"Blaze" Climbing Rose - bug problems!

Edit: 3/19/2016 I put it in the fire pit the other day. All of my other rosebushes are turning green and getting bushy. This plant was still brown and very dead looking. For the record, it fought a good fight. It was transplanted 3x: the first planting in early spring (from Tractor Supply pot), 2nd to a container while I tried to determine the problem (probably some sort of mites, definitely a bug infestation), 3rd to another location in the yard. It did seem to establish itself even in the 3rd transplant, but a couple of very cold nights seemed to have been too much and she never recovered.

******* RIP Blaze, my 1st rosebush. You were loved*********  <3

I planted this rose (grafted) from Tractor Supply in March 2015. It is growing well, but about two weeks ago, I noticed a bug problem. I found small holes in the leaves, tiny black spots on the leaves, and soon the leaves began to curl. I am guessing some of the uninvited guests are thrips.  I used Sevin dust right away, but I purchased Bayer Advanced 2-1 Rose and Flower Care about a week ago. The new growth should be protected from bugs.

Here is the plant today (leaf curl, holes in leaves, and some new growth shown below). My camera wouldn't zoom in clearly for a close up of the tiny black spots, but there was still at least one leaf with the spots today.

For the record, I know bees are important. I do not use insecticides if I do not need to.

Update Nov 13, 2015: The plant just worsened as time went on. Finally I dug it up, put it in a pot, and heavily pruned. This happened in late summer. When I did that, I was able to identify the culprit - very tiny bugs that were crawling up and down the branches...too small to capture in a photo. I sprayed the remaining branches with a mixture of oils...I later bought neem oil and will be using this for such problems before I get so desperate. I replanted in a new garden spot early November. The plant had a lot of new growth at the time of planting. After planting, some of the leaves started to yellow and drop, but I think this has to do with the excessive leaf growth and the time of planting. I'm not concerned about it (now). I'm not expecting many blooms next year, but I have my fingers crossed.  

Trying to save some more Knock Out roses from Tractor Supply ($2)

Update 5/28/2016

Wow! 3 of the 5 lived and they are doing great. One is huge! I wasn't sure what I had actually bought, but I believe 2 of them are Red Drift ground cover roses and the other is the single or maybe semi double pink.

These pictures do not really do the drift roses justice. The new growth, now over 3 feet tall is covered in buds. One of the bushes is at least 5 feet in diameter. It is very full and dense.

One of the three has new growth so I guess this means it is established. Yay (3 of 5 so far). I gave it 6-9-6 fertilizer today (Bayer Advanced 2 in 1). It also has an insecticide in it. Future growth will be protected from bugs. I'm not big on bug sprays, etc., (I know bees are very important too) but one of my other rosebushes is already being eaten by bugs. The two pictures below show the new growth.

There were about 7 dying Knock Out plants at Tractor Supply today. I bought 3 more hoping to save them. $2 bargains. I really wanted to try and save them all! The others didn't seem to have any sign of life remaining. So here they are (I should have taken a picture before I took them out of the package)

There are a few flower buds on the plant pictured in the middle, but they are all on one very thin cane that is an offshoot of the root. The plant pictured last only had one large cane and it is fairly green. The top pictured plant is looking sad.

Here they are after clipping away some dead branches and trying to fix them up a bit (below):

The last picture shows the one small living cane. I had to balance it on the dead branches to keep it off the ground. It does have about 4 flower buds on it, and one is about to bloom.


Two of these plants are Rainbow Knock Out. I'm not sure what the other one (the plant with the large green cane) is because the plastic and label were removed from the pot.

I now have 5 Knock Out rosebushes planted in my backyard. All were near death. We'll see what happens. At least I can experiment with them with love and not fear harming them!  


I also should have taken photos of the roots. I am fairly certain these roses are grown on their own roots (not grafted) They were planted in peat pots (about 6 inches) The roots looked okay. One of them seemed a little moldy.

Tomatoes!

I had my first tomato sandwich of the season (June 10, 2015). These are Stupice (stoo peeka) tomatoes, an heirloom variety from Czechoslovakia. They do not look very pretty, but oh they were delicious! They were so sweet, 10x better than the perfect looking tomatoes from the grocery store: 5 stars for taste.  I'm in zone 7. These are early tomatoes.

I haven't yet grown a tomato from a plant I started. This year might be the first. These look healthy! I'll keep them in the pots a little while longer. These are Early Doll (hybrid) and Cherokee Purple (heirloom). I ordered the seeds from an ebay seller.

I'm getting a greenhouse next year, as well as a fluorescent light setup.

These plants were grown using only the sun, water, and homemade fish emulsion (minnows and water).

I'm pinching all of the suckers off my plants this year too. I've never done that before. I am also more aggressive about clipping the lower branches than I have ever been.

The sucker is just above the bottom branch, in the middle. Its gone from the picture just above. 

Various organic soil amendments

I forgot to mention that I add various other household things to my gardens too: banana peels, eggshells, coffee grinds...

