutes if necessary, or give them at least 20-30 litres of water once or twice a week. The roots of a rose plant spread very deeply and widely so remember to water all the area around the plant as well. Roses can develop a very big root system- at least 2 metres long- and spread widely and deeply under the base of the plant.

In the event of extreme heat, water deeply 1 or 2 days before.

Mulching around the plant is another good way to keep your rose plants always moistured, especially with warmer months approaching.

Rain certainly covers all the area around the rose, but how deep will it penetrate in the soil? Will it be able to reach the roots?

Here are some interesting numbers that could help us (source: Jon Lamb's weekly Newsletter “Good Gardening”):

1mm of rain will penetrate 3mm into the soil of an average garden loam.
10mm of rain will penetrate only 3cm of soil, and so on.

If the conditions remain dry, more than 50% of moisture in the top 2cm of soil will be lost through evaporation.

In conclusion, rain is a great thing, but don’t rely only on it for your garden; especially if it’s summer and you’re having very hot days.

Drippers are great – but can easily become blocked by ants, dirt and calcium build-up from the high mineral content in water. They must be regularly reviewed to ensure the water is reaching where it’s meant to go. Pull the irrigation lines up high and see if every dripper is working, or lift out the entire dripper system and check for blockages. If blocked, depending on the type of system, clean the dripper. If no success we would recommend replacing the system. Space the drip lines around 60cm and run them parallel.

The drippers must be left on for a long time to ensure the plants are adequately soaked, preferably under the mulch.

Overhead systems are great as they help the roots to spread and grow deep with water reaching further around the base of each plant rather than directly to one spot at the base of the stem. However, like the drippers, the spray attachments can sometimes falter, particularly if the water pressure is not high enough or if the spray jets are blocked. Earwigs can be a common cause for blocked jets; unscrew jets and clean them. It is best to overhead water in the early morning to avoid moisture on the foliage at night.

Large overhead sprinkler fittings running off a polypipe throughout the plantings can be an effective system. They throw large ‘raindrop’ water onto the plants and soil creating an almost micro-climate for the rose garden. We advise that you water early in the morning so that the water has a chance to soak into the ground, rather than the evening when the water tends to stay on the leaves and cause blackspot or other fungi as it gets cooler.

Firstly, we like overhead sprinklers because you can visually see them working. If you use dripper lines, make sure they do not block up. Some people only realise the blocked hose when their rose has died. A good test is to get a shovel and 50cm away from the rose, dig down 30cm to test the soil. If it is nice and moist - well done! If it is dry, water for longer.

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