Is anyone else implementing regenerative practices in their rose growing? Looking to connect with others who are staying away from synthetic/toxic sprays, and are perhaps using all natural inputs such as those used in Biodynamics, Korean Natural Farming, or other regenerative practices.
I’ve never heard of anyone else using KNF remedies for roses, but I’ve been starting to experiment last year with peonies, roses, and dahlias - and was astounded to see very low mildew pressure with regular LAB application.
Would love to hear what other people are doing in terms of regenerative inputs and techniques! I’m ‘brewing’ a batch of water soluble calcium and looking to make other inputs this year.
I guess I’m fortunate. I have only spider mites for insect issues and I take care of them with a water wand. If mildew rears its ugly head, I increase the water and it often goes away. The same for early season rust. Most often, both of those are triggered by water stress and increased water alleviates the issues. For the very few which haven’t and for all of the “spotters”, no matter what the fungus responsible, I use “iron”…they get shovel pruned and go away. I won’t spray, period. My roses share the yard with three dogs and if I were to poison them with something I used for gardening, it would kill me. I use only water soluble fertilizers, WHEN I fertilize, because dogs are stupid. They will eat ANY and EVERYTHING. We’re nine miles from the Pacific Ocean, across agricultural fields, so the area is fairly flat between here and the beach. The wind is CONSTANT. It dries out the air during the day. 150+ years ago when farmers first settled the area, they complained about the endless sand, continuous wind and legions of spider mites. NOTHING has changed. If I encounter an issue with the roses that water won’t cure, the rose goes away.
stopped spraying a decade and half ago for aphids to avoid attack of green flies hordes come early fall … lady bugs / larve exploded and meadow larks, sparrows et al did the rest for controlling aphids. interesting watching them jump up from ground to pluck aphids and other bugs off underside of leaves though find sometimes late season growth will have new soft shoots occasionally smothered in aphids … don’t use water as hoses awkward in garden … run fingers along shoots to top to great personal satisfaction and staining off nicotine color
fungus never last long and in past never found anything that worked to my instant gratification satisfaction. getting high on dimethoate spraying for “miner” put an end to its use. only exceptions have been for oyster shell invasive infection on cotoneaster not natural here - imported ( but only once in 25 years.
don’t buy into raking away leaves prunings and general garden detritus. raked and sent to once pass through shredder with discharge into beds ( natural compositing instead of one that requires turning work).
IMO there’s a lot more “addiction to spraying” among certain old-school rose growers than among rose hybridizers. After all if you want to breed disease-resistant roses, it’s counterproductive to spray them. On the contrary, I read a few posts on this forum about how some hybridizers made a “blackspot tea” from infected leaves to spray that on their seedlings in order to test for resistance!
Over here in the EU, the legislation on garden chemicals has been evolving for a long time, so most of the nastiest sprays are just not available, and more and more gardeners just don’t want to spray anyway.
Personally, I don’t use insecticides at all. The foliage is regularly eaten by grasshoppers and carpenter bees, but I would never do anything about those. I manually remove sawfly larvae and mealybugs. Aphids get blasted off with water, or if it’s really bad on a young seedling, I use diluted nettle extract.
I live in a low blackspot pressure area thanks to the nearby Etna volcano wafting SO² clouds towards us regularly, so that’s not really an issue. A couple of times I’ve had newly acquired roses that had BS on arrival, I remove the leaves and spray once or twice with sulfur, if the BS persists I throw out the rose. As for powdery mildew, I follow the same as stated by Roseseek above: either more water solves it or the rose goes away.
I refuse systemic sprays and do not consider them to be finally effective, as the various pests and fungi quickly develop resistances. That’s why the products have to be changed frequently and only help for a short time. A vicious circle. The three previous speakers have already mentioned other reasons that point against the use. Sometimes a high nitrogen concentration can be the cause of an infestation. If not, the problem usually lies deeper, in the genetic structure of the plant or much more often in the growing conditions, the microclimate, which is simply not suitable. That’s why I follow the rule that a rose with lighter infestation that doesn’t disappear with a possible change of place, some harmless aids like more water application or simply organic products as already mentioned under this topic, has to go. Severley attacked plants are selected in advance. This applies in particular to my own breeded varieties, but also to all other bought-in cultivars.
If a rose gets sick, it is usually because the environment it’s in isn’t suitable. I’ll usually try to improve conditions (mulching, some clipping for more air circulation or fertilizing if it looks weak) and otherwise it dies and it wasn’t a good enough rose.
Aphids I battle with a well aimed cold water spray and collecting predators and putting them near the dish. There’s one I particularly like, larvae of hoverflies. They look a bit like green or pale caterpillars of leafwasps, but they’re verocious. You’d easily squash them thinking they’re caterpillars.
I also put garlic near my roses to deter ants that bring their aphid cattle on my roses, but that doesn’t really work.
I do not use chemicals outside. But I’ve once used some leftover rosespray I got from an acquaintance, in my greenhouse to contain a pest. Not much, well aimed.
Fungus is a natural selector. Roses that can cope with them are the good ones. The rest goes in my compost heap. I do not really care it the diseased material would infect more roses via my compost. Eventually every rose will come in to contact with fungus.
Sometimes ‘Natural’ does not mean safe. I used to use colchicine- very toxic but natural. Now I use treflan much safer but much less toxic to amimals. Breeding is the solution.
I haven’t used sprays for 20 years, just select for health. Have tried a few crosses lately using a Baby Love seedling for hips and a few Tea’s for pollen hoping to get excellent health. Looking to find a triploid Tea among the Tea’s I’m using.
