Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009

Secrets to rose care

Muriel Humenick attacks every rosebush with the same philosophy: Cut out the old, protect the new.

It's an appropriate New Year's maxim, especially when facing thickets of thorns.

Humenick, 82, has honed her pruning skills with decades of experience. Every January and February, she practices what she preaches, again and again and again. She personally tends about 5,000 bushes at her El Dorado home.

"This has kept me young," Humenick said. "You've got to keep moving. So, get off your couch and go to work."

Proper pruning also keeps rosebushes young. By promoting new growth, rosebushes will flourish for generations.

Hundreds of examples at Humenick's hillside home are testament to her stay-young credo. Bushes planted 30 years ago flourish with young growth, pumping out big, bright buds each spring through fall.

"I was still cutting roses for bouquets (Christmas week)," she said while giving visitors a quick tour of her 4-acre place. "They just kept blooming."

For many years at their home, Humenick and her late husband, Bill, who died in May, have operated a small specialty nursery, Rose Acres. Their stock overflows the back yard. The nursery specializes in hard-to-find varieties; for many types, Rose Acres is the only source in California.

"Bill wanted me to have something to do," Humenick joked of their combined passion. "He thought the nursery would be a good project to keep me busy."

Humenick also served as the official rosarian for the famed Fountain Square nursery, which is now the site of Citrus Heights City Hall. Starting 30 years ago, she planned and planted the original rose garden that graces the civic center as well as the impressive rose garden at the Fair Oaks home of nursery owner Henry Kroeger, who died in 2007. In 1991, the American Rose Society named Fountain Square the nation's best public rose garden.

Co-founder of the Sierra Foothills Rose Society, Humenick wrote the book on growing roses in the Sacramento Valley. She packed lots of her advice into 2007's "Roses for Northern California" (Lone Pine Publishing, $18.95, 272 pages), co-written by Laura Peters. The handsome paperback is packed with hundreds of colorful photos and up-close profiles on 144 top performers.

Several pages are devoted to pruning, a favorite topic of the 82-year-old author.

"Pruning is key to healthy roses," she said between snips in her own garden. "You want to cut out the old, dead wood so the new canes have room to grow."

That's the No. 1 mistake people make when pruning roses — other than never pruning, she noted. Gardeners tend to cut bushes back to just the old wood year after year.

"The old wood will still produce flowers, but it's a matter of diminishing returns," she explained. "Old wood throws sickly canes. What kind of flowers are you going to get on spindly stuff? The flowers will be smaller and fewer every spring.

"But the new canes are full of life," she added. "You need big, strong canes for big flowers. They'll make robust roses — and lots of them."

Of course, there are caveats. Canes store the bush's energy; in spring, the plant will need that resource for its annual cycle of growth and bloom. White and yellow varieties tend to be less robust and need more canes to get started.

Humenick recommends leaving three to five canes on hybrid teas; five to seven on grandifloras and floribundas.

Severe, hard pruning every year works well for hybrid teas, floribundas and grandifloras — the three most common types of roses. Other types, such as climbers and shrubs, benefit from less pruning.