Growing Roses is Harder than Growing Carnations

Pedro and I have been having information exchange sessions in order to get on the same page with regard to the methods we’re going to use to grow our roses. These sessions are usually two hours long and are held first thing in the morning. Since I’m trying to build a relationship with this man, I’m trying to steer them in the direction of the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect. It doesn’t always work out that way.

As you know, we are growing roses in three separate glasshouses. House number one, Blue Rose, is growing two varieties: Blue Girl and Julia’s Rose. House number two, Red Rose, now has Alec’s Red and Kardinal, both blazing red classic hybrid teas. Then house number three, Multi Rose, houses the plants that are going to provide us with superb, multi-colored roses called Granada and Ambience.

Growing commercially for the cut flower market is different from planting a few rose bushes in your hobby garden. First, we do it on a large scale, second, we do it indoors hydroponically, and third, we use the best planrt foods and supplements available to feed our precious plants, which hopefully will provide a lilvelihood for both of us.

We grow in the medium of coco coir, in individual buckets comprising—with a deep reservoir—three separate hydroponic systems, one for each greenhouse. All vital functions that govern the greenhouses are fully automated. However, Pedro insists that we go through with manual checking procedures several times a day.

This is a throwback to how he learned to grow roses in his family’s greenhouse operation on the island of Mallorca, off the coast of Spain. Their greenhouses are not entirely automatic, so Pedro only trusts his systems if he is able to check and recheck each minute detail manually. However, when he insists on the umpteenth check at 7pm and I’m starving and ready to go to dinner, my emotions sometimes flair and we do exchange words.

For instance, the other day we discovered a small spider mite infestation in Glasshouse Two. We had sprayed all our young rose plants with Scorpion Juice to impart to them induced systemic resistance, thus the mite attack remained inconsequential. We traced it back to one of our employees moonlighting in a rival greenhouse, where they don’t use Advanced Nutrients products to inoculate their plants.

She brought in the mites in her hair, which she neglected to put under a protective net. Needless to say, we gave her the proverbial walking papers, but the damage was done. Then we issued a warning to all of our employees, urging them to pay strict attention to sanitary procedures and reiterating the rule that visits to other growing operations are strictly forbidden.

We don’t want to assume somebody else’s pest problems. We mix our nutrient solution in pre-mix tanks the night before we pour the solutions into our main reservoirs. The potassium silicate product, Barricade, figures largely in our decision to do the mixing on the previous night. This very effective product strengthens the cell walls of our rose plants, thus fighting and warding off many insidious pathogens and pests, but it takes a long time to dissolve properly.

Because we’re using coco coir, we have to mix in Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow in the proper quantities, in order to compensate for the Calcium depletion that is inherent in this grow medium. In addition to Magnesium, Sensi Cal Grow also has minute amounts of trace elements that enhance the feeding regimen of our roses. Iron, Manganese, Zinc, Copper, Boron, Molybdenum, and Cobalt my not be as well known as the NPK trio (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium) but they are equally important in a diet for roses.

Of course, the main part of that diet—at Pedro’s insistence—is Iguana Juice Grow. This is a 100% organic plant nutrient (NPK 3-1-3) that contains alfalfa, krill, and yucca extract, as well as earthworm castings, volcanic ash, and kelp meal, encased in a fish base, utilizing fish caught in the pristine, icy waters of the Northern Pacific Ocean.

Iguana Juice Bloom, it’s sister product for the flowering stage of our roses, has in NPK of 4-3-6, so it contains much more Phosphorus and Potassium, two elements that are vitally needed for robust bud formation. We also plan to use Colossal Bud Blast at that stage in order to ensure numerous and sizable flowers that will hopefully win awards in the flower shows that Pedro and I plan to enter.

I told Pedro that using the Advanced Nutrients bloom boosters, Bud Blood, Big Bud, and Overdrive, I managed to get outstanding results growing my carnations, and I have several shelves full of ribbons, medals, and trophies to prove it. He is a traditionalist, and is dead set against using chemicals of any kind, whether to kill bugs or feed our roses.

I tried to reason with him and told him that even from our organic fertilizer and supplements, the elements that the roses use are inorganic, thus chemical, but he wouldn’t budge. He insisted that there is a certain quality in the organics that is lacking in the synthetics and no scientist is going to prove him wrong. Misplaced Aries fire, I’d say.

Our rose plants are still young and going through their vegetative stage, so all this talk about bloom enhancing is premature. Our boilers are still generating CO2, since they had to work through the month of April. However, May is almost here, so pretty soon we’ll be switching to the bottled CO2 for growth enhancement, since the boilers are going to be set only to boil hot water and it won’t be necessary to heat the greenhouses, except on especially cold nights.

We had an argument about using conventional methods of producing cut flowers, or the pinch and bend method favored by many North American growers. This latter consists of pinching all the buds along a plant’s stem, except the main one at the tip (which Pedro agrees with), then deciding which branches are producing the largest, potentially most beautiful buds, and bending the branches bearing inferior buds back and fixing them in that position.

This bending allows the chosen buds and branches to get all the carbohydrates, even from the bent branches, but it’s a controversial technique, and European traditionalists are slow in accepting it. Pedro and I didn’t speak for two days—our argument about this was so heated—but I’m sure he’ll come around to my way of seeing things.

He better, or I just might go back to growing carnations (just kidding!).