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Ep.14: Mastering the Art of Growing Roses with Ben Hanna of Heirloom Roses
3.1k Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Ben Hanna of Heirloom Roses provides valuable insights into growing and caring for roses, offering expert advice on pruning, fertilizing, and maintaining healthy plants. From the importance of sunlight and soil conditions to the best practices for feeding and watering roses, Ben's insightful tips will help you cultivate a vibrant and thriving rose garden. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or a beginner, Ben's advice on planting, pruning, and caring for roses will empower you to create a beautiful and flourishing garden.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- 00:05:30 - Ben Hanna's Journey to Heirloom Roses Ownership
- 00:12:08 - Shipping and Planting Roses
- 00:16:26 - Planting Roses in Different Seasons
- 00:17:02 - Who Should Grow Roses?
- 00:17:58 - Growing Zones and Rose Suitability
- 00:18:49 - Own Root Roses vs. Grafted Roses
- 00:20:08 - Propagating Roses and Patent Rules
- 00:23:35 - Tips for Growing Roses Successfully
- 00:26:02 - Fertilizing Roses for Cut Flower Production
- 00:27:56 - Harvesting Roses for Cut Flowers
- 00:29:21 - Growing Roses for Cut Flowers: Timing and Tips
- 00:32:35 - Pruning Roses: Importance and Techniques
- 00:40:13 - Pruning Tips: The PRUNE Method
- 00:45:34 - Enjoying Your Roses After Pruning
- 00:47:01 - Handling Pests and Diseases on Roses
Learn more about Ben Hanna & Heirloom Roses
- Visit: https://heirloomroses.com/
- Guardians of the Garden Beneficial Insects
- PureProtect Rose Spray
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heirloomroses/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heirloomrosesusa
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heirloomroses
SAVE 20% Off your next rose purchase! Heirloom Roses is offering The Backyard Bouquet listeners 20% off all roses with the code BACKYARD24. Offer is valid through 4/30/24.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Backyard Bouquet Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Galitzia of the Flowering Farmhouse.
Jennifer Galitzia's Journey from Gardener to Farmer
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon.
Podcast Focus and Offerings
00:00:17
Speaker
Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers. From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer,
00:00:32
Speaker
The Backyard Bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice. All right flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips, or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom.
Interview with Ben Hanna of Heirloom Roses
00:00:56
Speaker
We have the pleasure of speaking with Ben Hanna, owner of Heirloom Roses, a beloved family business nestled in the heart of the fertile Willamette Valley in Oregon. As the custodian of a legacy that spans generations, Ben and his wife Kara uphold the cherished values of Heirloom Roses
00:01:15
Speaker
A commitment to premier quality roses and the preservation of unique and rare varieties, founded in 1973 by John and Louise Clement. On their own small farm, heirloom roses continues to thrive under Ben and Cara's stewardship, with their offices still located in the historic farmhouse where the Clements once resided in St. Paul, Oregon.
00:01:39
Speaker
Ben and Kara are passionate about hand propagating each rose to ensure that customers receive the finest own root roses available. Their dedication to quality shines through in every bloom with roses that boast gorgeous blooms, winter hardiness, disease resistance, and true to variety characteristics. Today, Ben is joining us to share the remarkable story behind heirloom roses
00:02:04
Speaker
and the unwavering commitment to excellence that drives their business forward. From preserving rare varieties to providing customers with the finest roses for their gardens, Ben's insights and growing advice are sure to inspire you to add more heirloom roses to your
Founding and Legacy of Heirloom Roses
00:02:20
Speaker
garden. So without further ado, let's delve into the charming world of roses today with the passionate owner of heirloom roses, Ben Hanna. Welcome Ben, thanks for joining us today.
00:02:32
Speaker
Good morning, and thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Oh, we're so honored to have you joining us. I know that it is coming upon rose season, and I know this conversation is going to be so valuable for so many of our listeners today, myself included. I have so many questions I'm excited to ask you today. So to get started, can you begin by telling us a little bit about heirloom roses and a little bit more about the beginnings?
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, so heirloom roses was founded by John and Louise Clements. And John was an air traffic controller with a passion for roses. And he started growing his own roses. And then he started hybridizing roses and specifically miniature roses back then. And that hobby grew into a business over time. And it grew and grew. And so they relocated from Medford, Oregon up to St. Paul, Oregon, where the nursery is now.
00:03:28
Speaker
And they were kind of the first people to really bring a lot of roses from Europe into the United States. And Louise tells me the story of finding David Austin roses and starting to work with them in the early days and bringing those to the United States and growing them on their own route.
Challenges and Success Stories at Heirloom Roses
00:03:50
Speaker
And just the uniqueness of all of that was really, really special.
00:03:56
Speaker
My wife and I had the fortunate ability to purchase the rose, the nursery from them 10 years ago when Louise was retiring. And we've kind of carried on that legacy and the business has grown quite a bit, but we still do a lot of the same things that they do. We like to bring in special new varieties. We grow everything on their own roots, which we can talk about that a little bit more. That's unique. And we have this passion about old garden roses as well as new varieties, but we don't
00:04:23
Speaker
get rid of any roses. We have a huge collection of roses. Not all of them are on our website, but we cycle them on and off. And we just think that it's really important to preserve that history. I love that. Thank you for sharing. Are you related to the Clements or how did you happen to build a relationship with them to be able to purchase the farm? Yeah, my I was working, managing a large commercial farm out of bankruptcy.
00:04:51
Speaker
a 10,000-acre farm that I was managing. We knew that that was an interim place for me as a challenge, I guess it was, to work there. But in the process of doing that, I was looking for business to purchase for my wife and I. We were intentionally making a lifestyle change and we were traveling a lot and needed to be home more and closer to home and we have five children.
00:05:19
Speaker
Leroy Benham is Louisa's brother and he asked for my advice about helping sell his sister's business. And so I stepped in to help them and we kind of got to talking and one thing led to another and I said, I think my advice would be you should sell this to me. So it worked out really good for Louise and for us. We had a good partnership there and it was a good source of retirement for her and a blessing for Cara and I, although the first few years of that were difficult and tough.
