Edition 22ND MAY 2025

23rd May 2025

HELLO DEAR ROSE FRIENDS ...

There’s lots of speculation about when it’s going to rain but meantime, we’ve got the bore pumping and watering at least 10,000 litres around the rose gardens every couple of days and sometimes, we leave it on overnight for deep-soaking our precious 40+ year-old trees which form the intrinsic core of our magnificent gardens!

Apparently, we’re going to have a sopping wet winter … bring it on!

If only we gardeners had control over the weather – we’d share our clear, cloudless skies with those of you who long to see the sun after months of cloudy, grey skies … importantly, we’d even out the water for our gardens and all be contented!

When folks alight from their vehicles in our car-park you can see their delight – we still have flowers and we have the most healthy roses! Yes, they’re all potted specimens but honestly, we feed them regularly with both pellet fertiliser and in between, they’re treated to pot drenches of Fair Dinkum Seaweed Gold and Bloom Boom along with a range of commercial organic foliage fertilisers to stimulate healthy growth which means we have lots of flowers too – despite the overnight frosts!

By the end of May, we will have dispersed most of our potted stock from this season but we’ll have a complete and more comprehensive list of new-seasons potted roses later in July available at www.rosesalesonline.com.au so don’t despair and perhaps be glad, in these current weather conditions that you can’t get bare-rooted roses from us for winter planting but you’ll get potted roses again soon.

If there is a particular rose you would like us to post, please don’t hesitate to email us info@rosesalesonline.com.au and we’ll attend to your order as we have access to potted roses from another supplier but whilst we’re building our new website, we won’t be supplying bare-rooted roses this winter – sorry!

Have a giggle

Q: What has three eyes and one leg?
A: Traffic lights!

POTTED ‘GRIMALDI’ ROSE PRODUCING NO WATER-SHOOTS …

This email from Janet …

Good afternoon, I refer to the above variety of rose. I purchased two of these particular roses last year from Silkies and placed them in pots. One is doing very well however the other rose is growing lopsided due to no branches forming on one side. My query is if there is a way to remedy this problem. I do hope it is just a matter of a specific pruning method in this coming winter.

I look forward to your reply. Thanking you.

Kind regards – Janet

MY RESPONSE:

Hi Janet …

Is the rose perhaps reaching for the sun??? It appears a bit shaded when you took this photo? Also, you can do corrective pruning by pruning the rose really hard (take cuttings of the wood you harvest!) and if you give it a good feed, you’ll see new watershoots developing all around the crown (bud union) …

There will still be an issue if the plant is reaching for the sun! Check that and happy pruning soon – oh, and because the roses are in pots, I hope you’re giving them liquid seaweed and fertiliser every couple of weeks!

Cheers … enjoy!

TO WHICH JANET RESPONDED …

Thank you so much for such good advice. I shall give them some extra care and move them too. At this time of year it is shady where they are placed and the feeding has been a bit sporadic too.

Thank you again. All the best for another rose season.

Kind regards … Janet

Have another giggle

Q: How many sides does a circle have?
A: Two – one on the inside and one on the outside!

Hope you enjoy a lovely week in your garden – talk to you again next week …

Cheers from us – Graham, Diana and Mooi