By Nancy Wilson, U. C. Master Gardener

Just Joey

If you can answer yes to these questions, you have a thriving rose garden. If not, you have a chance to start fresh. The rose year begins now with a review of your existing collection and the opportunity to select new roses for the coming year.

You may decide to move some roses to better locations, areas with more space or more sun to accommodate the growth habits you have observed. You may decide that, after three to four years, certain roses are not performing up to your standards. Time to dig them up and discard them. Time for new roses.

Before you purchase any new rose, you need to do some research. There are many choices to make beyond color. You need to consider the mature plant size, fragrance, bloom habit and intended use. Do you want the rose to climb a fence or a garage, provide cut flowers, hedge the garbage cans, or line the walkway? Visit the library to read rose books for ideas about design and varieties. Visit local parks, gardens and nurseries to see actual habits, sizes and colors. Photos in books may be misleading. Walk your neighborhood to see what grows well. Attend a public workshop.

Once you have decided which varieties to plant, you face still more choices. Should you purchase from mail-order catalogues or from nursery center displays? Most catalogues offer bare-root roses. Many garden centers offer bare-root roses heeled into sawdust, boxed or bagged, or bare-root roses in five-gallon containers. Each level of packaging, handling or planting adds to the cost.

Most mail-order bare-root roses are field grown, dug, wrapped in wet newspaper or sawdust and plastic and mailed. When you receive dormant plants in the mail, they need to be planted immediately to avoid drying out. Boxed or bagged roses at nurseries will also dry out if not planted immediately.

Purchase only Grade No. 1 roses (three canes at least three-eighths inch in diameter and 18 inches in height). Order early in the season to insure good choices and healthy plants, and plant them immediately.

Container roses are plants that the nursery receives in bare-root form and pots on site. This allows plants to begin developing feeder roots and gives the gardener more discretion about planting time. Specialty nurseries with catalogues offer more unusual plants. Nurseries and garden centers have the most common or popular varieties and often the newest varieties that may not have a proven history in our area.

You may also need to decide between own-root and grafted roses. Many roses are grafted onto a hardier rootstock for faster growth. The graft joint is called the bud union. Own-root roses have typically been propagated from softwood cuttings. They are usually smaller when purchased and need about three years to develop fully. They never sucker (send up unwanted shoots from the rootstock); they are more cold tolerant and will bounce back after a hard frost; and they are usually free of the mosaic virus that infects some grafted roses.

Improve your chances for success by buying the best roses possible and planting them properly. To learn more about growing great roses in Napa County, join University of California Master Gardeners for a free public workshop on "Buying and Planting Roses." You will learn about the best types of roses for Napa County, how to purchase them, and how to incorporate them into your landscape. The workshop will also cover nursery resources and books, soils and planting. The same information will be offered on two dates and at two locations: on Saturday, November 5, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., at Napa Valley College's Upper Valley Campus, 1088 College Avenue, Room 7 A/B, St. Helena; and on Saturday, November 12, 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., at the University of California Cooperative Extension meeting room, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Napa. Please call 707-253-4221 to reserve your place, or visit our website at http://cenapa.ucdavis.edu for more information.