00:05:49
Speaker
It's been very fruitful for us. You just mentioned that the first few years were tough. What made them tough? Acquiring a business, there was a lot of things that we didn't know going into it or that weren't really known by Louise maybe, and it was a harder place than we had originally thought financially. We had some years of really building back and getting profitable and
00:06:17
Speaker
getting things in order and getting systems and processes in place and then growing sales to a good sustainable level. So a lot of factors involved there, but a lot of surprises. They're kind of life surprises and you want to think that you can plan ahead and eliminate all those, but sometimes they just hit you and you got to work through them. Mother Nature kind of has a funny way of constantly reminding us of that. Yeah, that's true.
00:06:45
Speaker
So have you always been involved in farming? I grew up farming. My dad was a gentleman farmer. He worked for the US Forest Service, but we had a farm with cows. And so I grew up around that. My professional background was not always in agriculture. I have a background in the electronics industry and product development and manufacturing. That's what sent me on the road traveling a lot to China and all over the world.
00:07:16
Speaker
Was it was part of the reason we decided we needed to do something different? So how did you make the transition and I'm curious because I know myself I transitioned from corporate America to flower farming and I'm sure we have some backyard gardeners listening that are curious and I always love hearing the stories of how people transitioned out of their former careers into becoming a farmer or a nursery owner
00:07:42
Speaker
Well, my wife and I, we have always gardened and been kind of hands in the dirt people. So that part of it was good. The company has had some longstanding employees that came along with it. And so a lot of them are still here today, our propagators and people that had deep knowledge of the roses. And so that was very helpful. And so kind of that combination. And then the business side of it was not
00:08:10
Speaker
unfamiliar to me, although I had mentioned that there was some surprises, but we were able to work through those. So, you know, it's like, it's like changing anything, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's good. And then there's some things about it that are difficult and hard, and you got to work through it in front of
Operations and Customer Focus at Heirloom Roses
00:08:24
Speaker
your new normal. So
00:08:26
Speaker
Thank you for sharing. So this is a nursery that you have been nurturing that was previously started by the Clements. How have you made heirloom roses your own business? We stepped in and kind of tried to leave things as they were, although we started fixing things and kind of making some adjustments here and there. But one of the biggest things we did is we
00:08:55
Speaker
that we used to grow the roses in a small band pot. It was like a four inch by four inch by six inch deep pot. And the roses were very small shipping out. And we heard a lot from our customers that they would prefer larger size and they were some challenges growing that small of a plant. And so we made a decision to just go to a one gallon container. And we stepped into that and I remember planting out one greenhouse full of one gallon roses and I wasn't sure how it was going to go.
00:09:23
Speaker
And so we just trialed it on a small basis and it took off. Our customers, you know, a vote of confidence that they wanted a bigger plant. And so then we, then we began switching everything over to that. That was probably the biggest change we've made. And that was really out of trying to meet the customer's needs and starting small, stepping in and trying it before we just committed to it. And it was, it proved out to be very good.
00:09:52
Speaker
behind the scenes are some things we've done. Kara and I are both kind of very passionate about helping people grow in their career and become, you know, however we can help people in our business, we want to do that. And so we have a saying that we are, that heirloom roses is fertile ground for propagating plants, people and possibilities. And so propagating, propagating people is that we try to grow leaders within our company.
00:10:19
Speaker
And we've tried to grow people in their skill sets. And so we've put in a lot of very intentional training and mentoring and coaching to grow people up and move people along. And that has also helped us grow as a company because I've been able to really delegate a lot of things. And, and I've got a strong team here that can help and grow and it goes hand in hand. So that's amazing. How large is your team? Yeah, we have 50 full-time employees now.
00:10:47
Speaker
Wow. That's a lot bigger than most of us that are listening. I know I have two seasonal employees that helped me on the farm and most people don't have any, a lot of us do it on our own. So you definitely, I'm sure have a lot of struggles and challenges that a lot of us don't, but I think that's awesome that you are empowering them. I love the term propagating people and empowering them to move on up and be able to be capable of growing.
00:11:16
Speaker
That's awesome. It's good. And you know, a lot of people have small teams, but a lot of the things we do are similar. It's just a bigger scale. So, you know, it's a lot of, it's a lot of, you know, listening to the plants, the plants come first and listening to your customers and then, uh, staying focused on what you do. Sure. Do you sell cut roses or just the plants themselves?
Discussion on Rose Planting and Care
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah. We only sell plants in a one gallon container.
00:11:46
Speaker
and we ship those anywhere with a US zip code. Now we do sell a lot of roses to people who have cut flower gardens and things. And that's super exciting. Roses are meant to be cut and enjoyed and experienced in the garden and in your home and given to other people. So yeah, we want to support people that do that and be your champion.
00:12:08
Speaker
Well, I know I myself have bought lots of roses from you over the years and they've done beautifully in my garden. I don't live too far from you. I'm probably less than a couple hours away. So for those listening that are not as familiar with heirloom roses, you said you ship your roses across the United States. Do you ship bare root roses? How do you ship your roses? Yeah, they're all all of them are potted.
00:12:35
Speaker
And we have some shipping standards where they're all potted and fully rooted. Most of our roses, I would say almost all of our roses have gone through a dormant cycle, meaning they're not brand new plants. And they're all at least 12 inches tall and branched. We do one thing that's different than most nurseries is we defoliate the rose completely before we ship it. And we used to do that in really hot weather to just preserve the moisture in the plant and not have it stressed so much.
00:13:03
Speaker
And then what we learned is it was so successful in preserving that plant and really making sure that it handled the shipping process, that we started doing that on all orders. And when you defoliate a rose, it stimulates it to grow. And it really makes that whole process better for the plant and transitioning into getting it planted. And we think it's better for the customer experience. So you're going to plant with no leaves and things.
00:13:29
Speaker
Don't be surprised, they're gonna come back really quickly. Roses love to grow and when you prune them or defoliate them, it stimulates them to grow and they're gonna just take off. I have several questions from what you just said. One question, I'm thinking my roses haven't lost most of their leaves yet. Should I be taking the leaves off like you just mentioned in the garden or is that just for shipping? We do that just for shipping. It's a lot to think about doing that in the garden.
