Planting, Feeding and General Care 
WRITTEN WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION TO 
ROSES for the SOUTHLAND 
After a lifetime spent in the growing and marketing of 
roses I have become convinced that without a doubt the 
people who love and grow them in their own gardens 
are among the most opinionated in all the world. Each 
successful grower will tell you (without too much urg- 
ing) that his method is the right way, while another 
grower who is just as successful will tell you to use an 
entirely different procedure. Perhaps the greatest pleas- 
ure you will get out of having a beautiful rose garden 
will be to listen to all the so-called experts, and then 
find by experimenting in a trial and error process that 
you can develop growing methods that are superior 
to all those you have heard of—the exact culture that 
fits your own garden. 
So if, after reading these cultural suggestion, you find 
they do not agree with your own experience, take what 
hints you find useful, and with the knowledge borne of 
years of labor in your own garden, discard the rest. 
Selecting a Location 
Roses grow best in full sun, but will give very satistfac- 
tory results if they receive no more than half a day of 
sunlight, particularly if they receive that half day dur- 
ing the morning hours. Choose your location so far as 
possible to avoid undue competition with shrub and tree 
roots. 
Preparation of the Soil 
If your intentions were honorable but your nice, new 
tose bushes arrived before you could put them into 
effect, then you need a quick but good way to prepare 
the soil for planting before the bushes dry out. I'd sug 
gest this as a good method: 
Dig a good sized hole, about 15 inches deep and 18 
inches wide. If you are planting hybrid tea roses allow 
a minimum of 30 inches between plants; if you are 
making a hedge of floribundas, particularly the lower 
growing types, then dig a trench instead of individual 
holes and space the plants only a foot to 18 inches 
apart. 
In the bottom of the hole place a 6 inch layer of a 
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fitty-fifty mixture of dairy manure and peat moss. If 
your soil is of a heavy clay type, I suggest that you mix 
one-third woods earth or high grade top soil to two- 
thirds of your own clay soil before returning it to the 
hole. In addition, I find it good practice and a long 
term benefit to add one to two pounds of bone meal 
to this mixture of soil. Do not use any commercial fer 
tilizers at this stage. Bone meal will not injure the plants, 
but regular commercial fertilizers will burn them when 
used at planting time. Wait until the plant is well estab- 
lished (the Spring following planting when active growth 
is starting is a good time) before using this type of fer- 
tilizer. 
If you were foresighted enough to have your soil prep- 
aration all completed before the rose bushes arrived, 
then you might follow a program like this one: 
I like formal, straight beds for my roses, and | plan 
them according to the number of bushes to be set out. 
For instances, a bed 42 feet wide by 20 feet long will 
hold twenty roses. To prepare the bed I dig out all the 
soil to a depth of 15 or 16 inches. Then, as in the case 
of planting roses in individual holes, I put in a layer 
over-all of mixed dairy manure and peat moss, mixed 
half and half, to a depth of six inches. If the garden soil 
is heavy clay, I mix it thoroughly, 2 parts garden soil 
and one part woods soil, leaf mold or good top soil 
before returning it to the bed. If you have a compost 
pile this is the very spot to use it instead of the woods 
soil, but be sure your compost is well rotted. 
The rose bed looks better with a border around it, and 
this border when made of brick or stone in the form 
of a low edging or retaining wall serves two additional 
and useful purposes. It keeps grass from spreading 
from the lawn into the rose bed, and it serves to hold 
the surface mulch (discussed later) from washing away. 
Handling Bare Root Roses 
We pack our roses to the very best of our ability and 
use the most modern methods to insure their safe, un- 
damaged arrival in your hands. But this packing is at 
best a temporary protection to keep the plants in good 
SHADED 
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