How to grow potted roses? A detailed guide to care methods
Roses are the main ornamental flowers of spring, with a long flowering period, high ornamental value and low price, and are loved by gardens everywhere. They can be used for garden flower beds, flower borders and courtyard cut flowers, and can be made into rose bonsai. Today, the editor will introduce to you how to grow potted roses!
How to make potted rose bonsai
1. Collecting the stump: Every spring, go to hillsides and ditches to dig up wild rose stumps with unusual shapes and naturally tapering tips. After the stump is collected, cut the roots and trunk into place as much as possible, and plant it in plain sandy soil mixed with a little sawdust; it can be planted in a pot or in the ground. Cover the whole stump with a plastic bag, and after new shoots grow 3-5cm, choose a rainy day to remove the plastic bag, then spray water on the trunk and leaves every morning and evening to ensure survival. Fertilizing can begin in August, once every half a month, preferably with cake fertilizer water. For those whose branches transition naturally, prune in the second spring and strengthen management; when the new branches of that year grow to a certain thickness, grafting can begin. Individual ones that need to build up the trunk can continue to be grown on.
2. Grafting: Rose bonsai grafting is best done by bud grafting, which is characterized by simple operation and a long grafting period; bud grafting can be done from May to September, with a high survival rate, and those that fail to survive grafting can be grafted again at the same spot. You can choose the rose flower color and variety to graft according to personal preference. Grafting roses is not difficult, but to achieve a relatively high survival rate, you must master three steps.
① Selecting buds: The graft bud must be taken from a robust branch, and it is best to wait until it is about to begin sprouting; it is best to cut off the flowers, apply fertilizer, and let it grow for a week, then take the buds for grafting when the buds begin to swell.
② Taking buds: For ordinary roses, use the bark-peeling bud-taking method. The branches of miniature roses are thin, and it is not easy to take buds by the traditional method. First cut the bud-bearing branch into pieces nearly 2cm long, make oblique cuts from the middle section of the back of the bud toward both ends, then peel the bark from the lower end of the bud, slowly separating the bark from the xylem, and be sure to protect the vascular bundles inside the bud piece. After the bud is removed, according to the height of the rootstock cut, cut the two ends of the bud piece flat, gently place it into the rootstock cut, and press it tightly against the rootstock xylem, then wrap it tightly with a plastic strip, leaving the bud eye exposed.
③ Moisture retention: After grafting and wrapping are completed, if conditions permit, the grafted rose bonsai can be placed in a plastic greenhouse for care, or the single-branch plastic bag method can be used, so that it can be directly placed in the natural environment for care without harm. After 7-10 days, the plastic bag can be removed and the binding loosened, and supplementary grafting can be done according to the survival situation.
Daily care of potted roses
1. Light: If you want roses to bloom continuously, you need to give them long hours of light. Roses can only grow robustly under full sun. For potted roses, apart from appropriate shading during high summer temperatures, they can receive full-day light at other times.
2. Watering: Roses like a moist and warm environment, but they can also tolerate a certain degree of drought. Normally, water according to the principle of watering thoroughly after the soil dries out. In summer, it is best to choose the morning for watering, while in winter it should be done at noon when the temperature is higher. In addition, potted 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 the phenomenon of leaves being scorched.
3. Fertilizing: Roses like fertilizer, and to ensure flowers are always visible during the flowering period, fertilizer water must be applied continuously. When the plant sprouts new shoots in spring, some decomposed cake fertilizer water, bean dregs fertilizer, etc. can be applied; when entering the flowering period and the flower buds gradually grow, apply an additional round of thin fertilizer water. After that, during the flowering period, timely and appropriately apply additional fertilizer water each month according to the plant's growth condition, so as to promptly replenish the nutrients consumed during flowering.
4. Repotting: Roses grow relatively fast, so nutrients are consumed quickly. Every year in spring, the soil and pot should be changed. 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 roses be pruned?
How should potted roses be pruned? The key points to note when pruning roses are: bud thinning before flowering, and branch cutting after flowering. Next, the editor will introduce to you how to prune potted roses!
1. Bud thinning before flowering: Potted roses should not keep too many buds. At the beginning, keep 2-3 buds on each branch. When the new buds grow to 3-4cm, generally select and keep one flower bud on each branch; strong branches can also keep 1-2 more buds, so that nutrients are concentrated and this crop of flowers is promoted to bloom large and vivid. For the whole pot of roses, only 4-6 flower buds can be kept, and they must also be evenly distributed; all other new buds should be removed.
2. Branch cutting after flowering: After each crop of flowers finishes blooming, the flowering branch should be promptly cut back to the 3-5 leaf section from the base. Note that the cutting point should be about 1cm above an outward-growing leaf bud. At the same time, diseased branches, dead branches, side branches and inward-growing branches should also be cut off, so that nutrients are concentrated and robust new branches are promoted. In this way, the plant shape of potted roses will be compact, and flowering will also be concentrated.
How should potted roses overwinter?
Roses are a common variety for home flower growing. They have relatively strong cold resistance, so in the south they 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. Below, let us continue to see how potted roses should overwinter!
1. For roses to overwinter, they can be stored for winter in a cold room to make them dormant, so that they develop robustly in the coming spring. Before bringing them indoors, prune first, tidy the pot surface, and spray with limewater to kill insects and prevent disease; bring them indoors before the potting soil freezes solid. During winter storage, water to prevent drying out from the wind; a room temperature of about 0°C is safest. When it is too cold, seal them tightly with soil. When it gradually warms in early spring, open them for ventilation to prevent yellow buds from appearing 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, then 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 a small amount, loosen the soil, and on sunny days at noon they can be placed outdoors in a wind-sheltered, sunny spot to grow. When the new buds unfold leaves and develop into branches, water and fertilize appropriately, and they can bloom around the Spring Festival.
3. To let roses overwinter well, applying an appropriate amount 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 containers such as small buckets and pots and jars, seal the openings tightly with mud, and compost them into humus soil, which can then be applied as a topdressing flower fertilizer. Miscellaneous bones and meat, fish scales and eggshells from the family dining table are very good base fertilizers for potted flowers. If they are further soaked and fermented, they become a flower fertilizer rich in phosphorus.