In San Francisco, January is the time of year for planting and pruning roses. The rainy season weather is cool but not freezing, happily wet -- a period of growth and renewal for plants.
I stripped all my roses in late December and have started merrily snipping away this week-end. Given the wet weather that never gets much below 40, the roses never go completely dormant. So, in the last three weeks most of my roses have started throwing out some new leaves and growth. Makes finding those outward facing eyes pretty easy!
My new rose work consists of some english type roses from Heritage, a floribunda and hybrid tea from Edmunds, and, from Wayside Gardens, a David Austin and a shrub rose. It's really interesting to see the product differences among these nurseries.
Heritage believes in shipping 1 year old babies on their own root-stock, shipped in tiny pots. So, you get a small, thin, leafy, non-dormant roses, ready to be planted. I put these in large pots (half-barrels actually) and they are doing well.
Wayside ships two year olds, some on their on root-stock, some not (mostly hybrid teas). They ship out bare-root plants that have healthy root-stock, and stout, small canes up to about 6 inches long. I have gotten inconsistent quality from them -- some of the plants are very solid and well structured, and others have been oddly shaped.
I just received my plants from Edmunds and was very impressed. They ship very large two year old plants as bare-root stock. The root structure was extremely well-established, and the canes were many, thick (maybe up to a 1/2 inch!) and around a foot long. These were the most impressive bare-root plants I've ever received. Planted them yesterday, so we'll see how they do. One thing -- you pay for this quality -- these are the most expensive roses I've bought, about $17 each.
Next week-end I'll finish my pruning.
Posted by rich at January 19, 2003 10:01 AM