00:13:57
Speaker
I think if you have a problem plant and you maybe have a lot of black spot, you could do that, but you know, that's, it's not, roses should be easy and fun to care for. And you shouldn't have to think about all of that, like tedious work. Now that being said, I am a hard, I say I'm a hard pruner. I take roses down to 16 inches when I prune, not climbers, but everything else. And so that, that actually gets that, that plant down to a pretty small size. And at that point, there's not very many leaves left and you can pull them off.
00:14:24
Speaker
and then you get a fresh start for spring and everything's ready to go. So I think that's, so maybe at that point you could do that. Perfect. When you mentioned shipping the roses, do you ship them year round or are there only certain times of the year that roses ship? Yeah, we ship them year round and we allow the customer actually, this is new this year, our customers can select what day they would like the roses to arrive. And then we have the website
00:14:54
Speaker
determines when and when we determine when those should be shipped. But we ship 12 months out of the year. We're shut down for Christmas. We take a we take a two week break there. But other than that, we ship all the time. And so sometimes we do ship to colder climates in the early spring for someone who has a greenhouse or things. We took a lot of roses to the south in the wintertime. So, you know, we trust we trust our customers and their gardening knowledge to know when's the best time for them to get their roses.
00:15:21
Speaker
And if they need some coaching on that, our customer service team can kind of walk them through that as well. That's amazing. So you are busy year round. Yeah. You know, one of the best times to plant roses is in the fall actually too. And a lot of people wouldn't think that it's like traditionally spring planting, but especially if you're talking to a lot of people who are going to be starting a cut flower garden and things and, and want to like do a bigger plan of that planting a rose in the fall allows that rose to get established before it goes dormant.
00:15:52
Speaker
And then that rose is gonna wake up and start growing before you wanna be outside working. The ground is warm enough and the roots are gonna start growing and it's just gonna come alive and start doing better throughout the spring. And so we think it's a great time to plant roses in the fall. That's interesting. My roses that I have planted in the fall, when I think back, they're so much bigger and healthier than the ones that I have planted in the spring months. It's a good time for them to go into the ground.
00:16:20
Speaker
But for those who have not already planted in the fall, is it okay to still plant in the spring? Oh yeah, it's perfect. Yeah.
Encouragement and Benefits of Growing Roses
00:16:28
Speaker
And we typically say that second week of March, almost all of the United States, with a few exceptions, are kind of out of that frost danger zone. And you could plant right into the ground most places. There's a few exceptions.
00:16:41
Speaker
You can keep an eye on that. But early spring planting is great. And even through the summer, you can plant. You can put roses in the ground in July and in August. The key is to just make sure that good water during those warm months. But they'll do well. Yeah. Roses are very tough and forgiving. That's my kind of plant. Yeah. So who should be growing roses? Well, everyone.
00:17:04
Speaker
I think we want everyone to grow roses. We think, here's what I think. I think roses, they say they're the queen of the garden. And I think if you're wanting to experience something that's real and experiencing something that's beautiful, you should try growing a rose.
00:17:23
Speaker
Because it's more than just the beautiful blooms. It's the whole process. It's the process of seeing that plant wake up and grow new buds and start to have new growth. It's seeing all the canes come about and all that growth happen. Buds start to form and then turn into blooms. And it's the whole process. For me, it's a therapeutic process, I think.
00:17:50
Speaker
I agree. You mentioned that you ship all over the US. Does that mean that all growing zones in the US can grow roses? Yeah, some roses will do better in other zones. And so we tried, those are very, we keep the rose zones very accurate. So if you click onto our site, you can search by zones. And so you can only, it'll allow you to narrow it down. So you're only looking at roses that will do well in your zone.
00:18:15
Speaker
And then own root roses are notoriously hardy and they'll do really well in colder zones and they're kind of just tougher. They'll do well in drier zones as well because we can talk about own root a little bit, but there's no graft union, which is inherently weak on a rose. And so the whole plant is sturdier and hardier and the roots are better developed and will rejuvenate that plant if there's any freeze or die back on the top.
00:18:43
Speaker
And you called that rose, what kind of rose? It's an own root rose. Own root, thank you. So an own root rose is taken from a cutting and that cutting is rooted and then grown out. And so the roots of the plant are the same as the top of the plant.
00:19:01
Speaker
A grafted rose is a rootstock with buds that are grafted in, and then the roots at the bottom are a different variety than the top. Typically those roots at the bottom are a much more aggressive variety, and they'll grow strong, but not necessarily the most natural way a rose should grow. And so a couple things that the graft union can be weak and freeze or get disease into it.
00:19:29
Speaker
I also think that sometimes that root sucks too strong and too vigorous and it will keep growing and not allow that plant to go dormant and then could put that rose into a possibility of freezing or dying back harder than an own root rose, which will naturally go dormant and protect itself. That's great information. Thank you. So you take cuttings of your roses and you propagate them.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yes. How long does that process take from the time you take the cutting to being able to ship it out the door to your customer? Yeah, on average it's about 16 months, sometimes a little bit longer, sometimes if we get lucky a little bit shorter but rarely shorter, we always like to have our roses go through a dormant cycle through the winter.
00:20:21
Speaker
Thank you. So for those listening right now, people are taking lots of Dahlia cuttings and propagating Dahlias. Are there any rules regarding patents for propagating roses? Yeah. So you can propagate roses for your own use and for your own, you just can't, and I'm not a legal expert. So if this is something good to, you know, if you're doing this commercially, you should read up and really understand this deeply.
Respect for Hybridizers and Rose Varieties
00:20:49
Speaker
If you're doing this just as a gardener to just have fun and as a hobby and you're not making money off this, you can kind of do what you want to at your plant.
00:20:57
Speaker
So that's the broad category of that. We are always very respectful of hybridizers and we work with a lot of hybridizers and we pay them a royalty for their genetics. We're happy to do that. It's a lot of work to hybridize a rose and we're very appreciative of the work people put into it. And we want to work and support hybridizers all across the world to bring their plants to market and show their creations. So we work hard at that.
