Chapter 13

Reconditioning Old Rose Gardens

Crops of any type of plant grown on virgin soil almost always do well for at least two or three years, for that soil contains the necessary foods. Continued cropping, even if varied in type, reduces the humus content of the soil and, with it, the plant foods.

Plants are very selective in their feeding. Each type of plant needs plant-food elements in slightly different proportions, and each soil contains those elements in a different ratio. The plants will take from the soil just that quantity of each element essential to their own particular requirements. If one element becomes deficient there will be stunted growth. This condition is created fairly quickly if the one type of crop is grown in the same area for several years in succession and little or no organic manure is added. Organic manures, especially those rich in decayed vegetable matter, put back into the soil almost the same foods as the plants took from it. They are in somewhat the same ratio to one another, too. Chemical fertilizers often hasten the deterioration by breaking down the humus and not replacing it.

When an area has grown a certain type of crop for several years, and is found to be able to produce good growth of that particular crop no longer, it is said to be "crop-sick". It will occur in any soil despite the regular use of even the best and most varied manures. It seems to be a complex problem, involving more than depletion of one or more elements. The good gardener who grows mostly annuals and herbaceous plants, which can be moved frequently without harm, recognizes this fact and rotates his crops from area to area, year by year.

Frequent crop-rotation is not possible in a rose garden, for it is always hoped that each rose plant will not need to be moved or discarded for many years. The soil round each rose will be fed from by the plant in its own selective manner all through those years. When eventually the plant is discarded, that small area of soil must inevitably be crop-sick for roses. It will produce lush growth in other plants, but a new rose plant will fail unless a few barrow-loads of the old soil are replaced by virgin topsoil.

After replacements of this kind have been made several times and the bed is fifteen or more years old, the problem becomes more serious, and something needs to be done to the bed as a whole. The ideal is to take out all the plants and the soil of such a bed to a depth of twelve inches, cart it away and replace it with good, heavy, loamy, virgin topsoil. A heavy dressing of bone-meal then should be dug in thoroughly by several turnings. This could all be done in late April after the main autumn blooming. All digging should be completed by late June, and fresh roses could be planted in late July. Such treatment is costly and laborious in large beds, necessitating the finding of other methods.

It is inadvisable to attempt to rejuvenate the whole of a large garden at the one time. It is better to do it bed by bed, spreading the programme over several years. Then a bed should be cleared after either the spring or autumn blooming, and lightly dug. Allow this to fallow for a few weeks. Then double-trench to a depth of about eighteen inches and again leave it rough for a couple of weeks. Give a good dressing of bone-meal, and stir it well into the soil by several turnings to the depth of the spade.

The process should have taken about six or seven weeks by this time. If the roses were removed in late spring, it will now be about 20th to 25th December. Dahlias and annuals may be planted; they will do the soil a great deal of good and provide autumn flowers. When discarded they should be stored in the compost heap, spread over beds, or dug into the ground; any vegetable matter is invaluable. Do not dig them into the bed that is being reconditioned. If the roses were retained for the autumn blooming the schedule will be the same from late May onwards as from late December onwards in the former instance.

In early June, a dressing of compost, cow manure, or strawy stable manure should be spread to a depth of two to three inches if that quantity can be obtained. Do not dig it in until weeds have grown to a height of six to eight inches.

All through the winter all the ash from wood fires and the incinerator should be carefully stored under cover to avoid its becoming wet. Much of its valuable content is very soluble, and wetting causes it to be lost. Coal ash or coke ash is useless. Nothing should be burnt in the incinerator if it can be composted.

In early spring the ashes must be spread over the bed as evenly as possible. A further light dressing of bone-meal may be applied simultaneously. The bed should be turned several times to assure a good even mixing. Then the surface must be carefully levelled and a leguminous crop sown broadcast or in rows six to eight inches apart. All legumes have the ability to absorb atmospheric nitrogen and store it in root nodules. This is not done by any other family of plants. The best legumes for our purpose are lupins and red clover, the latter being probably the better. Maize is favoured as a green crop by many growers.

In autumn the red clover crop should be dug in and the ground left in a rough state until mid June. It would be of great benefit to repeat the whole process for another year, but very good results will be obtained if the bed is left to lie for a few weeks while the clover disintegrates and the soil is then dug again twice before about i oth July. Replanting with roses could be done in late July.

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