Friday 23rd May, 2025
Hi
First week of potting roses went like clock work
Wahoo! We have started, first week done and dusted, and approx. 4000
Roses have now been potted and are mostly sitting in the garden centre. Those that have already been purchased through orders created from waitlists are sitting in another space ready for the next delivery, or in our holding bay, ready to be collected (but please don't come to collect until we have told you that they are ready!). Just another three weeks to go on the roses and hopefully we will turn out around another 4500 each week and then job done... Haha until we start the trees!
It is always a big challenge each year and this week has gone brilliantly. I guess this is largely due to a team who have done it all before and have a pretty good idea on how it all should go.
This week's
Roses arrived in large crates with around 200 roses in each, usually in bundles of 5 with a master label, all packed with damp pea straw. It's a bit of a surprise what is in each crate but the bundle are all sorted and grouped with their own cultivars. A count is done, colour and the Wairere labels attached, and then they are received into stock via a scanner.
Then it's on to the team that root prune and label each individual rose and put them out for the team of potters to put into bags. I have to say it's a knack to pot and does take a bit of practice, but once you have it you wonder what was so hard about the task.
It's a flick of the wrist to get a bag out and open with your hand inside. A small scoop of mix into the bottom to make the bag stay open and sit flat. Hold the rose bush in the centre at the right depth, which is where it came out of the soil. Fill to the top with potting mix and give it some good sharp bangs on the bench and it should settle to around 1 cm down from the top of the bag. Just like your pots at home there always needs to be a reservoir to collect the rain or water (from the hose or sprinkler in our case). A pretty good potter can turn out around 600 roses a day when supported by a team of about 8 others.
Then it's on to the trailers and up into the garden centre and laid out in alphabetical order. This year we have again set the roses out in groupings of:
Modern,
Austins and
Climbers primarily.
It would seem that we have had a predominance of the
David Austin roses in this delivery and so if you like these beautiful old-fashioned style flowers then perhaps we could tempt you with a few names that I saw while out there helping the team. You can come out and check them out for yourself, but just know that we are only a quarter of the way through potting them all... I can update you in another week.
Olivia Rose Austin An excellent plant all round with highly fragrant blooms that are shallowly cupped, soft pink rosettes. Strong, pleasing, fruity fragrance. Vigorous growth and good repeat flowering. An exceptionally healthy and disease resistant rose.
Desdemona An exquisitely beautiful Austin rose. Peachy pink buds open to beautiful, white, chalice-shaped blooms, with a pinkish hue. Strong Old Rose fragrance has hints of almond blossom, cucumber and lemon zest.
Lichfield Angel This angel of a rose has clouds of soft creamy apricot blooms that gently fade to white. A beautiful rose that blooms generously and has a vigorous, disease resistant, informal, growth habit. Named for an artefact recently discovered at Lichfield Cathedral. Mr Austin does it again!
Roald Dahl Soft orange-red buds open to medium-sized, cupped rosettes of perfect apricot colouring. They are extremely robust and have a lovely fruity tea scent. Very healthy, all round attractive and compact bush. Few thorns. Named to mark the centenary of the birth of British author Roald Dahl.
Plenty of new
Proteas,
Azaleas,
Camellias etc., but a few plants of note in my wander through the garden centre yesterday
Gardenia Veitchii standards We don't often get these as standards and these are pretty nice grade too. I am quite fond of
Veitchii as it's quite a good bushy form with beautiful white fragrant flowers and of course evergreen. Great for those semi shade position right through to quite sunny. I always think this is one of the easier varieties of gardenia to grow.
While on about gardenias, I see that Ang has received in a whole heap more of several varieties (e.g.
Four Seasons,
Professor Pucci,
Radicans) and these are a really great grade that are just $29.99 each. They are big and bushy and spill over the containers that they are in.
Gardenia radicans is compact in growth and habit and could almost make for a great groundcover if planted at around 30 to 40 cm apart.
Helleborus Ice queen is an orientalis form which in my opinion makes this beauty super hardy. Of course Ice queen is going to have the whitest flowers and these always look fabulous mass planted in those dappled light positions. Remember, if planted under deciduous trees then you do need to remove the fallen leaves from them.
Mandarin Satsuma and all its cultivars. My tree here in my garden is just laden with huge bright orange fruit that are just ready for the picking.
Satsuma mandarins are the easy peel like almost puff off skins which are great for kids and adults alike. Not too large a growing tree, so will suit most smaller gardens and has even been great in a pot.
Waikato rose society come to the nursery ... Questions, Answers, Summer and Winter Rose pruning, Best cultivars, Showing roses, whatever ...
Question and Answer sessions here at the nursery with the Waikato rose society. Their field of expertise is roses and they love to share their knowledge to all. Being a nursery that specialises in all kinds of roses, it is great to have them here.
Mark these dates in your Calendar... we have tried to get a variety of times and dates so that hopefully there is at least one that will suit everyone:
Wednesday 9th July 10.30am to 12.30pm
Saturday 19th July 1pm to 3pm
Sunday 27th July 11 am to 1pm.
Strawberry Camarosa bare root plants
Only available at this time of year and they need to be planted right now Bundles of 10 @ $16.99. This delicious Strawberry has large, conical shaped, dark red firm fruit with excellent flavour.
Camarosa are short-day strawberries, they flower from spring to summer, with the main crop in December. Good disease resistance.
Garlic again: it's the time to get these into the ground. It's no biggie if you are planting before or after the shortest day but in general terms, now is the time.
If you are in the garden this weekend, clear all those leaves away from your plants so that they are not getting smothered. Plants can't survive without light and some trees, like
Plane trees, can make pretty good carpets of leaves.
Don't be tempted to cut back your roses, just leave them be but do spray them with copper and conqueror oil to sort scale, overwintering eggs and spores... Don't just leave it at one spray but do several through the winter.
Tidy up perennials that have finished their cycle like
Hostas,
Salvias,
Dahlias etc. You will be able to tell because their leaves have done their dash for the season.
Weeding, composting and mulching are also all good things to do at this time of year. Mulching saves on weeding and also contributes to the soil's structure.
Lastly, have a great weekend.
Cheers from Lloyd, Tony, and the Wairere team.
