We are just past the halfway point of our rose growing season.  So far so good.  Our garden has more spider mites than usual.  More powdery mildew on plants that usually are immune and smaller buds than typical.  The weather patterns can account for the first two but the latter is a puzzle to me.  The fertilization sequence is the same as previous years.  Maybe this has something to do with the weather also.  Anyway, the next gardening challenge will be the Fall Rose Show.  The next Society event will be the Annual Member’s Garden Tours and Picnic.  This will be in three weeks (Sunday, August 17, 2008).  Like always, more information is available on the Events Calendar page.   If you have never gone on the tour,  please give it a try.  You don’t get asked to wander around good rose gardens too often.  Here is your chance.  The picnic site is at the last garden on tour (the Franklin Park Garden maintained by Jean and Ralph Stehle).  Ralph is a Master Rosarian and past President of our local society.  Jean will have the patio set of a fun picnic.  Bring something to share and join us. 

Summer is moving along.  It always seems as if time goes like summer lightening and before you get caught up with the garden chores, it is time to winterize the roses.  This year has been cool and wet to this point.  I’ve heard reports of Japanese beetles but our garden has been free of those pests.  But the spider mites!  The roses have been treated biweekly with Safer Oil Soap but that didn’t prevent a major infestation.  Now it’s back to the heavy-duty stuff.  At least watering has not been a problem.  We are getting ready for the summer picnic events.  The first is on Sunday, July 20 at Renzie Park.  The Events page has more details.  The garden tours will be in August this year with the second picnic hosted at the Stehle garden on August 17.  This is always our most popular event and it is easy to see why.  Three of the best member gardens will be open to tour and capped off by a great picnic dinner, all for the cost of one covered dish to pass.  See you at the picnic!

This has been an unusual growing season so far. Here we are at Mother’s day, May 11, 2008. Our hybrid rugosa “Wildberry Breeze” is blooming and almost all of the other bushes not attacked by deer are in bud. Pruning here in the South Hills of Pittsburgh has been unusual also. Instead of going down to 6-8” to get to white wood (no winter damage) as is common in the spring, many of the canes are at 24-36” or longer and healthy. This means that a decision has to be made to radically prune for fewer blooms on longer sturdier canes or go higher. The higher is said to result in more, earlier bloom but smaller flowers. The later is not what exhibitors want. Personally, we went for the longer canes and more blooms only to be attacked by roaming deer herds that finished the pruning for us. We will let you know later what this did to the bushes and the final flowering display. I assume that we will get a flowering display since we stopped relying on deer repellant alone and put deer netting around the exposed 90-foot perimeter of the rose garden. Unfortunately, the current trend to “Carefree” roses will not solve the deer problem. But, more on that later. We hope to see many of you, especially the newer members, at the May 18, 2008 meeting at Holy Family Hall in Lawrenceville. The topic is “Growing roses in Containers” along with tips and instructions on rooting with recycled pop bottles. And if you are having deer issues, we can talk about that too. See you there!

If you missed getting to McKeesport yesterday for the Renzie Park pruning demonstrations, you still have another chance.  We will do it all over again this coming Sunday, April 20, 2008 starting at 1:00 pm.  We pruned about half of the bushes yesterday--despite of the rain.  The weather promises to be better this coming Sunday.   Bring your pruners and a pair of gloves and learn pruning from the experts.  And, help the Rose garden at the same time.