By Melody Kendall

A recap of our ongoing adventure: My Husband and I had our inground pool removed and we began our backyard redo this spring.  First, we utilized the UCMG ‘Step by Step Garden Design' link on the UCMG website to formalize a plan, then we installed the big items, the shed and large trees. It's time to report on the next projects of our garden adventure. 

Having marked out the layout of the walkways and planting areas, we looked at how many hose bibs we wanted and where we should place them. I prefer hose bibs with battery operated timers connected to a drip system as opposed to an electrical timer system. We wanted a shut off valve at the beginning of the line because of my penchant for breaking water lines. My sweet husband dug the trench while I provided the drinking water and a running commentary. A professional laid pvc pipe, installed the shut-off valve and 3 hose bibs. We followed after him filling in the trench. Now we were ready for the next step on our ‘to do' list – moving the roses.

The existing rose garden was compact and hard to maintain.  I was continually being scratched and poked by the thorns as I tried to get around the seven bushes in the area. Now I had the opportunity to expand my garden and space my bushes farther apart so I would not have to contend with the usual bloodletting while tending them. We marked out an 8' foot by 28' area extending the current rose garden area on the northwest border of the property. The bushes would be moved and spaced with equal distance apart along the 28' length and each would be four feet from the fence, affording free access to all sides of each rose bush.  The updated rose garden would be a raised bed area with a border on all sides using 2'x6' foot landscape timbers and filled with amended soil to expand the existing rose garden's current depth. 

I found conflicting information on transplanting roses in the summer. Available information appears to all agree that the optimum time to transplant roses is during the winter months when the plants are dormant.  We were eager to proceed with our landscape redo and were reluctant to wait until winter. When we researched the available information about off-season transplanting of roses we found varying opinions about success. We finally decided to take the American Rose Society's view that “roses can get through almost anything if they have the right amount of water.”

Six of the plants had gopher damage so those were to be the ones we would move.  The seventh plant would remain in place as it was situated perfectly in the bed and seemed very happy and gopher free.

The future location of each rose was marked out and the holes were dug. It sounds so easy, but it involved a lot of sweat and, if truth be told, some terse language on my part. In the winter the ground is relatively soft and easy to dig.  In the summer not so much. Plus, some of the holes had to be dug where the soil had been buried beneath the pool deck and undisturbed for decades. Even though I had watered the area ahead of time that soil had become as hard as the cement that had covered it. I persevered, digging a hole a day, each one two feet deep and three feet in diameter.  The idea is to set the root ball on the bottom of the hole and loosen the soil on the sides to encourage the roots to grow out horizontally to anchor the plant.

To help in the moving of the roses, I pruned each plant and watered them heavily a week before the scheduled moving day. Also, since gophers had been a problem, I constructed gopher cages from galvanized gopher wire to fit in each hole. The gopher cages are available premade, but we had a roll of the wire so I made my own. Finally, just before removing the roses from the soil, I wrapped each plant with multiple layers of heavy plastic to prevent getting poked by thorns when shifting the plants. I used plastic because I found it doesn't stick to the thorns when removed as much as a cloth drop cloth.

Digging the roses

Things didn't go as smoothly as anticipated. The plan was to use a long spade shovel starting about a foot out to circle the plant, inserting the shovel completely to loosen the soil at each thrust of the shovel. The aim was to loosen the rose enough so that a large root ball with a nice chunk of the surrounding soil would come out when the rose was removed.  This would disturb the plant as little as possible and would help to mitigate the shock to the plant when transplanting.  We are in the summer months and the soil is dry. Even though I had irrigated the plants liberally before beginning the process each plant came away from their resting place with a minimal amount of soil and were almost just bare roots. 

On to plan 'B'.  I readied each hole for the rose before removing any more plants from the ground. After inserting the gopher cage in the hole, I mixed the soil from the hole with an equal amount of amended soil and made a small mound of the mixture in the bottom of the hole.  I then centered the freshly removed rose plant's roots on the mound and, holding the plant, filled in the soil around the plant. After the hole was filled halfway, I patted down the soil and watered it lightly to remove any air pockets. I then stepped back and made sure that the plant was situated so the point where the plant and root ball joined was about one inch higher than the surrounding soil. To finish I filled in the remaining soil and watered the plant thoroughly.

A freshly transplanted rose will need extra TLC to thrive. It is common, and with our plants especially because of the time of year and the root ball problems, for freshly transplanted roses to exhibit wilting and leaf loss. Extra watering is a big must.  We will give the plants lots of water throughout the rest of the year and remove any dry leaves and dead head the plants frequently. 

A brief followup: – It has been two weeks and our roses are thriving.  If you didn't know they had been transplanted you would not even suspect something that stressful had happened. 

Check in to this blog for updates as we continue the Kendall garden redo 2020. Happy gardening. 

 

Information links:

UC Master Gardeners of Napa County

Step by Step Garden Design: http://napamg.ucanr.edu/GardenDesign/

Northern California/Nevada/Hawaii District of the American Rose Society http://www.ncnhdistrict.org/aom/myths.html

UC Integrated Pest Mgmt http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/GARDEN/PLANTS/rose.html

UC Master Gardeners of Napa County http://napamg.ucanr.edu/fuller_park_rose_garden/

UCANR 

Using CCA Preservative–Treated Lumber in Gardens and Landscaping https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8128.pdf

Master Gardeners are following recommended social distancing guidelines that keep everyone safe, Napa Master Gardeners are available to answer garden questions by email: mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. or phone at 707-253-4143.  Volunteers will get back to you after they research answers to your questions.

Visit our website: napamg.ucanr.edu to find answers to all of your horticultural questions.

Photo credits: All photos by Mel Kendall