my gardening archive: rosa

order: rosales
family: rosaceae
genus: rosa
species: chinensis + multiflora
cultivar: "Café"

First Story

24 May 2016

This wonderful brownish peach/apricot-colour rose is a gift that I got to pick for myself 3 years ago. Although its scent is not as magnificent as some of my other roses, its unusual colour was reason enough for me to decide to take it. This is a remontant polyantha rose hybrid that was bred by Reimer Kordes in 1956. Its parents are R. 'Golden glow' x R. kordesii and R. 'Lavender Pinocchio'. Flowers are fully double with very soft petals. They remind me of vintage lacy dresses of a fine lady such as this one.

I planted it in the sunniest spot of our garden where we are trying to establish a rose bed to complement our 90-year-old neighbours' aged modern roses across the street. If it were a competition, our roses would lose in many different levels. Level one: our young plants will first need years to establish before they can look anything as robust as our neighbours' roses. Level two: when I see how disease resistant our neighbours' roses are while ours habitually get spotted leaves, I think the general health of our roses should definitely improve. It might be the advantage of the modern genes or their lawnless garden which is simply more hygienic for growing roses. Level three: those modern roses easily last twice as long as our historical roses. Although, our roses do win on the level of fragrance which seems to be absent with those modern roses. And though our roses are not as vibrant as those modern roses, I love them for their more natural appearance.

order: rosales

family: rosaceae

genus: rosa
species: ?
variety: ?

I got this mini rose from a DIY chain in November 2011. It was put on a bargain cart along with other withering plants. Instead of the usual price of 2,50 eur, I only paid 50 cents.

Since this is my very first rose, I had absolutely no idea what I should do to make him happy. I did a long research online but couldn't come to a conclusion from the vastly disputed opinions. Some people were very skeptical of its survival. Some say that roses won't thrive indoor and suggest to plant them out in garden. At this time of year, all the plants usually go to sleep outside while the days become shorter. I didn't think the roses were going to withstand the cold, so I decided to keep it indoor on the south-facing window sill and planned to postpone its winter dormancy.

First I took the plant out of the plastic pot with 6-cm diameter, replanted them into a slightly larger pot with their rootball untouched. Then I proceeded to trim off the deseased leaves. Afterwards, the plant did look happy and healthy. This is what it looked like:

roses newly transplanted into a slightly bigger pot.

I've been keeping my roses between 16 and 21 °C, cooler at night than day, which is recommended by an article I found over the internet. It also recommends humidity between 40% and 60% with air circulation. One mistake I did was misting the plant when the sun was shining brightly. As a result, the flower and flower buds got burnt and had to be pruned. I haven't misted them since. And even when I water, I avoid getting the leaves wet.
One week after having them, I finally seperated the 3 roses. I spent hours removing the soil from the rootball very carefully until each of them was barerooted, gave each of them a root cut, one third off the total length of each root system, including the taproot. Each is planted into their separate pot in a mix of regular soil and pumice.

Months have passed. They seem to have liked the way i handled them. After they were deadheaded and repotted, these tiny roses have grown bushy. One of them is giving me a new bloom now. I took a picture with the three of them together. If you compare with the previous photo, you can see how much they have grown.

separated roses. from left to right: number 1, 2 & 3.

One thing I noticed is that they don't seem to mind the heater underneath the window sill. Of course they don't get full blast from the hot air current. As a rule, I try not to let my plants be exposed to it. I just hold my hand over the heater unit next to the leaves, and if the air feels cool, then it's okay. Otherwise, I place a wider board underneath the pots.

>Observation
The leaves are alternate, each oddly pinnate, usually having 5 serrulated leaflets, sometimes 3, seldom only one at tip.
New growth is red in colour which slowly fades away and leaves behind its green.

>Info
Wikipedia says: "Miniature roses are often marketed and sold by the floral industry as houseplants, but it is important to remember that these plants are largely descended from outdoor shrubs native to temperate regions; thus, most miniature rose varieties require an annual period of cold dormancy to survive."

>>Update: