Missouri, United States

I have been seriously raising large numbers of roses since about 2000. I got sick in 1997 and found myself off of work on long term disability and needed something to keep me active as possible while i was dealing with several health issues. As a child I had loved roses and so I decided I wanted to start a rose garden with about 40 roses in it.
My first rose order I placed with the local Moffett Nursery here in St. Joseph, MO. I was lucky that the nursery has a full-time master rosarian named Charlie Anctil on staff and he has mentored and helped me immensely over the years with my selections of roses and advice and counseling when I needed it. He got my order of 30 roses for me that first year and I was hooked. I planted them in early April and it wasn't long until those bareroot roses began to grow and start blooming. I vividly recall that Veterans' Honor was my very first rose to bloom, and that really got me hooked. The blooms on that bush are beyond gorgeous as far as I was concerned. All of my roses were exhibition type Hybrid Tea roses with just about four well known floribundas thrown in for good measure. Still today I prefer the high center hybrid tea type bloom above all others, so that is the direction I have gone even with my floribundas.
Over the next several years I have gradually added more roses and so of course more rose beds and I have learned and loved every minute of it.
I learned to install drip irrigation systems in all my beds and they have proven to be a real time and labor saver for me. I can water and fertilize at the same time using my drip irrigation system in conjunction with an EZ-FLO Fertilizer Injector I acquired from Rosemania. I fertilize with that system about 4 times every growing season.
I also use a dry fertilizer about every 6 weeks. I get an alfalfa based pellet fertilizer that is made locally in Kansas City called Bradfield. I will mix up the Bradfield with some other dry fertilizers or supplements on occasion like Epsom Salts, Rosebed Amendment, Generic Rose Food granular from various big box stores or the nurseries here in town.
For my wet drench fertilizing with the EX-FLO Injector I make up a concoction of fertilizers and supplements that my sister Barbra has named John's Jungle Juice. I simply mix any High Acid/Acid Loving wet or water soluble fertilizer with Chelated Iron, Fish Emulsion as a base and sometimes I also will add Protekt and Superthrive depending on what I have on hand. This mixture seems to really work well especially early in the Spring when the roses are waking up and again in the very early Fall/late Summer when it is time for the Fall flush to get started. This Jungle juice seems to give the roses the boost they need to add that growing spurt and the biggest blooming cycle of the entire growing season. The roses respond with added height, foliage, and many more flower buds. Some roses like the mini-flora's Ingrid, Camden, Ricky Hendrix, and to some degree Dr. John Dickman which I have two of really put on more flower buds to the degree that they somewhat cover over the bushes foliage!! The mini Saluda rose I counted 135 blooms on for the 2009 Spring Flush. I can't wait for the upcoming Flush for these as they are really loaded with buds.
I now have about 10 beds and containers holding 250+ roses.

Very experienced (37 years)

Breeder, Society member

Last visit: More than a year ago