| When buying a rose bush, you may have sometimes | | | | semi-mature wood. You'll go over each with a sharp |
| thought that the price was pretty high. But suppose | | | | knife removing all but the top two or three buds. |
| YOU were producing them. What would you want | | | | You'll need about 16,000 cuttings per acre. It is to be |
| for a plant that had gone through these various | | | | assumed that by now your field has been prepared, |
| stages of development and growth? | | | | so first you lay off the rows to 54 inches apart. You |
| So join me for some armchair day dreaming. Let's | | | | can use a coulter behind a tractor to open up a slight |
| indulge in some flights of fancy; just suppose that | | | | trench; or you can use a dobber to make the holes |
| YOU decide to become a rose grower. | | | | about six to eight inches apart. |
| You will find rose bushes produced over a wide area: | | | | Now you stick the cuttings into the soil, leaving only |
| Arizona, California, New York, Ohio, Oregon, | | | | about a half inch above the surface. You can see |
| Pennsylvania and Texas, to name some of the | | | | now why you need a loose sandy soil, not only to |
| leading areas in alphabetical order. | | | | stick the cuttings in, but also to firm easily around the |
| While operations will vary some, here is about what | | | | cuttings. There must be no air left around these. If |
| you could expect if you followed your day dreams | | | | the soil is too dry, you must also water these in. |
| and became a rose grower. | | | | During the year (you hope most of these strike |
| You will first need substantial acreage of some | | | | roots), all you need do is fertilize, spray and cultivate. |
| desirable ground. Deep sandy loam would do, and just | | | | In June or the next fall you are ready for budding |
| in case nature forgets you, it is desirable to have | | | | onto the root stocks the various varieties of roses |
| some way of irrigating your crop if necessary. | | | | you wish to produce. The first year, of course, you |
| Now are you going to be strictly a grower of existing | | | | will need a source of budwood. These are first |
| varieties, or are you also going to be a hybridizer and | | | | dethorned and the buds are sliced off with a sharp |
| develop some of your own patented varieties? Of | | | | knife, just "skin" deep. |
| course this phase of rose growing is fascinating | | | | So with your bucket of budwood, you go down the |
| especially when you realize that it requires thousands | | | | row again. Just at the ground surface you make a |
| of tests and trials. Maybe, after years you will come | | | | "T" cut in the shank of the developing cutting of the |
| up with a patentable winner. If you do, and it should | | | | multiflora plant. This cut should just go "through" the |
| become popular, you can license others to grow | | | | bark. You peel back the lower lips on the "T" end and |
| YOUR rose on a royalty basis. | | | | slip the bud in place. (Point up, of course.) The bark is |
| You should go into this with your eyes open, of | | | | pulled over the bud and held in place with a piece of |
| course, and realize that even though you make many | | | | rubber. This in time rots off as the bud takes and |
| crosses, you may NEVER have a successful one. | | | | the plants grow. |
| Maybe we'd better leave that to the experts in that | | | | Now another year of cultivating, dusting, spraying, |
| field, many of whom have spent a lifetime at it. You'll | | | | fertilizing, applying pesticides, etc. In March or April |
| grow the standard roses. | | | | when the buds have "taken" and start growing, you |
| In some areas they start from multiflora seed, but | | | | again go through, this time cutting off all of the |
| most use cuttings. So, for the first year you will need | | | | multiflora branches, including the one on which you did |
| a source of cuttings for root stock. Most growers | | | | the budding, just above the bud. When the bud |
| use three forms of Rosa multiflora japonica. One has | | | | shoots are well started they are topped to force |
| a trailing tendency, one a spreader, and one grows | | | | branching. |
| more upright. The advantage of using the three kinds | | | | By fall you are ready to start digging. If you dig |
| is their different maturity rates, thus enabling you to | | | | before a freeze has knocked the leaves off, you |
| prolong the budding season. But that is a year away | | | | have to deleaf the plants by hand, or some use a |
| yet. | | | | gas, heat, etc. But when you have a good freeze, |
| Your cuttings will be about six to eight inches long, of | | | | your harvesting begins in earnest. |