00:21:24
Speaker
That's excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that. Do you hybridize roses yourself? I don't. John Clements did.
00:21:34
Speaker
And so that's one of the things we stopped doing. You have to be really passionate about that. That has to be like almost your calling. And so I talked to a lot of hybridizers and that's what they do really well. And I know that what we're good at and how we can best support them is help them take their roses and share them with the world by growing them and selling them and paying them a royalty and promoting them.
00:22:00
Speaker
I realized that it's much harder. I hybridize dahlias. I'm going into my fourth year. And last year I let some of my roses go to seed and I thought that I would give them a try. And I had zero luck germinating the rose seeds. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to focus, keep in my lane and focus on growing my dahlias. It definitely seems much more time consuming and a totally different ballpark than hybridizing dahlias.
00:22:29
Speaker
Do you sell any of John's roses? Yes, we still have almost all of his roses. They're featured on, we call them heirlooms own and probably have 20 different varieties on there that are John's. Very classic varieties. They have a kind of a, most of them kind of have an English rose look. They're very fragrant, pretty sturdy and disease resistant. So yeah, there's some, there's some great roses there.
Growing Tips and Soil Considerations
00:22:53
Speaker
Could you share a few of the names of his roses?
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah, so the Impressionist is a beautiful rose and it's kind of a peach to white rose. It's got a very English look and it's a climber. That's beautiful. It's very unique. Portlandia is a bright kind of, it's a corally pink and I would say it's a short climber. It gets, it would just leave it alone and it'll grow to eight feet.
00:23:20
Speaker
But if you trellis it onto a back fence or something, you'll kind of have some nice about eight foot growth on it, and it's beautiful. The bloom color on that is stunning and really very unique. Thank you. Those sound like great roses. Yeah. For those that are listening today and thinking, hmm, I think I'd like to add some roses to my garden, what are some key considerations that they should be thinking about to successfully grow roses?
00:23:50
Speaker
Well, first off, roses do need sunlight. And so you need at least six hours of sunlight. I'll tell you that six hours is the minimum. If you're getting less than that, you're really pushing your limits. It will cause that rose to really struggle and not grow as well as it could in good light. So be careful about that. Just know where you're going to put them and plan ahead a little bit.
00:24:12
Speaker
And then you need a good watering system. I think that, you know, roses need to be watered and fed to produce those big blooms and to do well. So that would be another thing. And then also I would pay careful attention to the zone where you're in. More importantly, to the colder zones than the warmer zone, the warmer zones, everything seems to really grow well. The colder zones, though, or where it's kind of it can be real damp, you might want to
00:24:42
Speaker
Pay attention to that and steer towards roses that would be better for those zones. Our website has a really good functionality to be able to sort by those zones and find out what zone you're in and then dial the selection down so you're looking at things that will do well for you. What about soil conditions? Are there any certain requirements that roses have? Roses like good organic soil. One of the challenges would be if you're planting into clay,
00:25:11
Speaker
And you want to then and what I tell people if they have hard clay soil that doesn't drain real well, that's probably the hardest thing to plant into. And you need to really dig a large hole and make room for that water to drain out as best you can. And then amend the soil with good organic material. And then I think when you have large areas of clay like that to use a micro rise of fungi of some kind and really get the organics built up.
00:25:40
Speaker
in the soil breaks down that clay and over time will really improve the soil conditions. That combined with a fish fertilizer and a really deep mulch on clay soil, that soil is going to dramatically improve over time and you'll see results in a number of years improvement.
00:26:03
Speaker
you had mentioned that they need water and feeding. When you mentioned feeding, is that what you refer to as the fish fertilizer in the deep mulching or what do you recommend for fertilizing? Young plants in general.
00:26:18
Speaker
are best fed with a liquid fertilizer. So that's anything that will dissolve in water. And the reason we do that is because it doesn't build up in the soil. It will feed the plant and then leach out and doesn't sit in the soil. A common mistake that new gardeners make or people that any gardeners probably made this mistake is over fertilizing with granular fertilizer.
00:26:39
Speaker
and it can actually burn the roots. What it does is fertilizers are all a salt of some sort and you're basically really, the salt levels build up in the soil and make it toxic. And then once you do that with granular, it's really hard to get it out of the soil. And so the most forgiving fertilizers are liquid fertilizers that will eventually flush out and you're more forgiving. If you have older plants and you want to fertilize with granular, that's good. Just really follow the instructions carefully. Don't over fertilize.
00:27:07
Speaker
Um, but I think plant roses need that, uh, it's not just nitrogen either.
Pruning and Blooming Techniques
00:27:14
Speaker
They need the full spectrum of NPK.
00:27:17
Speaker
in good balanced amounts to really produce those beautiful blooms. Those blooms are produced from energy and that energy needs to come from somewhere, right? And so they need that good feeding to do well. Especially if you're talking to people who want to go cut flowers, you're going to want bloom cycles that repeat and you're going to want to make sure you have, you're going to find your favorite fertilizer mix that maybe is your, you know, secret
00:27:43
Speaker
and you want to keep using that on a regular basis. When you mentioned liquid fertilizer, are you talking about a foliar spray or doing a soil drench? What is your preferred method?
00:27:56
Speaker
I typically do a soil drench. I don't think foliar sprays do a lot other than they put salt on the leaves and you get the white crusty stuff. So I would say a soil drench is probably the best way to do that. And I'll do that. I have some very old roses that I'm gonna fertilize with granular this spring, but I'm gonna hit them with some fish fertilizer early to just kind of give them a boost
00:28:21
Speaker
We're starting to just start to warm up. I know you've got snow, but things are just starting to kind of, I can see spring around the corner. And I'm going to go ahead and give them a little bit of a fish fertilizer.
