rec.gardens.ecosystems homepage -> archive: MOD$000110.7816@rec.gardens.ecosystems



Subject: Rose stripping
From: "Bill Robinson" <roseguy@gte.net>
Organization:
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 00 09:47:32
Message-ID: <MOD$000110.7816@rec.gardens.ecosystems>



Our lowest temperatures here in my part of Southern
California is about 30 degrees F. Our roses never get cold
enough to go into dormancy and they hold on to all or most
of their foliage throught the winter. It is a fairly common
practice in this area to hand strip the foliage from the
stems for general sanitation. It does help to minimize
problems with pests and/or disease. We strip off the foliage
around the firest of the year before we prune, clean up the
garden debris, wash down the plants with a hose, and then spray
with a light dormant spray oil.

Stripping off all of the foliage is labor intensive to say the
least! I face doing this with several hundred roses and it takes
many weeks.This P.M. I shot the foliage on a couple of roses with
a stream from an electric power washer. It has something like 1350
lbs/square inch of water pressure and it did a really good job. As
far as I can tell, it did no physical damage to the plants but
surely did a good job in stripping off the foliage and presumably
a good job of washing off all sorts of nasty stuff for a really
good clean-up.

A good blast of water can correct a lot of pest and disease
problems. I've just never used a power washer out of fear that it
would cause excessive physical damage. It didn't.

Bill

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