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Tips for Growing English Roses
Clair Martin offers the following advice for growing beautiful roses:
Where to Buy
You can buy a good rose just about anyplace today. I don’t often buy roses from the grocery store, but you can. If it doesn’t look fresh, don’t buy it. Even if it’s a dollar ninety-eight, it’s not worth it. You’ll be sorry in the long run, because it will probably die.
When to Buy
Buy in early spring. Most of the roses sold in the United States have been grown in California and were dug from October to December. The sooner you can plant a rose in the ground, the better it will fare.
An English Beauty : Trial and Error
Martin discovered the hard way that English roses can indeed flourish on this side of the Atlantic. For example, ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, a rose that’s supposed to grow to three or four feet, passed the ten-foot mark in California. “It was a problem,” says Martin. “The guy who rides the lawn mower around the garden was mad because the roses kept hitting him in the face. When he’d see me in the garden, he tried to run me over with the lawn mower!”
Martin took extensive notes on how tall each plant grew, the essence of each rose’s fragrance, and which plants had the fewest diseases. These notes are the backbone of his book, which is meant as a consumer’s guide; take it to the garden center to select the hybrid that grows best in your area and that best suits your personal taste.
Pear and Papaya Salad With Lemongrass Vinaigrette
The
subtle citrus flavor of this lemongrass vinaigrette is a perfect companion for
rich papaya and creamy pears.
Serves: 4
Lemongrass Vinaigrette:
-
1/2 cup very finely minced lemongrass stalks
-
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
-
1/3 cup canola oil
-
Freshly ground white pepper to taste
Getting Through the Dog Days of Summer
In order to bring you new flowers every day during the bloom season, Daylilies need lots of water. While our area is prone to afternoon thunderstorms, they are usually not long enough to provide the moisture your plants need. On a typical hot summer day, the water will evaporate before it has a chance to soak into the soil sufficiently. A long , slow drink of water is in order.
The Making of A Gardener:
When do you know that you’re living with a plant nerd?
When you borrow space in a neighbor’s refrigerator because your own is full of mail-order bulbs and bare-root plants waiting to be planted?
When you’re late picking up the soccer team - again - because you first had to help unload that person’s latest batch of shrubs or water garden accessories from the mini-van? When plant language creeps into your subconscious: when you hear an order for a “double” at a cocktail bar and the image of a fully double mum comes unbidden to your mind?
Tangerine Trees
If you live in Zone 9 or 10, you can cultivate tangerine trees in your garden. Each variety, however, is specific in its climatic requirements for good fruit production. For example, Dancy is more suited to subtropical conditions, while Satsuma is most productive in cooler regions. The most demanding in its climatic requirements is the Clementine, which prefers coastal areas. Tangerine trees are the most heat and cold tolerant of the edible citrus family; however, the thin-skinned fruits are susceptible to sunburn and frost damage
Cultivating Broccoli
BY LUCY WING
Broccoli grows best in moderate to cool climates. Seeds or seedlings may be planted. By selecting both early- and late-season varieties, gardeners can extend their broccoli harvests.
Plant seedlings in very early spring for summer bearing or sow seeds for fall or early-winter harvests. Space plants about one foot from each other in rows 18 inches apart in rich, well-drained soil.
Broccoli needs a consistent supply of water and nitrogen. Add compost and dried blood meal to the soil prior to planting and reapply one month after planting.
Topping the Table with Toppers
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEITH SCOTT MORTON
With colorful spring flowers, aromatic fresh herbs, and a little ingenuity, these vintage hats found new life as holiday centerpieces. To create your own arrangement, upend a topper and use it as a planter or decorate the brim of a bonnet with ribbon, trim, or garden finds.
Rosescaping
Rosescaping
Blackspot and mildew can ruin a rosebush in a single week, as rose gardeners — especially those in Southern climes — know only too well. In Houston, half-acre Zone Sandra Mendelow’s 8 suburban site astonishes visitors with its collection of more than 300 vigorous cultivars, most of them blissfully impervious to the region’s sometimes oppressive humidity. Among the classes that perform well are the Chinas and teas, both too tender for the North but exceptionally rugged in Zones 7 through 9. Both also have an innate resistance to leaf disease.
Spring’s Jewels
Spring’s Jewels
In pursuit of ever-more-magnificent rhododendrons, plant hunters have scaled the Himalayas, trekked across China, Japan, and 19th-century Burma, and scoured the riverbanks of North America. Even explorers seeking other treasures have succumbed to the temptation to take home a rhody or two. In China in 1855, for example, the peripatetic Robert Fortune spotted Rhododendron fortunei while on the prowl for new varieties of tea.
After so many expeditions — many recorded, but others, not — it is impossible to say how many species have entered circulation since the first Rhododendron hirsutum made its way from Asia to England in the 17th century (estimates range from 600 to 800, with more still emerging from remote areas of Tibet, Nepal, and China).