00:28:33
Speaker
Because I kind of know that we're not going to get a hard frost. I would be careful if I knew I was going to get some more hard freezing, because I don't want that new growth to freeze. But I'd start waking them up with a little bit of liquid fertilizer. And I really like fish fertilizer. I think it's got everything in there that that plant needs that's really hard to duplicate through chemistry. I love fish fertilizer, too. I use it all summer long. Yeah, so does my dog.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yes, that's my biggest fear is all my roses are in my yard where my dog also roams free. You mentioned growing roses for cut flowers. Many of our listeners on here grow flowers for cut flower production. What tips can you give us for growing roses for cut flowers?
00:29:21
Speaker
So there used to be a nursery here in Oregon back in the good old days when they didn't import all these roses from South America. And the nursery that I was, I went to buy to talk to them and I got a really good kind of rule of thumb advice from this old rose grower. And he said, it's 60 days from prune to bloom at 60 degrees. And that was his rule of thumb to be able to time blooms.
00:29:47
Speaker
And so we use that, while we don't grow cut flowers, we do like to have things in bloom at certain times for photography or for trade shows and things. And so that we use that rule of thumb and it holds true. So if you have spent blooms or you need to prune, you're gonna have to actively prune throughout the season. You need to know once you take a cutting, it's gonna be approximately 60 days, maybe a little bit less with warm weather for another bloom cycle to come through. And so as a cut flower person, you need to,
00:30:17
Speaker
You need to understand that and kind of time your plants accordingly. I love that advice. So it's a 60-60-60 rule. Yeah. And if I was to buy roses this spring and plant them, how long do I need to wait before I start cutting from them for cut flowers?
00:30:37
Speaker
You can start, roses like to be pruned, so you'll get some blooms this year. You'll put that rose into the ground. Let's say you plant it in March. You're gonna have April, May, and towards the end of May and into June, you'll start seeing some blooms. You're gonna have maybe two or three blooms on that young plant. It really won't start hitting a bloom cycle till next year, and then you'll have more, but you will have some blooms come off of it this year.
00:31:04
Speaker
Now also you want to get that plant established and it's good to keep the cutting your flowers and taking them off and keeping that plant forces it to branch and grow and develop into a broader wider plant which will support more blooms later. So in the second year can I cut a long stem or what is what would be considered a reasonable stem length to cut on your rose?
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah, well, it depends on the variety, but I think you can cut certainly a 16 inch or longer stem. It kind of comes back to how you've pruned as well. Fewer canes, longer canes, more canes, more blooms. So you kind of have to find that balance, right? And so you've got to plan your plant out and then you'll start, and then also fertilizing. Fertilizing is important to get that longer stem too.
00:31:56
Speaker
It needs that growth and you need to push the nitrogen to kind of get those longer stems.
00:32:03
Speaker
So it's a balance of all of those things. But in that second year, there's kind of another saying, and this is an old gardener saying that it's first year sleep, second year creep, third year leap, right? So that first year, it's really pushing roots and getting established. So you really want to care for the roots and shape the plant. Second year, you're going to start seeing some growth and it's going to start maturing. It's kind of that high school rose, you know, it's awkward a little bit.
00:32:28
Speaker
And then that third year, you're into good fertility and good growth and you can start really counting on it to produce good blooms. That's so true. I bought a handful of roses from your company in 2020. And this last season, they really leaped and they were as tall as me and just had the most beautiful, huge blooms. I mean, some of them had two to three foot long
00:32:52
Speaker
canes off of them. I couldn't believe it. It just because that was my third year having roses here, I wasn't expecting them to get so big. And so that saying really rings true for me. Can you talk about disbudding roses? Do you need to disbud your roses if you're growing them for cut flowers?
00:33:14
Speaker
I don't have a lot of experience with that part of growing cut flowers. I will say though that buds, you know, they do take up energy. And so you can disbud to kind of share the energy with fewer blooms and get better, more vibrant blooms. On a Floribunda, which is a spray with a cluster of multiple blooms, the bloom in the dead center of a Floribunda will always bloom first before the others bloom.
00:33:44
Speaker
And if you want all of those other blooms on that same stem to bloom at the same time and a little earlier, you can snip that center bud off. And I would definitely do that. I would go through because you're working at the plants and you're, you know, this is more than just gardening, right? This year you're a little more hands on here. Go through and clip that center and then you're going to get a nice spray. And then those four bundles are great for arranged flowers because you can put three, three stems in a vase and it kind of self arranges, right?
00:34:14
Speaker
It works really well. Perfect. Thank you for that. Do you have any tips for cut flower growers in terms of vase life? How do you get the best vase life out of your roses? Well, you need to use seven up. I'm joking. I know that there's a lot of like tips and tricks out there and I'm not the best at those actually. I can tell you that the best,
00:34:44
Speaker
I would go back to the health of your plant. And I would say that a good, strong fertility in your plant will transfer into longer bloom and cut flower life because it's stored energy, right? And so again, I would go back to, if I was growing cut flowers, I would probably use a granular fertilizer early spring, but then I would really focus in on liquid fertilizer.
00:35:14
Speaker
better and the overall fertility of the plant will be higher. And then that will translate into longer bloom life. So thank you. I'm taking so many notes here. I can't wait to see mine bloom this year. That will make a huge difference. I'm sure. Yeah. And I think the seven up is an old wives tale. That's kind of like Christmas trees. I've heard that for Christmas trees too, that you use seven up. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:39
Speaker
As far as harvesting the flowers, is there a certain point that you should be cutting them? Do they need to be still in bud or can they be starting to open up? What is your suggestion? When I cut flowers, I like them to not be a tight bud. I like them to start to open slightly because I know that the plant has triggered itself to start that process and that it knows best, right?
00:36:08
Speaker
So if you want them to open, you're not forcing buds open and things. Take cuttings. The other thing is a leaflet of five has a bud right below it that will reproduce that cane into another bud. So you want to cut flowers. You're going to kind of cut down the stem anyway. So too short is around a three leaflet. You want to go down to a five and cut right above that five. Can you explain what you mean by a five leaflet? Yeah. So there's a set of leaves coming off the stem.
