Rose Bushes

FROST ALERT! This spring we have been on a roller coaster with temperatures!

If you have recently planted new rose bushes in the ground: please be sure to watch night-time temperatures and if/when they dip below 40, be sure to cover with frost blankets. If and are small enough, you can also use trash cans, buckets, or baskets over turned on top of newly planted plants in the ground.

If you have just purchased new roses and have not planted them yet: please keep them in a protected area like a garage at night. Be sure to put them outdoors in a protected area during the day. Wait to plant until night-time temperatures are above freezing.

If your established roses have been damaged by our recent freezes, please do not prune back anything for at least two weeks. Even if the first set of emerging leaves have been damaged by frost/freeze, roses have second sets of leaves that may take longer to emerge, but they will emerge when temperatures warm up.

 

The Tagawa Gardens Rose Staff would like to thank all of our guests for making our Night of Wine and Roses 2013 a smashing success! Thank you for your support!

Here is a list of roses we will carry for the 2013 season. Please note that this is NOT a live inventory, just a list for guidance and convenience of our visitors living in Denver and the surrounding metro area. We are unable to deliver our roses outside the southeastern Denver Metro area or out of the country. Please call us at 303-690-4722 to check current availablity.

2013 Rose LIst for Tagawa Gardens

 

For 31 years Tagawa's has carried some of the finest roses, providing the best blooming plants available to grow in our metro area. This is the place where you can discover unusual as well as the newest varieties of roses ready for your garden!

Looking for an introduction to the New Roses for 2013? Ask for Lynn, our Rose Department Supervisor. She will be happy to give you information on the new roses for the coming year..  

Visit with Lynn and her rose staff, Gloria, Fran, Jeannie or Paul, about all of your rose bush concerns and questions on varieties.

Great Plant Information!

(click on the links below for great plant information and photos!)

The Denver Rose Society

Colorado State University Extension, Yard & Garden Information

American Rose Society

Plant Select--Durable Plants for the Colorado Garden!

 

Bailey's Nursery Easy Elegance Series®

Bailey Nurseries, Inc. is pleased to present the ‘Easy Elegance’ rose line which offers an exclusive two year, limited guarantee redeemable only through Bailey Nurseries, not at the garden center where it was purchased. This limited guarantee covers all residential plantings for two full years from date of purchase and covers the following:

Just send in your name, address, receipt, plant tag and a photo of the rose in question to:

Easy Elegance Guarantee
1325 Bailey Road
Newport, MN 55055

The Easy Elegance® Series Roses that we carry are:

Paint the Town

Paint the Town
Garden Path Series®

Clusters of red hybrid tea-shaped blooms that carpet this rose from head to foot.Glossy, dark green foliage highlights the flower effect all season long. Even spreading-to-mounded habit is well suited to container gardening.Highly disease-resistant.

Sunrise Sunset

Sunrise Sunset
Garden Path Series®

Stunning blend, with bright fuchsia-pink petals, blending to apricot neat the centers. Blue-green foliage is disease-resistant on this everblooming shrub rose. Its dense, spreading habit makes it an ideal ground cover and is also well suited to mass plantings.
Grandma's Blessing

Grandma's Blessing
Garden Art Series®

Resembles a hybrid tea with large, full, dusty-pink blossoms. This beauty is so sweet it is named after Margaret ‘Grandma’ Bailey. Grandma’s Blessing has a symmetrical, vase-shaped form and dark-green, disease-resistant foliage. Stunning color combines beautifully with many perennials and also makes an elegant low hedge.

Kiss Me

Kiss Me
Garden Art Series®

One of the most fragrant roses in the Easy Elegance Collection. Kiss Me bears clusters of large, double, clear pink blooms, reminiscent of English roses. It flowers all season, and is especially attractive in the perennial border. The highly disease-resistant foliage adds to its appeal as a cut flower.

 

Our Specialties Include:

Rose care tips

Success with your Tagawa grown rose begins with acclimating...your rose to its new home! Plants grown in a greenhouse can experience stress if planted directly into the ground the day the plant is purchased. Instead, acclimate your rose to an area of your yard that receives morning sun and afternoon shade. Leave the rose here for 6-8 days after purchase. Then it can be planted to its new home.

Improve hardiness by planting the graft 3" below the soil line.

Prune newly planted roses to half their original height and water well.

Do not fertilize the rose the first year it is planted. From its second year onward, use a food formulated specifically for roses, such as Mile High Rose Food. Use once a month (or as directed on label) from the time the rose begins active growth to approx. mid-August.

