Hello Dear Rose Friends,
We’re getting there … huge numbers of parcels have been dispatched this past week. When lockdown occurs, I am privileged to have all our assistants available to work here as they cannot attend their regular jobs. We had lots of fun packing hundreds of rose parcels this past weekend!
Meet Our Dedicated Team
This is our ‘team’ whom we sincerely thank for their continued dedication and assistance in our business. In alphabetical order:
- Albert, my brother, collects his parcel-filled horse-float at 7am and drives to Wandong PO where your parcels of roses are lodged.
- Ben, our son covers for us and knows every aspect of our business; he’s cheerful, helpful and loves roses too!
- Brett comes once a fortnight with his power tools to trim and saw; he keeps our place looking neat.
- Cooper, 11-year-old grandson is the best customer relations, story-telling guy you could ever wish to meet and he’s amazing at stacking roses in cars!
- Dee is a paramedic in her ‘real job’ (cheerfully and diligently works with us seasonally).
- Janelle, our close neighbor, loves the phone! (Well, we hand it to her every Monday and Friday. When she takes it home and has to come back with it, we assume she really loves it and we’ve given thought to have it diverted to her permanently).
- Logan, nearly 14-year-old grandson is saving up for something special, so has done his first ‘official’ three-hour stints of tagging roses and sticking posting labels on your parcel.
- Lou is our all-rounder, Mr. Fix-It and a friendly helper; also a vital person in our Clonbinane community.
- Stacey, our niece is a dentist who loves to work with us when she can’t work due to Covid-19 and she’s a gun-rose-wrapper and tech-whizz if/when things don’t go quite right!
- Mooi, guard dog, friendly greeter, great-for-a-cuddle toy poodle who puts a smile on everybody’s face and makes your visit special.
Then of course, there’s us, Graham and Diana. We’ve been sharing the joy of rose growing for more than 35 years and despite the challenges of this winter, we’re happy to be here and offering great quality roses for you to plant in your gardens around Australia.
Since we’re just past the middle of winter, there’s still plenty of time to plant bare-rooted roses and with lockdown extended here in Victoria, we’ll be working every day except Tuesday with our beautiful team.
Standard roses are still in the ground. It's way too wet to get heavy machinery onto the soil for under-cutting. The last thing we want now is a shortage of standard roses due to damage when lifting!
Important reminder regarding standard roses
Due to extreme weather conditions, no standard rose orders will be delivered before mid to late August.
Our local weather report indicates that for June 2020, we recorded 47.5mls of rain and this year, June 2021 on the 14 days when rain was recorded, we received 177.5mls. To say it’s wet is an understatement!
We are sodden and I keep buying bales of wood shavings to keep paths in the heel-in beds covered. We were sinking over our gumboots but are now more able to safely access the area.
Obviously, with lockdown, the public cannot come to visit Silkies Rose Farm – just as well really because it’s very soggy over the entire garden! Spring will be sensational due to all this magnificent moisture!
Clarification of our organic rose management program:
"Hey Silkies, Just got a bareroot rose from you and since I am totally a green hand in planting roses, I have a question about the products for pest control mentioned in your catalogue. When I was trying to buy them in Bunnings, I was confused about which ones I should get?
Are Eco fungicide and oil the concentrated ones or those "ready to use" spray bottles? Also, can I use the Seasol concentrate instead of the Eco-seaweed powder? Sorry about these silly questions! I really don't wanna ruin the beautiful rose! Thanks heaps! Sarah"
Firstly, let me say to all of you – if you don’t know the answer to a question about roses, it can never be a silly question and I’m happy when you reach out to me if you need to know something because I am confident to share my knowledge and experiences in growing using organic, biodynamic and sustainable practices!
JOKE THIS WEEK:
I bought a book titled ‘A Guide to Surgical Procedures’ … I opened it up and the appendix was missing …?
We’re really pleased that the Eco-range of products is now more readily available and yes, there are Ready-To-Use spray units of Eco-Fungicide and Eco-Oil which are possibly ideal if you have just one or two roses.
However, if you have more than a few roses, we definitely recommend you purchase a quality spray unit (there are many renowned brands in all shapes and sizes) and keep this unit exclusively for rose management as it must NEVER be used for herbicides!
Yes, you can use any of the popular brands of seaweed. We recommend Eco-seaweed powder because it’s very highly concentrated with just a teaspoon (5g) used for a 9 litre watering can. A 600g pack goes a long, long way. In case you don’t have the Organic Rose Management Program handy, here is a quick reference for you.
TO 10 LITRES OF WATER ADD:
- Seaweed product (5g Eco Seaweed Powder)
- ¼ cup Eco-oil insecticide (also sticker/spreader)
- ¼ cup Eco-fungicide powder
Vigorously shake to mix all products well and spray or pour over roses to run-off at least once a month.
Start this program as soon as you’ve winter pruned your roses. That way, you’re protecting the roses from possible fungus and insect attacks BEFORE any possible issues arise when foliage emerges in spring.
We hope you’re dry, sunny and warm in your part of the world and you’re out enjoying pruning your roses this winter. So glad we pruned early this year because treading around our sodden garden right now would not be good for the soil. Consider the soil by placing ‘biscuits’ of straw/hay under your steps when working in these wet conditions.
Sending you all a warm smile from cold, soggy Clonbinane. Gra, Diana, Mooi and the chickens!