What are the latest cultivation methods for potted Chinese roses?
The Chinese rose is a major ornamental flower in spring, with a long flowering period, high ornamental value and a low price. It is loved by gardens everywhere and can be used for garden flower beds, flower borders and courtyard cut flowers, and can be made into Chinese rose bonsai. Today, the editor will introduce to you how to grow potted Chinese roses!
How to make potted Chinese roses
1. Collecting the stock: Every spring, go to hillsides and ditch edges to dig up wild rose stocks with unusual shapes and naturally tapering tips. After the stock is brought back, cut the roots and trunk into place as much as possible, and plant them in plain sandy soil mixed with a little sawdust. Both pot planting and ground planting are fine. Wrap the whole stock in a plastic bag. After new shoots grow 3-5cm, choose a rainy day to remove the plastic bag, then spray water on the stems and leaves every morning and evening to ensure survival. In August, fertilization can begin, once every half month, with cake fertilizer water being best. For branches with natural transitions, prune in the second spring and strengthen management. Wait until the new branches of that year grow to a certain thickness, then grafting can begin. Individual ones that need to build up trunk thickness can continue to be grown on.
2. Grafting: For Chinese rose bonsai grafting, bud grafting is preferable. Its features are simple operation and a long grafting period. Bud grafting can be done from May to September, with a high survival rate. For those that do not survive grafting, grafting can be repeated at the original site. You can choose the color and variety of Chinese rose to graft according to personal preference. Grafting Chinese roses is not difficult, but to achieve a relatively high survival rate, three steps must be mastered.
① Selecting buds: The grafting bud must be taken from a healthy branch, and it is best to wait until it is about to begin sprouting. It is best to cut off the flowers, fertilize, and grow it on for a week, then take buds for grafting when the buds begin to swell.
② Taking buds: For common Chinese roses, use the bark-peeling bud-taking method. Miniature Chinese rose branches are thin, and taking buds by the traditional method is not easy. First cut the bud-bearing branch into nearly 2cm lengths, make slanted cuts from the middle section of the back of the bud toward both ends, then peel the bark layer from the lower end of the bud, slowly separating the bark layer from the xylem. Be very careful to protect the vascular bundles inside the bud piece. After the bud is removed, according to the height of the cut on the rootstock, cut both ends of the bud piece flat, gently place it into the cut on the rootstock, and press it tightly against the rootstock xylem. Wrap it tightly with a plastic strip, exposing the bud eye.
③ Moisture retention: After grafting and wrapping are completed, if conditions allow, the grafted Chinese rose bonsai can be placed in a plastic greenhouse for care. You can also use the method of covering a single branch with a plastic bag, so it is fine to place it directly in the natural environment for care. After 7-10 days, the plastic cover bag can be removed and the binding loosened. Re-graft as needed depending on survival.
Daily care of potted Chinese roses
1. Light: If you want Chinese roses to keep blooming, you need to give them long hours of light. Only under full sun can Chinese roses grow robustly. For potted Chinese roses, apart from needing appropriate shading during high summer temperatures, they can receive all-day light at other times.
2. Watering: Chinese roses like a moist and warm environment, but can also tolerate a certain degree of drought. Usually, water according to the principle of watering thoroughly when dry. In summer, watering time is best chosen in the morning, while in winter it should be at noon when the temperature is higher. In addition, potted Chinese roses are not tolerant of high temperatures. When the ambient temperature is high, spraying water can be used to lower the temperature, so as to avoid leaves being scorched.
3. Fertilizing: Chinese roses like fertilizer. To ensure flowers are seen throughout the flowering period, fertilizer water needs to be applied continuously. In spring, when the plant sprouts new shoots, some decomposed cake fertilizer water, bean dregs fertilizer, etc. can be applied. When entering the flowering period and the flower buds gradually grow, apply one more time a dilute fertilizer water. After that, during the flowering period, timely and appropriate additional fertilizer water should be applied each month according to the plant's growth, to promptly replenish the nutrients consumed during flowering.
4. Repotting: Chinese roses grow relatively fast, so nutrients are consumed quickly. Every year in spring, change the soil and repot. When changing the soil, add an appropriate amount of organic fertilizer to the potting soil as base fertilizer, to provide the nutrients needed during the growing period.
How should potted Chinese roses be pruned?
How should potted Chinese roses be pruned? The key points to pay attention to when pruning Chinese roses are: bud thinning before flowering, and branch cutting after flowering. Next, the editor will introduce to you how to prune potted Chinese roses!
1. Bud thinning before flowering: Potted Chinese roses should not keep too many buds. At the beginning, keep 2-3 buds on each branch. When the new buds grow to 3-4 cm, generally keep one flower bud on ordinary branches, and thick branches can also keep 1-2 more buds, so that nutrients are concentrated and the flowers of this flush bloom large and bright. The whole pot of Chinese roses can only keep 4-6 flower buds, and they must also be evenly distributed. All other new buds should be removed.
2. Branch cutting after flowering: After each flush of flowers finishes, the flowering branch should promptly be cut back to 3-5 leaves from the base. The cutting position should be about 1 cm above an outward-growing leaf bud. At the same time, remove diseased branches, dead branches, side branches and inward-growing branches, so that nutrients are concentrated and strong new branches are promoted. In this way, the potted Chinese rose plant shape will be compact and flowering will also be concentrated.
How should potted Chinese roses overwinter?
The Chinese rose is a common variety for home flower growing. It has relatively strong cold tolerance, so in the south it can generally overwinter outdoors in the open ground, but in the north, cold protection measures should be taken to ensure the plant overwinters safely. Otherwise, the branches may be frozen and damaged, or even the whole plant may freeze to death. Next, let us look at how potted Chinese roses should overwinter!
1. For overwintering, Chinese roses can be stored in a cold room for winter storage, so that they enter dormancy and grow robustly the following spring. Before bringing them indoors, prune first, clean the pot surface, spray with limewater to eliminate insects and prevent disease, and bring them indoors before the potting soil freezes solid. During winter storage, water to prevent drying out from wind. A room temperature of around 0°C is safest. When it is too cold, seal them tightly with soil. When early spring gradually warms, open them for ventilation to prevent yellow buds from occurring and affecting normal development.
2. They can be placed in a warm room for winter growing. After pruning, place them outdoors to freeze for a period first, bring them indoors at the end of November, first place them in a low-temperature place to slowly thaw, then move them to a place around 10°C and wait for them to sprout. Then place them indoors in a spot with sufficient sunlight, requiring more than 4 hours of direct light each day and a temperature of around 20°C. Water lightly, loosen the soil, and at noon on sunny days they can be placed outdoors in a wind-sheltered, sunny spot to grow. When new buds unfold leaves and develop into branches, water and fertilize appropriately, and they can bloom around the Spring Festival.
3. To let Chinese roses overwinter well, appropriate additional application of flower fertilizer is also one method. The timing of pruning branches must be grasped. Generally speaking, it is best not to let the plant have tender branches in winter, because tender branches cannot resist cold in winter.
4. Put fruit peels and vegetable leaves into small buckets, pots, jars and other containers, seal the openings tightly with mud, and compost them into humus soil, which can then be applied as additional flower fertilizer. Miscellaneous bones and meat from the family dining table, fish scales and eggshells are very good base fertilizers for potted flowers. If they are soaked and fermented, they become flower fertilizer rich in phosphorus.