00:36:38
Speaker
And if there's five leaves, that's a five leaf and you want to cut right above that. There's a bud right underneath that leaflet, which will produce a new cane and it will come up and reproduce. Um, you mentioned earlier that you had some roses and this happens in Oregon, get really tall, like six feet tall. Well, you might want to only have like a two foot stem that might be really long. So I would actually encourage people to cut down the cane more and like cut, like cut
00:37:07
Speaker
down and keep your rows at a manageable size even if you throw part of that stem away. The plant will do better. It won't be supporting all that extra growth and it's going to have more energy to push up a new cane for another cut flower and it will probably be a better shape.
00:37:24
Speaker
So it's okay to prune hard in the summertime as well. It's kind of a summer pruning. It's kind of like a training the plant. You kind of keep it under control. There's a lot of areas where we've just got great growing conditions and roses will grow tall. And so it keeps them in their place and not falling over and just generally healthier. So yeah. Thank you for that tip.
00:37:53
Speaker
What about climbing roses? I have some that I'm looking out my window right now and I probably should have tied it down, but I have some vines that are probably 15 to 20 feet tall right now. Do you have any tips for climbing roses?
00:38:13
Speaker
There's a lot to climbing roses. It's not complicated, but there you just need to know that what you need to understand is understand the plant and how it grows. And those canes that are that long, you need to train them horizontally to produce blooms all up and down the cane. If you leave them alone, they're only going to produce blooms at the very top. And so you want to come, you want to turn those canes as soon as you can get out. And I'm going to do mine here soon. And we're both in Oregon.
00:38:42
Speaker
It's still pretty cold, but I don't think I'm going to get a hard frost. I'm going to start training some of those canes down and horizontal and getting them tied up. And then on those, I'm actually going to go through and pull all the foliage and kind of get it all cleaned up with the what I'll achieve there is that that long horizontal cane will then get blooms all the way along it. And that's what produces that wall of color. Most people have the mistake of just letting their climbing roses go up and then they get a bunch of blooms at the top.
00:39:11
Speaker
Another trick on this is if you have a small trellis or an arbor and you can't, like it's not 15 feet wide, but you can zigzag it back and forth. So you can turn, you can curve it back and forth. And then that again will keep the majority of those canes horizontal to the ground and the blooms will come all the way from, you know, all the way along the stem.
00:39:31
Speaker
or the cane. Great advice. So do you just tie this canes to the trellis then? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And we have some, we have some loop lock cable ties, which are a stretchy rubber, which I like. I used to use zip ties. People hate it on that. And so we've changed over and they'd work much better. Is these, uh, is there a rubber tie and they stretch with the plant as it grows? Oh, then you can pop them off and reuse them. And so, uh, it's a, it's a, it's a good product.
00:40:00
Speaker
That sounds really great because that's been my problem with zip ties is one, I hate throwing away the plastic, but they constrain the canes as they start to get bigger. Yeah. They'll sneak up on you and then they're suddenly cutting into the plant. So yeah. So let's talk about pruning. This episode is going to be airing in March and we're currently having a conversation in February. Can you tell us when is the best time for gardeners and cut flower growers to be pruning their roses?
00:40:28
Speaker
Well, from a cut flower perspective, I think you want to do it as soon as you can. We're coming back to that 60 days from prune to bloom. So if you want flowers early, you're going to want to watch your weather and prune as soon as you can. Certainly, if you're getting into March, you probably ought to think about getting things pruned. Almost everywhere in the United States by March is you're good to prune.
00:40:54
Speaker
go through and you're going to want to work through that plant and get it shaped correctly and prune so you get the best blooms at the right time in the spring. What advice can you give us for pruning? Yeah, I have a five step process. It's an acronym we use called prune and P-R-U-N-E. And the P is prepare your plant. And when
00:41:20
Speaker
And we'll send you a link to this that does an outline of it. So you can put that in the show notes. The P is prepare your plant.
00:41:30
Speaker
And basically I take in, except for climbers, I cut everything back to 24 inches. And sometimes I'll do that actually in the fall, so that going through the winter, I don't have these long canes blowing all over the place and potentially get my rose damaged. It just keeps it nicer looking. And I do that, I take it down to 24 inches because I know I'm gonna take the whole plant down to 16 inches anyway. And it just gets things out of the way and there's less, like sometimes pruning a rose can feel overwhelming. So I do it in bite size segments.
00:41:59
Speaker
And so by taking it down to about 24 inches, you have less to kind of think about and worry about. And it gets it more manageable. And then I do R is remove all dead, diseased and crossing canes. So you're just going to go through and clean up the problems.
00:42:14
Speaker
And sometimes the problems are very evident. You'll have two canes that are crossing and there's a rubbing spot and you need to cut that out of there. You'll have a dead cane that's just clearly dead. Cut that out of there and start from the worst case ones that you have and just start working your way through.
00:42:30
Speaker
And by doing that, you're taking this again to a bite-sized project that doesn't seem so overwhelming. Of course, you're going to cut a dead cane out. Of course, you're going to have a cane that goes fishing through the inside of the plant. You want to remove that. And then suddenly that plant is going to start opening up as you take these cuts here and there, and it's going to become much better shaped. And there's less to work with. And then I say you is understand your plant. What kind of plant do you have? What kind of rose is it?
00:42:56
Speaker
Certainly climbing roses are pruned differently than shrubs or any other type of rose. But are you cutting it forward? Do you want lots of canes because you want lots of blooms? Or do you want a fewer number of canes because you want longer stems and bigger blooms? And so you just need to know that. And then you can go through and start shaping that plant and taking some strategic cuts. You might have a cane that's kind of sticking straight out the side of the rose and it's heading towards the walkway.
00:43:23
Speaker
and you wanna prune that back just to keep it away from things. Or you have a cane that's rubbing on the house and it's healthy and everything, but you don't wanna hit in your house, you can take that off. And I typically say to end, you wanna end up pruning with anywhere between five and 10 canes on a rose. Now, that's a rule of thumb. Sometimes you're gonna have more than that. You have a big old rose that's on its own root. It can support more than 10 and that's fine. But don't be afraid to kind of take those down.
