Rose Report

few tasks, fragrance, and fun

September is one of my favorite months in the Rose Garden because the vivid colors replace summer’s sun-bleached petals and there is not as much work to do, but to enjoy the form and fragrance and wait for winter work. Let’s start with what we are doing at the Laura Conyers Smith Municipal Rose Garden in Loose Park this month and what you can do in yours.

Continue to water a minimum of 1 inch a week if inadequate precipitation.

Stop deadheading by mid-September. In the fall, roses instinctively send their sap down into the roots so there is no danger of future freezing sap rupturing the cell walls. Deadheading interferes with that process and runs the risk of damaging the roses. Pull off spent petals from the rose blooms to make the bush look more tidy.

Do not fertilize this month unless you use organic fertilizer, as we do in the Rose Garden, at the beginning of September

Continue spraying fungicide every two weeks and insecticide if needed.

In addition, September is the perfect month to take a sweetheart, friend or family member on a fragrance treasure hunt at the Rose Garden. The Kanas City Rose Society recently added a Fragrance Award Roses page (and Hybridizer page) on the www.kcrsroselibrary. com website where all can learn about the six James Alexander Gamble Fragrance Medal winners. Visitors may also use the Pink Garden Guide, found in mailboxes at the East and North entrances of the Rose Garden, to help find these six divine roses. The fragrance winners are: ‘Double Delight’ in the NE Quad, ‘Chrysler Imperial’ and ‘Tiffany’ in the SE Quad, ‘Granada’ in the SW Quad and ‘Falling in Love’ and ‘Mister Lincoln’ in the NW Quad.

Don’t miss the Kansas City Rose Society’s free annual event “Jazz in the Roses,” sponsored by KCRS members Adrienne Fisher and Amy Hiles of The Fisher Hiles Team, Better Homes & Gardens Kansas City, from 5 to 7 p.m. on Sunday, September 11. Bring your family, friends, dogs, blankets, picnics and swing and sway the night away.

And, please consider supporting our spectacular Wine and Roses Fundraiser from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 15, in the Rose Garden. You may purchase tickets on our website at kansascityrosesociety.org.

I look forward to seeing many of you in the Rose Garden this month. The Laura Conyers Smith Municipal Rose Garden remains the Crown Jewel of our city!

Falling in Love

Chrysler Imperial

Granada Double Delight

Mister Lincoln Tiffany

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With summer’s best of weather

And autumn’s best of cheer.

Helen Hunt Jackson, September, 1830-1885

LAUREN ENGLISH Consulting Rosarian

Lauren English is the Kansas City Rose Society Garden Chair at the Laura Conyers Smith Municipal Rose Garden in Loose Park and an American Rose Society Consulting Rosarian. She can be reached at laurenenglish.kcrs@ gmail.com or at the Ask a Rosarian hotline, kcrosehelp@gmail.com.