Roses are green! Forget overpriced, scentless foreign blooms and treat your Valentine to an eco-friendly rose bush
About 15 years ago, on Valentine's Day, my wife, Sarah, gave me a dozen red roses.
They were not, however, a prettily wrapped bunch of long-stemmed red buds. No, I was presented with a bundle of spiny sticks poking out of an old plastic sack. They were, of course, a dozen rose bushes, each destined to produce glorious red flowers.
So, rather than a vase of roses that lasts a week or so, I have, so far, had 15 years with hundreds of flowers each year, and every reason to hope that there will be as many years of red roses ahead.
Rose bushes make for a more economical and long-lasting Valentine's day gift
I'm always astonished at how inflated the price of red roses becomes in the week up to Valentine's Day. According to the Flowers and Plants Association, nine million red roses are given in the UK (and more than 50 million world wide), and we spend £30 million on 'flowers and plants', of which 99 per cent goes on flowers. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to work out that a lot of people are paying a lot of money for each rose.
I checked a few reputable companies on the internet and the going rate seemed to be between £3 to £5 per flower. Every one of those roses will have been grown abroad, in artificial and highly chemical regimes, with thousands of air miles attached. The roses might be red - but green they most certainly are not.
I did a similar check on rose nurseries, and it transpires that the average bunch of roses costs roughly twice as much as a bush. In these credit-crunched times, I would say that it was a no-brainer.
Twelve scentless, artificial-looking, characterless blooms that will last for a week or so, or six superb rose bushes that will each produce dozens of flowers for another two decades or more? You decide.
Mind you, I do not want to be too sniffy about the millions of cut flowers that will be bought and given. They are tokens of love, and it has always been so. The red rose is, of course, heavy with symbolism. Red is the colour of passion (I read somewhere that our metabolic rate goes up more than 13 per cent on just seeing the colour red), and the rose was the symbol of the Roman goddess, Venus, who, before she took on the attributes of the Greek Aphrodite, was the goddess of gardens and vineyards.
But though there may be real romance in declaring love via 12 red roses, a mass- produced, fragrance-free rose is not, to my mind, a sexy thing. A single red rose, cut at dawn, damp with dew and deliciously fragrant, is truly romantic. But that is not available at this time of year in any British garden, and you must wait for that romantic gesture until at least mid-May.
However, now is the perfect time to begin planting roses. The soil is warming up slowly, but growth has not really started. Put them in the ground now and the roots will start to grow quickly and provide support for the top growth that will follow a month or so later.
The dozen red roses that Sarah gave me were, in fact, four types, each in a bundle of three, and this is an excellent way of bulking out a rose bush to give a really dramatic display. Even if you have a small garden, the bush can be pruned as hard as you wish each spring and, with one or two exceptions, I always plant roses with three plants to each planting hole, rather than dot them around a border.
As with all woody plants, take care when you plant, but do not try to improve the soil too much. Dig a hole that is wide rather than deep, and remove every scrap of weed because, once perennial weeds such as couch grass, bindweed or ground elder get in among the rose roots, then you will be stuck with them forever.
There is no need to add compost to the planting hole if you have good topsoil and, even if you do not, be sparing with the compost, because too much will cause the roots to stay within the confines of the hole, curling round the edges like a pot-bound plant rather than spreading as wide as possible for maximum nutrition and water.
However, I do advise using mycorrhizal fungi to promote fast root development. In recent years, this has been very effective in countering rose-replant sickness - where healthy roses fail after replanting - and in aiding woody plants to develop their own mycorrhizal systems.
Mycorrihzae are a group of fungi that trade sugars with plants in return for nutrients from the soil. In other words, they serve as a beneficial conduit between soil and plants. All plants will develop this in time, but a woody tree or shrub can take four or five years to do so, and adding some at the time of planting greatly helps their early development.
Mycorrhizal fungi are organic, natural and entirely beneficial. Sprinkle the powder on the surface of the planting hole and do not cover it over, as it is important that it comes into direct contact with the roots.
Planting height is important for roses and, as with clematis, it is better to plant them deeper than most shrubs. I always aim to have the stem where the rootstock and top are grafted fully buried, so that when the soil is back-filled, just the branches are sticking out of the ground. This will secure it firmly and also reduce suckering.
Most people buy plants of all kinds in containers, but I would strongly urge you to try to buy bare-root trees and shrubs if at all possible. These are often not available at garden centres, but specialist nurseries usually sell them in this way, and the internet has made them much more accessible via post.
They will be noticeably cheaper than their potted counterparts - and often healthier, too. When you receive bare-root plants, always give them a good drink in a bucket of water as soon as you get home, and then keep them covered in a bag or heeled into a spare patch of ground until you are ready to plant them.
If you are planting from a container, remove the rose carefully and place it in the hole, which should be at least twice the volume of the pot it was in - and preferably more. If it is bare-root, soak it thoroughly and keep the roots covered until the moment of planting, so that the tiny feeding roots do not dry out. Gently spread them in the hole. Back-fill the hole carefully, firming it in well. Give it a generous soak.
Finally, the hardest cut of all. Whatever the rose, and however big, now is the time to prune it back hard, removing all growth down to a couple of healthy buds on each stem. You will be left with three or four twigs of no more than 12in sticking out of the soil. They will look pathetic. But do it anyway, because it will promote vigorous new growth from the base of the plant from the outset.
MONTY'S FAVOURITE VALENTINE ROSES:
Scharlachglut
Very vigorous and thorny, so not for a small space, but will climb. Bright red flowers, fading to pink with gold centres.
Cardinal de Richelieu
A compact, virtually thornless shrub with a mass of small, almost purple, red petals.
Souvenir du Doctor Jamain Lovely rich red flowers all summer on a vigorous shrub that can be trained as a bush or climber. Best for a shady spot.
Scharlachglut and Charles de Mills
Rosa Moyesii
One of my favourites. The flowers are small and an intense red, and spangle over the bush for a couple of summer weeks. These are followed by lovely gourd-shaped hips. Very tough, and can grow very large.
Charles de Mills
Will grow anywhere and has huge, multipetalled, slightly pinkish flowers that look as though they have been sliced open. A must for any garden.
Tuscany Superb and William Shakespeare
Tuscany superb
So tough, it will grow well on almost any soil. Bred in 1837, it is upright, so good for limited space with rich, dark-red flowers. Delicious fragrance.
William Shakespeare
This has huge flowers, and is a little like Charles de Mills, but darker and repeat-flowering.
The Squire
Robert le Diable
A small bush ideal for limited spaces or containers, with lovely, rich red flowers. Masses of petals and a fabulous scent.
Gipsy Boy
A bourbon rose with double flowers of the deepest crimson. Easy to grow and can be trained as a climber.
Rose de Rescht
This is a Portland rose that is also a small bush with wonderful fuchsia-red flowers that smell divine and continue blooming all summer.
Hunter
One of a number of red Rosa rugosas that are all robust and ideal for growing in poor soil.
The Squire
Another English rose, this is compact and good for a container or where space is limited. The dark crimson flowers are set against rich, coarse green foliage. garden.
