If I didn’t already have plans this weekend, I would be dragging my family to the 7th Annual Garden Festival of Roses at the Antique Rose Emporium in San Antonio. By the way, it was from the owner Mike Shoup’s rose book, Landscaping with Antique Roses (no longer in print) where I (re)discovered my passion for roses and learned how to propagate and double my collection. He will also be teaching the art of propagating at this event – Saturday at 10am. The Festival is a kid-friendly event.

I just love that we can have blooming roses in the Fall! It makes the record high summer heat followed by unusually wet month followed by lots of bugs and insect bites worthwhile, I guess. Here are my two favorite pinks: the lighter ones are Baronne Henriette de Snoy and the slightly darker pink with pointed petals is Belinda’s Dream (lower left). Now that it has cooled off (hopefully for good), it is the perfect time to propagate roses.

Roses have a bad reputation for being difficult to grow and maintain. This may be true for modern roses that you often see at the floral shop. The plants that those long stem roses come from weren’t bred to look good in the garden. They were bred to, well, have long stems with a particular flower shape and look good at the florist. When you choose varieties that are appropriate for your area as Mother Nature would, antique roses are very easy to maintain. And being evergreen, they reward you with year-round beauty.

As previously mentioned in my family perennial garden blog post, a perennial/herb garden is a great plan to start with as it is also very low maintenance. The hardest part was creating the initial garden layout – removing the bermuda grass, digging up the rocks, creating the beds and filling it with new dirt, installing the drip irrigation, and laying the path with decomposed granite. Thereafter, my yearly maintenance calendar looked like this:

• January: mulch the beds
• mid-February: prune
• March: fertilize
• September: deadhead and fertilize though I don’t always do this every year

Of course, I weed throughout the year. It’s not that much of a chore since it’s kind of a family affair and the kids love hanging out in the garden. For the fertilizer, I use the Ladybug Brand John’s Recipe spray along with a small amount of dirt from our compost. I also add about 2 cups of coffee grounds per rose plant since they prefer a slightly more acidic soil. You can get used coffee grounds for free at Starbucks.

For the first two years, I did spray the roses with a mixture of 1 tbsp Ivory liquid soap to 1 gallon of water. Planting herbs along with the roses help deter the aphids and other pesky bugs and I haven’t sprayed since.

The following 3 books are very useful sources for growing roses:

• Landscaping With Antique Roses (”Fine Gardening” Books)
• The Organic Rose Garden
• Roses in the Southern Garden

If you’ve ever wanted to grow roses but were put off by the work involved, I hope you give antique roses a try this year. For inspiration, visit the Antique Rose Emporium. April in Central Texas is a great time for roses. This year has been especially good given the northern Pacific-like weather and absence of many pests that seem to plague the springtime blooms!

Rooting cuttings is my favorite way to increase my plant collection. Some plants, like roses, are just hard to propagate any other way. Propagation by cuttings is very easy and requires little effort. You just have to be patient and wait for your cuttings to root…

Step 1:
Take a cutting from a healthy, sturdy, leafy cane. Choose ones with lots of rose buds (if propagating in the Spring) or lots of spent buds (if propagating in the Fall). Deadhead or nip off the buds and soft tips. Cut the bottom to just below a leaf node.

Step 2:
Rip off the leaves on the lowest node or two. Using a serrated knife, strip off the outer layers off the bottom inch.

Seedlings and cuttings in alternating spots

Step 3:
Stick it in your propagation bed, along with your seedlings. Same light and temperature conditions. Your cuttings will form roots in two months or less. I don’t use rooting hormones. I just use a mix of half perlite-half potting soil for all my plant propagation needs. If they don’t survive, they don’t belong in my garden. When it comes to plants in my perennial garden, it’s all about survival of the fittest. And ease.

Tips:
• Take lots of cuttings per plant. About 66% of mine make it in my standard propagation medium.
• In central Texas, the best time for rooting cuttings is in November. Second best time is right now, March.
• Be patient.