Growing Rose - First 90 days - Part 3

by Richard Chew

Purpose of this posting is to share my thoughts to understand the growth condition of young rose plants that you purchase from the nursery.

I learned that rose nurseries employ very innovative methods to accelerate the growth rate of their roses. Basically the bottomline is to make money and make more money. Through these methods they managed to reduce man power in applying fertilizer, reduce fertilizing cost while achieving faster growth rate and bigger and profuse blooms.

They are so good at this that they successfully grow bushier shrub with profuse blooms ready to be sold to customers within shorter growing time. However if you examine the stems, they are still at infant stage, and I also suspect the roots are at infant stage too. I don't mean to insinuate these nurseries, but I feel it is necessary to know this so that we know what needs to be done to achieve higher chances of success in the first 90 days.

This is also the reason why the popular ones, faster moving ones, have lower chances of success when it is sold, because it has to overcome the 'shock' to adapt new growing environment.

To increase your chances of success, I suggest that you choose roses with stronger and healthier stems in your purchase. Sometimes when looking for best bargain, a difference of RM2 or RM10 makes a lot of difference. I would go for the one with the stronger and healthier stems. I don't mind paying for more.

Just for the purpose of illustration, it may not be accurate, the stem thickness difference of 5mm, could equal to 2 months growth period.

If you have already purchased a rose plant, don't judge its growth strength and health level simply by its flower blooms and leaves. And also don't assume that the roots are strong enough. I feel it is always safer to assume worse case.

Now that you know what to look out for good sign of growth and what to expect from your newly purchased young rose plant, next I will share what we can do to increase chances of success.



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read next posting at http://rosegrowing.blogspot.com/2009/05/growing-rose-first-90-days-part-4.html