April Monthly Newsletter

Roses…

To grow or not to grow, that is the question. 

We love, LOVE roses! At a previous home with full sun in the front yard, I (Lynette) grew “tea roses” along our front entry. Beautiful, and smelled great as you passed by. Two subsequent owners later and they were all ripped out (😭). Hmmm , why? Because the owners thought they were too much work , as was relayed back to me. Not everyone is a gardener obsessed with flowers. I get it. 

Fast forward and here we are with Powhatan Posies and we really want to offer roses to our customers. We began asking other flower farmers and found not many grow them and leave it to others, buy local wholesale, etc. “We use them, just don’t want the hassle of growing them.” Why though? Pests, namely the very annoying and destructive Japanese Beetle, as well as fungal diseases such as black spot and powdery mildew were the prevailing answers. Our not-so-fun VA summers with high humidity and hot-hot days are not ideal either. Ok, well, we took all of this into account, perused the lovely cottage roses in the David Austin (DA) catalog, promptly took advantage of a sale in the fall and ordered eight potted shrub roses. (We like to learn our own lessons) Our dahlia rows decreased, again, from 8 to 6 and a space for the new roses was born! Full sun and good drainage – let’s go!

There are so many gorgeous DAs, but we did concentrate on the best for cutting and flower arranging. (All DA marketing material is so detailed and useful as is the book “English Roses” which we highly recommend if you go down this unrecommended path)  We purchased two, 2-quart potted roses of each color; pink, red, light pink/peach-ish and orange-red. (Still need a white and a true yellow!) It was a long wait from purchase until receiving these babies, but they arrived a couple of weeks back and have now been planted successfully by co-farmer. 

A small amount of aged cow manure, a bit of bone meal and a large hole were all that was needed initially for planting. Anticipating the environmental stressors, compounded by the fact these plants are in the field which I cannot see from the house (unlike my first growing rose experience) has me a bit nervous, yet not  deterred. (Did we mention how gorgeous these DAs are?) No pesticides or fungicides are used at Powhatan Posies, so a bit more research is needed.  STILL not deterred!

We think year two will be the magic year for cutting, but you can still see them on your visit to Powhatan Posies this season … and please give them a few words of encouragement. No one here judges and they will love it! 

O my luve’s like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June … (R.Burns)