How to have beautiful roses and flower arrangements too

A cheap natural trick for beautiful roses:  flatten a banana peel and bury it approximately 1 inch deep at the base of each rose bush. Bananas contain Potassium and roses love potassium. Potassium also helps with disease resistance too - for roses as well as humans :-)

A few tips for keeping fresh flowers such as roses and other blooms fresh longer in arrangements:

* Remove any leaves that would be under the water, But don't remove the thorns from rose stems. This seems to shorten the life of their blooms,. Most florists remove the thorns for safety reasons but you can leave them on the ones you bring in from your own garden. 

*Lukewarm water is best for most cut flowers, but use Cold water for flowers that grew from bulbs like daffodils, Tulips, etc.

  *Do not place fruit near your cut flowers.  Fruit releases natural gas that will cause your flowers to die or wilt sooner. 

  *Keep your arrangement away from direct sunlight too.

 Here is a recipe for homemade flower bloom preservative:

2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice to 1 qt water, 1 Tablespoon Sugar & 1/2 teas bleach, 1 aspirin and a penny - yes, a penny! It's the copper. Drop a penny in a vase of tulips to keep the flowers from opening too soon. 

Make Bath Salts from Your Rose Petals

 

 

 

May and June are the months that our roses are at their peak of bloom. I always hate to see all those beautiful fragrant petals go to waste. How timely it was for me to receive this recipe for Rose petal bath salts in the mail today. I'll pass it along to you as well as my recipe for rose petal potpourri.

 

For bath salts you will need to mix  1/2 cup each Epsom Salt and sea salt with one tablespoon rose petals (or more if you like) and two drops of rose oil or lavender oil - optional but it will smell yummy. Add all this to a big tub of warm water for a relaxing soak. I'm going to make four times this recipe and store in a container. That way I'll have plenty for long tub soaks after a day of working in the garden. 

Rose and Lavender Potpourri

For a pretty as well as fragrant potpourri, use two cups dried rose petals, 2 cups dried lavender (leaves and flowers) and one tablespoon Orris Root powder. The Orris Root fixes the fragrance so it doesn't fade away as quickly. Mix all ingredients together in a glass or stainless steel bowl and store for a few days in a container with a tight fitting lid until all fragrances are blended. Put into a pretty bowl or make little sheer bags of it to place in closets or give to friends, Hint: dry your rose petals and lavender together in an open container to blend the fragrance even more.

WARNING FOR ALL ROSE GARDENS!

Rose Rosetta is a nasty virus that is spreading across the Midwest, South, East and parts of Canada. It spreads from infected wild roses to cultivated roses and Knock Out Roses seem to be getting it too.

The sad part is there is no known cure or preventative yet. I had to dig up and burn my old heirloom white ground cover rose! I am praying it does not spread to my Peggy Martin Rose (left). I propagate and sell that one in my little backyard nursery, Mimi's Greenhouse



The picture at the top of this post is the weird growth habbit that was a dead givaway for me when I saw it on my rose. If you see this growth on any of your roses you probably have it. Rose Rosetta spreads via the wind. A tiny mite no bigger than the end of a pencil lead is the carrier. Please read this PDF by Ann Peck, a renounded Rose Specialist from Tennessee about this disease.

Let's be viligant and not spread this to our other roses or our neighbors plants either. Here in Tennessee we are at a definate disadvantage because of the wild mulit-flora roses that grow in pastures and fallow farm land all around us. If you, like me, cultivated one of those wild roses, it's time to get rid of it! If you can burn it after digging it up do so. If that is not permitted where you live, wrap it in several layers of paper or plastic and dispose of it. Do not bury it or compost it - this will only spread the virus.

Please pass this information on to any of your friends who may be growing roses in their yards and gardens.

How To Propagate Roses From Cuttings

Even if you don't have a greenhouse, you can easily propagate roses from stem cuttings. Now is the time to do it. The picture above shows a Peggy Martin heirloom rose cutting happily blooming in the propagation bed. I stuck this cutting in September and it has been blooming now for a month! Today I will pot all the roses up into gallon containers and grow them in the greenhouse until spring.

In next weeks post I will give instructions for making a grow box for rooting all sorts of plants as well as roses. It's simple, cheap and no need for a greenhouse. This is how I grew the roses above and here's a sneak peek at the rest.

Today I have a video from one of my Backyard Growers Forum members that is so easy you will not believe it! I started my new rose cuttings this week (January 2nd) and I have the bundle dated to check for roots on February 20th. No sand, no box - just newspaper and plastic grocery bags!
 you will love this tip!

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