I have had a nearly continuous supply of fish emulsion from my husband's fishing trips this year. He brings me all of the leftover minnows that he uses for bait. I just add water and let them do their thing. Some of my plants get the the whole fish, not just minnows either!  

Rhododendron

I planted this rhododendron in the spring of 2014. The picture below was taken right after planting. I think it was about 6 inches tall.

The spot I chose was not getting enough sun. It didn't grow well here. Shade from the fence began around 1:00. I started reading more about rhododendrons (azaleas, roses...all things plants!) in the spring of 2015 and realized my soil was also not acidic enough for a rhododendron (or azalea). 

In either early spring of 2015, I moved this plant to an area of my yard that gets more sunshine, but also also gets shade from a large tree. From early afternoon until early evening (5:00 or 6:00ish) the spot receives only dappled sunshine. I also purchased Epsoma Organic Soil Acidifer and planted the rhododendron with it and plenty of compost. My plant seems very happy now! It's height was about one foot, give or take several inches, and very leggy when I moved it. It is now about 3 feet tall and  bushy (June 2015) It is also setting flower buds for the first time. I hope to finally see some of the lovely flowers next spring! Here is my rhododendron today. 

And here are the flower buds. They are on most of the new branches now. 

I still watch my plant very closely. Some of the older leaves are brown and spotty. I used some Serenade Garden anti fungus concentrate on the plant too,but at this point, I don't think it is fungus. I think the plant suffered a lot of winter damage.  

My rhododendron is just about dead. I noticed some wilting a couple weeks ago, so I first thought it needed water, but when that didn't fix the wilting, I did some research and discovered it probably had root rot ( Phytophthora cinnamomi fungus) 

This is terribly sad. As you can see, most all of the branches have flower buds now, so I was looking forward to blooms next spring. I poured an anti fungal solution (Serenade Garden) into the ground hoping that would  help. It didn't. I  had read that once root rot sets in, there is little hope for the plant. I guess I could have tried transplanting. Anyway, the above pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago. The plant is now turning brown and is obviously about to die. :( 

Hydrangea

3/19/2016:
Here are a few pictures of this hydrangea. The bushy picture is from August 2015. It definitely made it from Kroger to my yard! The next three are from March 2016. Thankfully we had a very mild winter and it survived. I didn't consider the hardiness of the plant until now. We are expecting some freezing temps over the next couple of days. I will be covering this bush.

 This is a closeup in early March.

 (Taken on a rainy day - color is weird) This was March 19, 2016. You can see that some of the buds up the stem are showing life. I'm going to cover the plant the next few nights because we are expecting freezing temps.

This is early March, 2016. You can see some green sprouting from the ground.

I bought a foil wrapped hydrangea from Kroger for $3 (discounted from $25) around Mothers Day. It looked something like this (below - not my photo)

Here it is today (June 4, 2015)

I clipped the flowers and some leaves when they began dying. At first, it looked like the whole plant was going to die, but soon little leaves began sprouting from one of the branches. Yay. I transplanted it to the pot about 2 or 3 weeks after I bought it (after I noticed new growth). Soon new growth was appearing on the other two branches and at the bottom of the plant.

I'll put it in the ground sometime in August or September. Its sitting in the place I've selected now just to see how it does. The spot is about 20 feet from a large tree, but gets plenty of morning sun. Shade from the tree comes around 3 right now. This spot will allow my hydrangea to grow as large as it wants.

I've used my homemade fish emulsion (minnows and water) and miracle grow on the plant. I am going to put some aluminum sulfate in the ground well before planting along with plenty of compost. Assuming I will keep it in this place, I'll start preparing the plant's home soon.

Tractor Supply $2 Knockout Rosebush Bargains - Update

Here it is today (below), about a week later.

I think they are going to make it. Here is new growth on one of the bushes. The other as shown in the previous (first) post has two flower buds.

I'm pretty sure this plant was grown on its own root rather than grafted, so I'm optimistic by this growth at the base of the plant (above) rather than wondering about stock root. Update (about a week later) That new growth at the base shriveled and died away, but new life appeared on the other side of the cane and has taken off. See photo above.

New growth appeared a day or so after I clipped the only growing/green cane on the plant. I cut about 1/3 of it. I didn't do much of anything to the plant after I put it in the ground for the first week other than water and fertilize (fish, miracle grow, compost, and mulch). Nothing happened with this bush, but the other one seemed to be establishing itself without clipping. I started clipping a few days (obvious dead parts) to a week after planting.

Here is the plant right after I planted it (below). I felt so sorry for these plants! There were about 15 of them at Tractor Supply. All of them were pathetic looking. If there was such a thing as plant cruelty, this was it! I don't believe the plants were being watered in the dirt at all. The top of the plastic over the container was wrapped tightly in wire and only the [mostly dead] canes were exposed.

Here it is today, almost 2 weeks later (below). There are still dead canes, but I'll wait a little longer before cutting anymore. I might wait until March of 2016 before clipping the rest of them. I'm not sure yet.

Below are the before and after (almost 2 weeks later) pictures of the other Tractor Supply save.