00:43:53
Speaker
and get that shaped. And then I take all the finished cut is I take everything down to kind of make it a nice uniform 16 inches or so. And that's generally where I go. I know some people don't go that short, but I think it's for our own root rows, it's really healthy to prune them that short. And there's no right way to cut them. You know, you want to take your cuts right before a bud eye or, or, or, um, yeah. And so,
00:44:17
Speaker
Just take your cut right there because that bud I will send out another regrowth in the cane and that's where it will reproduce itself from. And that was the U, what is the N? Yeah, nothing left behind. So that's where I go through and I clean up all of it. There's usually leaves and things at the bottom of the plant and there's stuff around. And really those are just an area for bacteria and mold to grow and you just clean it all up.
00:44:42
Speaker
just pull it all out of there and then rake up around the plant. Sometimes at this point, there'll be very few leaves left on the plant. There might just be, because you've cut it so low. And so then you can just take those off and just leave this plant really clean and ready to start off without anything going to harbinger bacteria or things. So nothing left behind. And then the E is enjoy your rose all summer long.
00:45:09
Speaker
I like that. You've done everything to kind of set this rose in motion for a great spring and just enjoy it. Enjoy all of it. Enjoy the new growth. I have new growth that's just burgundy colored and I just like seeing my roses come waking up from spring right now and I enjoy seeing new leaves and new canes and blooms and so it's more than just the bud, just enjoy all of it.
00:45:34
Speaker
So I have a personal question. I pruned my roses the other week and I looked at the forecast and we were supposed to stay above freezing every day for the following week. Well, the very next day we dropped to 27 degrees. They were totally off on our weather forecast. And I now have black on the tips of a lot of the spots where for about two inches down from where I pruned them.
00:45:58
Speaker
Should I be going back through when it warms up again and pruning that section off? Yeah, and that's the downside of pruning too early, but you're kind of in this for a different reason. If you're producing cut flowers, you're going to push them. I would say if you don't have a little dieback, you didn't push things hard enough.
00:46:16
Speaker
And so the plant will recover. It'll be just like you'll lose that new growth, but you would have pruned it. So you could have held off and pruned now anyway, and you wouldn't have had the new growth. So the only thing you're out is a little bit of work in the garden.
Rose Disease and Pest Management
00:46:30
Speaker
Well, that's good for you.
00:46:32
Speaker
Okay. Thank you. I was like, Oh no, did I kill my roses? I have 50 bushes, which is very minimal for many cut flower growers. And I've only pruned about 10 of them, but I was hoping that I didn't destroy them for the season. So you gave me confidence that they'll be okay. They'll be fine. Yeah. You're going to do great. Yeah.
00:46:50
Speaker
Thank you. There's one thing we have not covered that I know a lot of people would love to hear about and that is handling pests and disease on roses. For a long time, I did not plant roses because I was told that they're highly susceptible to disease. Is that true or what are your thoughts on roses and disease? So roses can be.
00:47:16
Speaker
I will tell you that a weak rose that's not fertilized and cared for is much more susceptible to disease. And so a lot of those complaints and things you hear are from people who have roses that have kind of been neglected and they haven't cared for them. So if you're just going to leave your rose alone and not do anything with it, you're going to have some black spot and other things. The new genetics and the new breeding that people are doing, a lot of the hybridizers are doing really
00:47:46
Speaker
The roses are much more disease resistant with some of the new varieties and they have fragrance. There is some systemic products that can be used with roses.
00:48:00
Speaker
I don't recommend them, but they can help quite a bit and I know they work. And so that's a personal choice of where you're going to fall in on that. You're going to use a systemic type of fungicide with your roses. We do some fungicides here at the nursery because we have all roses in greenhouses. And so we use fungicides. We don't use any pesticides though. All of our roses are grown with or have beneficial insects.
00:48:27
Speaker
And so a beneficial insect program is important. It's a little bit difficult to contain in a garden, but we do have a beneficial insect program where you can purchase beneficial insects from us and release those with your roses. And then we have a great product that I'm really excited about. It's Pure Protect. And it's an all organic pesticide. It's peppermint oil based.
00:48:51
Speaker
And it's really proven to be very useful. You can use it as a dormant spray and you can use it along with your roses any time of year and it's all organic. It's very safe. So Pure Protect, we sell it in a
00:49:08
Speaker
one gallon enough to make one gallon in a bigger bottle that makes five gallons. It goes a long ways. And again, it's it's essentially peppermint oil. But we've we've formulated it and mixed it in such a way that it doesn't separate out. And so it does it stays mixed. And it's an atomized process that we do to mix it in with the water and make sure that it stays on your plant. And it's really good. Also, it's a great deer repellent deer.
00:49:36
Speaker
hate it. And if you start using that in the early spring, people with deer problems will find that the deer will leave their roses alone. And so when we first started using this, I used it on my roses and then I also used it on my apple trees because it's totally organic and you can use it with food. And that was the best apple crop I've ever had. I have some espalier apples and the deer love the blooms, but I use this and they totally left them alone.
00:50:03
Speaker
And so I'm 100% convinced. It's easy to use. I just have a sprayer mixed up and like once a week I'll spray some on to just keep the deer away and it keeps everything at bay and it's great. And your roses won't build up a resistance to it because it's basically an essential oil.
00:50:21
Speaker
So it is a foliar spray that you put on the leaves. Correct. Yep. I would actually recommend using it when it's dormant. If I was doing cut flowers and I had several hundred roses and other things and you needed to... I'd have a one gallon sprayer of this mixed up so that you can use it regularly. And it's the regular use of this that will keep things at bay. And it's not hard on your plant at all.
00:50:49
Speaker
So do you have to worry about the time of day that you put it on? Will it burn in the middle of the day? I suppose on a hot day it could. But you kind of want it to stick around a little bit for deer and for pest. So I wouldn't spray it in the heat of the day, but it's pretty perfect for giving other than that.
00:51:08
Speaker
I typically do my foliar sprays either at dawn or right before sundown so that the plants have time to soak in everything before the sun hits them. So with this Pure Protect, is the primary purpose to help prevent against fungal issues and diseases or is it to deter pests? It does both. It does both. So you use that in conjunction with beneficial insects.