SURE-FIRE SUCCESS WITH ROSE BUSHES

Think about your landscape exposure (i.e. winds and elevation) and ask us which type of rose would perform the best for your conditions.

 

Acclimate roses outdoors for 6-8 days and prune 1/3 -1/2 of their height. Seal pruned canes ¼” and larger with white glue or nail polish to deter cane borers.

 

Dig a hole deep enough to bury the graft of the rose bush by 2-3”.  Mix 1/3 in volume of compost into your dug out soil before replanting to improve absorption, air circulation and root production. Do not make a rose/flower bed with pure topsoil or compost, as this can cause excessive moisture problems.

 

 

Group your roses together so that they are watered more efficiently. A soaker hose snaked among the roses and topped with  3-4” of bark mulch is very beneficial.

 

Bark mulch is great for moisture retention, deterring weeds, cooling and conditioning the soil, but as it breaks down, it robs nitrogen from the soil, a vital plant nutrient. Apply a fertilizer like ‘Mile High Rose Feed’ on a monthly basis through August to counter this.

 

Consider investing in a moisture meter. Pushing aside any mulch, insert the needle of the meter 1-2” in the soil over several areas of the rose /flowerbed to gauge how wet it is. Roses prefer the top 1-2” of soil to be damp to dry between a deep watering.

 

 

Watering Your Roses

Rose bushes usually require 3” of water a week.  This is a general measurement and is difficult to determine if the rose bush is getting too much or not enough water.

Here is a simple watering technique:

Everyone has different soil conditions – clay, sandy or somewhere in between. The hard part is determining how well moisture is being absorbed in your particular landscape and adjusting accordingly.

So, how do you tell if the root ball has been well watered?  A simple test is to take a hand trowel and insert it in the ground near the rose.  Be careful not to injure the roots.  Once you have pushed the trowel into the ground, move it forward and back.  Remove the trowel.  You have now created a wedge opening into the soil.  Put your hand into the opening.  If the soil feels dry to the touch (down to 1-2” deep) and is lighter in color than usual, then water deeply (3-4”).  If it feels cool and moist, hold off for a day or two then check again.

As you do this a few times, notice how many days go by before you must water again. Subtract 1 day from this total and you now a general idea on how often you should water this area. This same technique works for newly planted trees and shrubs.

It is a common instinct to water when it is hot, but remember that plants can wilt when they are drowning and frying if kept too wet too often during the heat!

Don’t water because it is hot, water because the soil is dry.

Add shredded or small chipped mulch to a depth of 3-4”. This aids in moisture retention and reduces the frequency of watering. It also improves the soil environment for good root system development. However, as the mulch breaks down, it may “tie up” or block the available nitrogen in the soil (a growth promoting nutrient). If increasingly yellowing of the new leaf material is noticed AND it is not due to incorrect watering practices, then it can be countered with a fertilizer high in nitrogen and low in phosphate and potassium. Use with caution as too much nitrogen can burn the roots if the concentration is too high for the moisture content of the area.

Alternatives to the mulch are low growing, drought tolerant shrubs and perennial ground covers. Contact your local garden center or county extension office to help you explore you options. Using drip irrigation, a soaker hose or a watering needle helps conserve water by channeling moisture directly to rose roots. If using a drip system or a soaker hose, apply moisture slower than the rate of run off while watering in a series of cycles often enough to moisten the top 4” of soil. Some drip systems can dispense water fairly quickly so observe how long it takes your system to do so and let this be a guide on how long to water the area.

To improve watering efficiency, bury the soaker hose under 3-4” of mulch. A watering needle is another efficient and more direct way to water wisely. Insert the needle no more than 4” into the soil and leave on in one spot for no LONGER than 1 minute in any one spot. Insert in areas outlining the plants branching diameter and apply 2-3 insertions for each rose bush depending upon its size. The plant will tell you when to water again when its youngest leaves show signs of limpness. Roses planted together should be watered as a group, not individually. Using the methods above can allow early evening watering so that moisture lingers in the soil longer to our plants benefit.

Consider incorporating hard working, beautiful roses like ‘Knock Out’, the ‘Morden’ roses or  the ‘Flower carpet’ roses for durability, garden bed filler plants, borders or hedge plantings. After establishment, these and other shrub roses become fabulous, durable plants that come in a great array of colors, sizes and fragrances. Some even offer super fall color and rose hip display.

All photos in this section by Patty Bodwell