There’s no need for chemicals when growing these ancient flowers
By Sharon Parker
There is something about roses. Their lure and cultivation goes back to the ancient Sumerians some 5000 years ago, Greek and Roman poets associated them with the goddess of love; they are traditonally so wonderfully fragrant that you can probably smell them in your mind even as you read this, and may be the source of the earliest perfumes.

Their historical associations add to their allure for me, from the charming Rosamundi, so named for Fair Rosamund, mistress of England’s King Henry II; the White Rose of York, symbolic of the losing side in the medieval struggle for control of the English crown known as The Wars of the Roses (and satirized in Alice in Wonderland by the characters who were busily painting the white roses red); and the medicinal shrub rose of the medieval herbalists’ garden--the apothecary rose.

Yet when I think of roses, I also often think of how the cut-flower trade dunks them in toxic chemicals to ensure that the ones that reach the florists’ shops and supermarkets have not a spot or a hole on them, at great cost to the people hired to do the dunking. I think of the impression I formed from some modern rose growers that it is impossible to grow them without the use of chemical sprays to control the many pests and diseases they are prone to. And the hybrid tea roses? Surely those are the most chemically dependent of all.

That it never really occurred to me, until meeting organic rose growers Jan Josifek and Jim Kohl, how absurd was the assumption that roses require petroleum-based chemical assistance when they predate the invention of the oil well by millenia--even the hybrid tea roses were first bred in China hundreds of years ago--is embarrasingly laughable, especially for a history buff like me.

I found Jan on the Garden Web in a forum dedicated to organic rose growing (http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/rosesorg/). When I saw that she was from Minnesota, I e-mailed her asking if by chance she lived in Minneapolis, because I wanted to interview an organic rose grower in the city for this column, since I am so wholly ignorant about roses, yet so irresistably drawn to them.

Her quick and gracious reply let me know that she had recently moved from Minneapolis to St. Paul’s St. Anthony Park neighborhood. Close enough. I grabbed by notebook and headed over for a tour of their new plantings and a pleasant chat over an Izzy soda on a chilly May evening.

It’s the Soil
Although I have been gardening organically for some 30 years, my more recent interest in growing native plants had led me away from the practice of improving the soil. You don’t amend the soil for a prairie garden, you just select the plants best suited to the soil that you have. And the only rose you would grow in such a garden would be the native wild rose, an 18-inch tall prickly shrub with sweet five-petaled single pink flowers that bloom in June and July.

But Jan and Jim reminded me that organic gardening isn’t just about what you don’t do--eschewing pesticides and chemical fertilizers--but also what you do for the soil. When they planted their most recent batch of 13 bare-root roses this spring, including some hybrid teas, floribundas, and David Austin English roses, they amended each whole with peat moss, aged cow manure, and crumbled alfalfa meal. They but a banana peel in the bottom of some of the holes to add potassium, and top-dressed them with coffee grounds “to attract worms.” In order to make all these improvements, you have to dig a hole big enough to accommodate them.

But why the alfalfa meal? I had read a long and curious thread on the organic rose forum of the Garden Web about the brewing of alfalfa tea to spray on roses for foliar feedings, with everyone (including nonorganic gardeners in a different forum) extolling its many virtures. Their descriptions of this vile-smelling witches’ brew convinced me I could not bring myself to go that far if I do grow roses, so I was pleased to learn that Jan and Jim simply worked it into the soil. What’s the big deal about alfalfa, I asked? Jan explained that alfalfa has a growth stimulant called triacontanol. It’s also rich in protein, vitamins and minerals and helps fix nitrogen in the soil.

While I couldn’t find alfalfa meal or pellets at any of our local garden centers, I discovered that a “natural organic” rose food sold under the brand name Rose-Tone contained alfalfa meal, and it was available at a few places around town (see the company Web site, www.espoma.com). Otherwise, people often use the alfalfa pellets sold for animal feed, though you should look out for added ingredients, especially salts, that would harm your roses.

What About Those Pests and Diseases, Then?
I expected to get a series of recipes for homemade sprays to ward off the dreaded black spot, powdery mildew, rose slugs and other pestilence that are known to plague roses. But, no, Jan and Jim rarely have to deal with any of those problems. Jan again emphasized the importance of good healthy soil to grow equally healthy roses, purchasing disease-resistant varieties, and planning for good air circulation.

Good air circulation means planting your roses far enough apart and keeping weeds at bay so that the breezes can pass between them easily, and selecting a site that gets those prevailing south-westerly summer breezes. Breezes help the leaves to dry off after watering or rain, which discourages fungal diseases like black spot and mildew, and they can make it harder for problem insects to settle in for a meal.

They plant bare-root roses rather than fully leafed-out bushes because the bare-root stock adapts more quickly to transplanting, and is far less likely to have picked up some foliar disease like black spot than potted plants that have been rubbing up against other roses at the garden center.

Good Companions
They also recommended planting garlic near your roses, a companion planting technique echoed by many experienced gardeners. “Garlic deters pests,” explains Jan, adding that its effects may be systemic (meaning it more or less innoculates the soil and other plants growing nearby).

Some specific suggestions, from Jan:

For aphids: “I spray them with water to knock them off; sometimes I leave them.”

Spider mites: “Spray with water.” (Mites are known to prefer dry conditions.)

Mildew: “One rose at our old house got it in mid to late August. We took care of it with a few drops of tea tree oil and water in a hand sprayer.”

Black spot: “Milk is supposed to work, but I haven’t tried it. Raw milk is best, it contains a fungicide, this is from a study conducted in Brazil. Black spot may reside in the canes, so prune them to the ground [if this is a problem].” They have actually only encountered one instance of black spot, and having spotted it early, just removed the infected leaves to stop its spread.

They couldn’t tell me about how they treated for any other pests in nearly 20 years of growing roses organically, because they hadn’t encountered them. And the complicated methods of winter protection for roses that are not hardy here? “We covered them all with leaves for the winter. You’re supposed to mound dirt over them, we didn’t.” Considering that many plant diseases, and insects, overwinter in the soil, this, too, may be part of the reason for their success.

Meeting with Jan and Jim has really inspired me to try growing roses, knowing that I don’t need a degree in chemistry or botany to succeed. While I find nothing particularly alluring about a flower that must be dressed in toxic chemicals to be presentable, the prospect of having a few roses au naturel amongst my herbs and perennials certainly tickles my fancy as well as my nose.

A shorter version of this article first appeared in print in The Minneapolis Observer in June-July 2005. Since then, the author has purchased the above pictured ‘Jude the Obscure,’ a David Austin English Rose, from Heirloom Roses. www.heirloomroses.com

Jude the Obscure rose from the author's garden, June 2006