I grew two miniature rose plants, in plastic pots, out on the patio this year.
I considered it an experiment, and a learning experience. If I could keep them heathly and happy, then I’d grow more plants, in a variety of varieties and colors, next year.
The experiment went reasonably well, I think.
I did ping-pong them around a bit. At times, they had healthy happy green and glossy leaves, and profuse blooms. And at other times, they were bloomless, with the lower leaves a bit yellow and sickly.
I am writing this up, because I think that minature roses in pots are impossibly cute. I don’t think they are all that hard to grow, but people are often not much aware of them as a container-pot gardening choice.
They are more challenging to grow than petunias, certainly. But I’ve grown them out on a sunny fire escape in New York City, where I did not give them the highest of care. It worked well, for the purpose of having the occassional well formed and impossibly cute little rose blossom, sitting out on the fire escape.
And the two I’ve grown this year look like they intend to meet the approaching frost, by going out in a tiny little scarlet- and pastel-colored blaze of glory.
I went with a soilless system. This is what I was experimenting with, and trying to learn.
It is the type where you drill a ring of small holes, one inch up from the bottom of a plastic pot. I liked the system, for making it hard to over- or under-water the plants. In times of wetness, excess water will flow out the holes. And in times of dryness, there is a one inch reservoir of water that will wick up.
I used expanded clay pellets as growing medium. I got them, in two pound bags, at the pet warehouse, intended for use in aquariums. Pots with this growing medium are very light, and easy to move around.
For nutrient solution, of the type where you apply nutients in every watering, I made a Google Spreadsheet, with formula calculations in it. The recipe is primarily Shultz Rose Food, Potassium Nitrate, and Alaska Naturals brand Calcium-Nitrogen-Magnesium. I can change around the recipe, and see the resulting change in nutrient parts-per-million concentrations.
The recipe also has some diluted Ferti-lome Liquid Iron in it. I believe that the concentrated pint bottle I bought has enough iron in it, to feed whatever roses I could grow, from now till the end of time. I tasted a drop of it. By doing so, I believe that I got my recommended allowance for iron, through till the end of time as well.
As nutrient targets, I used some values for roses from a University of California information sheet. I don’t imagine that by playing with my spreadsheet, to get my solution as close to the target values as possible, I am making some perfect miracle of a rose fertilizer. I imagine that by playing with my spreadsheet, changing values and seeking optimums, I am engaging in the hobby of growing minature roses, in a perhaps somewhat nerdish data-centric way.
Most all the learning I picked up over the summer, concerns getting the nutrient application right. As I’ve said, I ping-ponged the plants a bit. They had to deal with some feast and famine.
Using static nutrient targets is pretending that the system is not dynamic. But rain will come, leaching out some nutrients more than others; evaporation will concentrate the solution; nutrient uptake by the plants will be preferential; and complex pH interactions near the roots will affect what nutrients are seen, by the plant, as available.
Roses do not communicate well, about what their needs will be next week . But they communicate well, with the help of rose-to-human translation guides, about how you had messed up meeting their needs a week ago.
My biggest learning experience about soilless systems was early in the summer, in what I call the Near Death Event.
It had rained for a number of days in a row. I did not consider, at the time, the nutrients being leached out by this. I just thought about water, and that the roses had plenty, and so thought they would do fine without my attention, until the rain stopped. I was surprised by how quickly they went unhealthy. And by how quickly they revived.
Early on, I would flush accumulated salt out of the growth medium, every week or ten days. But with a combination of rain, and an (initially unbeknowst to me) nightly watering by lawn sprinkler, this wasn’t necessary.
Aphids showed up once. I think that aphids demonstrate an advantage of your gardening consisting of growing a few miniature rose plants.
If you overfertilize your plants, in the interest of pushing blooms, leading to rapid, tender, and spindly growth, leading to attack by aphid, you can easily, on a compact little miniature rose plant, just find and smoosh them all.
I also smooshed the one Japanese beetle that showed up. On arrival, it was pretty easy to see.
I feared deer, but they left the roses alone. A squirrel that likes digging in the potting soil of the nearby petunias, was understandably not so interested in digging in clay pellets.
I intend this piece, to some extent, to be advocacy for growing miniature roses in pots. That they are so impossibly cute. That you can get miniature vases, to put your well-formed very-double miniature cut flowers in. And that these can have, depending on variety, tiny little thorns, or a tiny little amount of scent.
The above discussion about soilless systems, with calculations about nutrient parts per million done by spreadsheet, and talk of a Near Death Event, and such, might make miniature roses seem complicated and demanding to grow.
But the years I just put out a miniature rose in regular potting soil, and fertilized them with a bit of Miracle-Gro Rose Food in the watering can, worked pretty well.