hi gannets Jason from Fraser Valley Rose farm today I want to talk to you about
watering your roses and most importantly why it's necessary to keep a good
consistent supply of moisture for your roses all the way throughout the year
many of my viewers have asked me the question: Why is it that the first blooms
that come off my roses in the in the spring are the largest and the best and
then after that it seems like it peters off throughout the season the answer to
that question more often than not is about the adequate supply of soil
moisture which in temperate climates tends to be much higher in the spring
and then drop down throughout the summer I've brought you here to the Fraser
River to demonstrate my point using my farm as an example so we get our soil
moisture from the Fraser River which comes way up in April May and June and
then after that comes down quite a ways well also at that same time in my
garden I will have hotter weather and less rainfall so it's like a triple
whammy less soil moisture less rainfall more heat you have roses that at first
had plenty of moisture now struggling for moisture in the garden so if I leave
them alone I get fewer and smaller flushes of blooms so the focus of this
video today will be to tell you how much you need to water your roses and how to
maintain that moisture level for your roses and why that's so important for
the sake of simplicity I might recommend between 3 and 5 gallons of water per
rose on a week where it doesn't rain that's a volume that looks a bit like
this a five gallon bucket the problem with that simplified measure is it
doesn't account for a couple of other major things including oh the size of
the rose the temperature outside but most importantly your type of soil three
to five gallons might be appropriate for an average loam however for a clay soil
you probably need a little bit less for a sandy soil you might need two to three
times as much now to moderate that usage of water it's important to use a mulch
and organic mulch like woodchips to maintain more moisture in your soil let
me show you real quick here well it can look like the surface of that wood mulch
is very dry what I want to show you is that if I just pull away a little bit of
that mulch you can see that the soil is maintaining
moist underneath there that's indicative of the protective effects of that mulch
whereas the surface of your soil could dry out very easily if not covered this
with the wood mulch actually protects the soil moisture but it also tends to
do over time is improve this soil underneath here and adds organic matter
to the soil and so that makes it moisture retentive as well now when it
comes to roses I prefer to take this wood mulch off and replace it every year
because by that point you've had leaves of the Rose drop down on it and that can
carry over fungal disease from one year to the other but out here in the
perennial bed I just leave it down and add to it each year and it I can't
stress enough the importance and how easy this will make it to maintain
moisture in your soil you can do other things like compost or manure or other
mulches hay or straw for my money and for how long it lasts wood mulch is the
right answer for me I have a couple more questions to answer on watering for
roses one of which is how you should apply the water itself you can of course
apply it through a watering wand by hand or with an overhead sprinkler the
problem with that is that it makes the foliage wet and the combination of
warmth and wet with fungus spores makes it so that things like black spot and
powdery mildew can germinate on the surface of those leaves so if you can
avoid it go ahead and use a drip line now a drip line combined with a trip
line emitter like this these come rated in one gallon or two gallon per hour
half a gallon per hour at least then you know a rate so how long you have to
leave it on to give your rose the watering that you decided that you need
it for and you can measure that and then apply more or less the following week
based on that feedback the downside of these drip emitters is that they can
clogs you have to watch that when you turn it on just take a walk through all
of your roses and make sure that they are getting the water that this is
dripping properly the second thing I would like to answer here is when you
know that your rose needs water I guess how to know if it's getting enough or
getting too little in a pot that's very easy I'm going to refer you back to the
video I made on how to tell or why your rose leaves are turning yellow and I
have some close-ups in that one I maybe include some of those here but it's much
easier on a potted Rose like this to tell you can tell by the weight you can
also just flip it out of its pot very quickly and see that the soil moisture
it's nice and consistent from top to bottom so not just that's getting the
moisture it needs in the ground it's much harder to tell so you do have to
look for those signs like yellowing leaves sort of midway down or brown
edges Midway down on the on the plant and I'll show you some examples of that
here now alright I hope that answers some of your questions on how to water
your rose for its very best performance if you have any questions or comments
about that please drop those down below with video and I'll see what I can do to
help Thanks