Jill's Hydro Roses: Coco Coir and Very High Output

In a way, I’m even more confused than I was last week. I keep telling myself that it’s an exciting adventure, switching from carnations to roses, but then again perhaps I didn’t realize what I was getting into.

When I Google “growing roses” I get a staggering 1,500,000 hits. As long as I live, I’ll never be able to visit that many websites. Also, as everyone knows, there is a lot of misinformation on the web. So what to do?

I called the Advanced Nutrients technical help line and they weren’t as forthcoming as they usually are with their advice. It seems that they have yet to do the tests on many of their products as they specifically relate to growing roses.

In my own research, I’ve found that coco coir is very well suited as a grow medium for roses. For those not familiar with coco, it is a relatively new growing medium used in hydroponics, produced as a bi-product of processing in the coconut industry. It is a fibrous material that seems to have many advantages over other grow media.

Not only is it totally renewable, but it’s light in weight, of consistently high quality, completely environmentally friendly, and said to produce better root systems in a short time.

The property of coco coir that makes it especially well suited for roses is the fact that it fills only sixty percent of its body mass with water, leaving forty percent of its composition for air, allowing the plant to breath.

Roses are particularly sensitive to wet growing media. If their roots sit in water for any length of time, the roots will die for lack of oxygen. So using the rockwool slabs that I used for carnations will not work with roses.

This property of roses also makes me rethink the hydroponic system I was using for carnations. The Drip Irrigation system kept the rockwool moist around the roots of my flowers.

Perhaps an Ebb and Flow system would be better for roses, since it only floods the grow medium at periodic intervals, and then the nutrient solution retreats into the reservoir underneath the ebb and flow containers.

This definitely requires further research, in terms of the pros and cons, as well as the financial consideration of investing in a brand new hydroponic system.

I’m also puzzled by the best nutrient to use. Advanced Nutrients has perfected Monkey Juice Grow, Parts A & B, and Monkey Juice Bloom, Parts A & B specifically to use with coco coir, but the NPK of these products seems to be wrong for roses.

According to my research, roses are happiest when their food has the Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium balance in the range of 1:2:1, 1:2:2, or 2:3:1 ratios. The NPK of Monkey Juice is 6-2-3 for the Grow and 5-4-4 for the Bloom, which seems to be all wrong for roses.

If you use the wrong fertilizer for roses, one which is heavy in its Nitrogen content, you wind up with lush green vegetative growth at the expense of your flowers, which are the main reason for growing roses in the first place.

Perhaps it’s better to stick with Grow (NPK 2-1-6) and Bloom (NPK 0-5-4), with only a smidgen of Micro (NPK 5-0-1). Or to even leave Micro out altogether, and administer those necessary micronutrients through supplements, such as Sensi Cal Grow and Sensi Cal Bloom.

This would actually be perfect, because it would also address the problem of coco coir tending to absorb Calcium. In fact, Monkey Juice has added calcium-magnesium just for this purpose.

Coco-coir also has intrinsic Phosphorus (10-50 ppm), as well as Potassium (150-450 ppm), depending on the brand of coco-coir you use. Coco comes in disks, bricks, or blocks, and you simply break these into smaller pieces before using it as a grow medium.

Depending whether your coco coir is treated or untreated, you have to soak it for several hours in water before use. For the untreated coco, they suggest another soaking in good quality water for several hours, then drain the coco to get rid of the unwanted salts that do accumulate.

So I am making progress—I’ve decided to grow in coco coir as my medium and to use Advanced Nutrients Grow and Bloom as my base fertilizers, with Sensi Cal Grow and Sensi Cal Bloom as supplements to supply the micronutrients that are necessary to grow healthy, vigorous roses.

BTW, it’s not true that all Hybrid Tea Roses are without fragrance. I’ve since found a website that lists fragrant Hybrid Tea varieties, some of which have won awards for their bouquets.

Among the names that jump out at me from these lists are Tiffany, Crimson Glory, Fragrant Cloud, and Sheila’s Perfume. I make a note to Google them for next week and see which of them are manageable in size for my limited grow space.

According to one website, there are more Hybrid Tea Roses sold in the world than any other garden plant. I can believe it. But to grow the long stem varieties that are extremely popular around Valentine’s Day, seems to be the domain of the greenhouse grower, as opposed to an amateur’s back yard.

The two ways to produce long stem roses are pruning and climate control. So being able to control the climate of my grow room, I am at an advantage over the outdoor grower in this respect.

The optimum temperature for growing long stemmed roses is 27º Celsius (around 80º Fahrenheit) with a relative humidity of 60-70%.

Long stem roses are rated according to the length of the stem and the size of the bud. The longest stems and biggest buds are the most desirable. Stems in excess of 24 inches, with a bud size of one inch or more, denote high quality roses.

All you have to do is check the prices for a dozen of these around Valentine’s Day, to know how valuable these flowers can be. If it’s true that ten billion dollars worth of cut carnations are sold every year around the world, then the figure for bouquets of roses must be much, much larger.

Pruning involves only allowing one bud—the one in the centre, the largest one—to stay on the stem. All other buds have to carefully pruned off. I did much the same for my carnations. Removing the secondary buds will cause the main flower bud to grow larger.

Any fluctuation from the optimum temperature in the grow room will cause stress in the roses, which will reduce stem and bud growth. By maintaining an even temperature, with the optimum humidity level, you are basically creating a stress-free environment for the roses so they can reach their optimum levels of growth and bud formation.

One of the Advanced Nutrients tech guys told me about an experiment that was done with a foliar spray called Very High Output. A grower of roses used this product to selectively spray the stems that he wanted to elongate. According to this grower, the experiment worked.

Very High Output (VHO) should be used during the vegetative stage only. In order to enhance bud growth, the tech guy suggested trying Colossal Bud Blast, which is also a foliar spray, meant to be used during the flowering stage of the plant.

Wish me luck in my continued research. Next week I’ll report on my findings with regard to the exact rose varieties that are best suited to my comparatively small grow space.