00:51:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. In my garden, I would. Yes. Yeah. So you mentioned that you also use beneficials in conjunction with the Peer Protect. What kind of beneficials do you use? We have a whole assortment of beneficials and I actually have one person on my team
00:51:57
Speaker
that his whole job is to align the beneficials at the right time and when we need them and how they're to be used. And effectively, beneficial insects are predatory insects that eat other insects.
00:52:12
Speaker
And so you release these insects and they're going to go through and like eat all the aphids and eat all the other stuff. And so we have actually a program in place. It's a six month subscription where you can order beneficial insects for the number of roses you have and then release them and we'll send them to you monthly. And they'll would be the right time and the right type of insects to release and to get you in a good balance.
00:52:37
Speaker
That's amazing. So at Heirloom Roses, you're now offering a beneficial subscription program as well. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll have Robin send you the link to that as well so that you can drop that down there. People can read about it. It's pretty cool stuff. So yeah, the weird things is some of these insects are really tiny. I don't even see them, but you see the effects of them, right? You see the effects of them and they're, they're, it's like nature is way more powerful than chemistry can be.
00:53:07
Speaker
and it's way more effective. And so these little microscopic insects, they do their job and they go out there and they're waging war with the things that are waging war with your plants. And so they do a great job.
Gardening Approaches and Resources
00:53:20
Speaker
My nine-year-old either wants to be a chemist or a microbiologist, and I'm trying to sway her towards microbiology and showing her how cool microbiology is with the flowers and the beneficial insects and breeding dahlias.
00:53:37
Speaker
So, I think that's great. I stopped using any even organic sprays three years ago and I have switched to strictly beneficials and I release nematodes, do the beneficials and it makes a huge difference. I've noticed a drastic reduction in pests and just when you have a balance in the ecosystem, you're still going to have some pests but the beneficials really seem to keep things in check. So, I think that's awesome that you are offering a solution.
00:54:07
Speaker
along with your roses. And it's all stuff that we use at the nursery here too. I mean, we grow a lot of roses and we do it all with beneficial insects. The only time we would spray a rose is if it comes from another nursery and it's a new variety or something and we want to make sure it doesn't have anything on it, we'll clean it up. But after that, it's beneficial insects.
00:54:29
Speaker
Ben, this conversation has been so helpful for me, and I'm sure that our listeners have gleaned so many great piece of advice today. For people that still have questions, where would you recommend they look for more educational materials and resources for growing roses? Certainly our website has got a long list of care articles and frequently asked questions.
00:54:56
Speaker
And we try to go into detail on each of those, but not be overwhelming. And so that's a good resource, I think, for people.
00:55:03
Speaker
And then I have a YouTube channel, Erlen Rose's YouTube channel, which we have quite a few videos up there. Both my wife and I post videos up there on care and tips and tricks and things like that. And we try to, just like the prune acronym, I try to break things down and make it simple. Like I want to break down complex things and make them very manageable. And you can just step through and feel like you can be confident. We're here to help you win and do well. And so that's our focus. So those would be two areas, I would say.
00:55:33
Speaker
I love that. Thank you for simplifying the process of growing roses for all of us. So it sounds like you have lots of educational resources out there for people. And I will include links in the show notes. But for those that are listening right now, can you please tell them where is the best way to connect with you and heirloom roses?
00:55:55
Speaker
Yeah, so our website heirloomroses.com, just Google heirloom roses and click on our link and you'll see our beautiful website. We have 900 varieties of roses and our goal is that you're gonna sit and just have beautiful roses to stare at. You know, if you're gonna lose track of time on the internet looking at stuff, it ought to be roses. That's a good place. So visit our website, shop all around, fall in love with beautiful roses and then I would encourage people to like
00:56:23
Speaker
If you're thinking they might want to grow a rose, start with one. Start with the rose, you can plant it in the ground or you can plant it in a container. And I think you'll be surprised that you might think that you're going to end up with beautiful blooms and that will be the exciting part. I think it's the process of planting and growing a plant and seeing the whole thing come alive and grow canes and the whole thing is really
00:56:48
Speaker
The whole process is exciting and really kind of wondering.
Special Offer and Parting Advice
00:56:54
Speaker
It's great. Thank you. That's great advice. Now, I'm excited to share. You gave us a very special gift for those that have stuck around and listened to our conversation today. For those of you that are still listening and you can find the link and discount code in the show notes,
00:57:16
Speaker
But Ben and the team at Heirloom Roses have graciously offered 20% off all roses valid through April 30, 2024, when you use the code backyard24. And I will include a link in that discount code backyard24 in today's show notes. Ben, before we wrap up today, is there any parting advice you would like to leave for our listeners today?
00:57:46
Speaker
Okay, so this might seem a little counterintuitive because we do have Facebook and Instagram and all these things. And there's a lot of pseudo beauty there, but I'll tell you that the real beauty comes in real life. And put down your phone and plant a rose and just experience it for real. And that is something that experiencing nature and the creation of roses is a beautiful thing and it's good for your soul.
00:58:16
Speaker
Thank you. That's lovely parting advice. Thank you so much for your time today. Your generous gift of 20% off for anyone who is looking to add roses to their garden. And thank you for all of this valuable rose growing advice. I know I have learned a ton today and I'm sure others have also
00:58:38
Speaker
I would love to leave the door open and invite you back for a future episode where I'm sure our listeners will have even more questions once they start growing roses, whether for their garden enjoyment or for cut flower purposes. So if you're willing, we'd love to have you back on the podcast again. Oh, we'd love to. This is great. Thank you for having me and I appreciate the time. Thank you. Happy gardening. Yeah, you too. Bye bye.
00:59:06
Speaker
Thank you Flower Friends for joining us on another episode of the Backyard Bouquet. I hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today. Whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer, you're contributing to the local flower movement, and we're so happy to have you growing with us.
00:59:27
Speaker
If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, don't forget to subscribe to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode. And finally, please share this episode with your garden friends. Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.