jill's-hydro-roses

Roses Hydroponic Cultivation

2011-04-18T05:29:00.000-07:00

By definition - the word "Hydroponic" means the art of growing plants without using soil. A Dozen Roses supplied by Tyrade Pty Ltd grows it's roses hydroponically as they are planted and cultivated in coco-peat which is a growing medium made from the milled husks of coconuts and produced in Sri Lanka.

Coco-peat has come to the fore in the rose growing industry as an ideal medium as it has good drainage properties but at the same time retains good moisture content; it is also very stable and is unaffected by fertilizers applied to it, it's consistency is very fine which is perfect for the development of fine root hairs which are responsible for most of the absorption of nutrients and water required by the rose plants. Coco-peat does not affect the pH and EC. At the end of it's life expectancy it is bio-degradable and does not present a hazard to the environment.




How the plants are grown in the broccoli boxes in the coco-peat medium. There are four plants to a broccoli box & two/three drippers to a box. Notice all the gutters under the broccoli boxes to collect any run-off water - which is then re-cycled - in a "closed re-circulated system". The above gem of an article was found on the web page of an Australian company at the following location. For more information on hydroponic roses, click on this article.

Hydroponic Roses Are Worth It

2010-04-13T18:08:00.000-07:00

Roses are one of the most common flowers in the world where gardening is concerned. They are also fairly easy to grow, although they have some special considerations to take into account. Roses need a lot of water to grow properly. They do not require excessive temperatures and only require six hours of sunlight each day. Roses also may require additional carbon dioxide in order to grow properly. One of the biggest concerns for roses, even in a hydroponic garden, is pests. It seems they like roses as much as humans. Let’s explore the world of roses in your hydroponic garden.

Your hydroponic growing system will need to take several factors into account. Rose bushes can become large, so you need to give each bush at least four square feet of growing room. This allows for light to reach your roses and prevents branches from becoming entangled and harming each other. Secondly, you will need some kind of support for your roses while at the same time allowing the roots room to dangle in your hydroponic nutrient solution. A container with pebbles or other supportive growing medium will work fine. While your rose needs constant moisture, allowing the roots to remain still in the hydroponic nutrient solution will harm the roots. You will need an ebb and flow system that pumps water continuously past the roots but remains in motion.

Normal temperatures of between sixty-five and seventy-five degrees are ideal for roses. Since they only require six hours of daylight each day, you may be able to manage without gro-lights. This will depend on the location of your greenhouse and how much daily light it provides. It is always a good idea to have gro lights as backup. One of the special requirements of roses, especially in an indoor garden, is the need for additional carbon dioxide. This will require a trip to a hydroponic supply store for special carbon dioxide tanks and a mechanism to release precise amounts of it into the grow space.

Roses are often very prone to infestations. Some of this can be taken care of by having your roses indoors. Hydroponics also eliminates soil, which is the breeding ground for many insect enemies of the rose. By adding natural predator insects to your hydroponic greenhouse, you can eliminate many other harmful pests. Commercial insecticides can damage or kill your plants. These are not recommended in any case. If you find it necessary to use any product for pests, try ones like Barricade, or now Rhino Skin from Advanced Nutrients. These specially–formulated pest products have been designed to take care of any problems and do much less damage to your hydroponic garden plants.

Roses do take a little extra care when being grown in the hydroponic garden, but most gardeners feel it is worth it. Their ability to thrive in temperature and light that is readily available allows the hydroponic gardener time to concentrate on keeping the plants pest free and providing for the extra needs like carbon dioxide supplements.

Borrowed from:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Blossom-Enhancer

Hydroponic Roses Down Under

2009-12-18T18:20:00.001-08:00

Pedro wants us to fly down to Australia this winter to visit this state of the art hydroponic rose growing facility. It's very tempting, especially after the freezing temperatures of late.

clipped from www.roses2go.com.au

Informative & beautiful tours of a hydroponic rose farm

A Dozen Roses is a member of the Central Coast Tourism group & is listed as an attraction on the Central Coast of New South Wales Australia. We are very excited to be able to offer visitors magnificent guided tours of the hydroponic rose farm. A Dozen Rosesis located at Lot 82A Hakone Road, Warnervale on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.

The hydroponic rose farm was established in January 2003. This is a 100% Australian family-run business. We pride ourselves in being able to produce some of Australia’s finest fresh cut hydroponic roses at fantastic wholesale prices direct to the public.

Grow Roses using Home Hydroponics

2009-11-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

Everyone loves the smell of fresh roses, and they also present a stunningly beautiful sight in your garden.

Unfortunately, many parts of the world do not have a climate conducive to grafted roses to grow and flourish.

Fortunately, you can easily grow roses at your home with a hydroponic system.

Have you always wanted to grow a perfect red rose, along with blue, black, and purple ones? Interestingly, most of these exotic rose colors result from a variation in soil nutrients. For example, a blue rose kept in a certain type of soil will take on a reddish hue! Similarly, a red rose bush may produce yellow roses when the soil pH is not the most advantageous.

The magic of a home hydroponic system to grow roses is that you can be assured that each rose plant will get the exact nutrients that it needs. At the same time, you will also be able to control lighting and temperatures. This is especially significant if you are experimenting with rose grafting, as well as creating your own subspecies of roses. Remember that grafting roses successfully requires a great bit of patience and effort. And your rewards are in direct relation to the toil you put in!

Undoubtedly, growing roses is a challenge for most gardeners. But the pleasure of smelling your own grown roses delights the senses in a way that is ecstatic and totally in contrast to a florists’ smell of roses that have been sitting in a refrigerator.

Happily, when you create a hydroponics garden with the help of products found in Advanced Nutrients, you will be able to experiment- mesmerizing- with your roses. You may even be able to create a dazzling new rose color, or even one with multihued petals.

For more tips on improving your indoor hydroponics garden, sign up for the most in-depth hydroponic newsletter on the web.

To become a member of an ever growing group of growers who strive to take their indoor garden to the next level, join Growers Underground.

Hydroponic Roses

2009-11-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

Roses are one of the most popular flowers in world. They are also fairly easy to grow, although there are a few special concerns to be addressed. Roses need a lot of water to grow well. They do not require high temperatures and only need about six hours of sunlight a day. Roses also may require additional carbon dioxide in order to grow properly. One of the biggest concerns for roses, even in a hydroponic garden, is pests. It seems they love roses as much as humans.

For a rich harvest of beautiful roses, your hydroponic growing system will need to take several factors into account. Rose bushes can become sizably large, so you need to give each bush at least 4 sq. feet of growing room. This ensures enough light reaches your roses and prevents branches from entangling and harming each other. Preferably, you should have some kind of support for your roses while at the same time allowing the roots’ room to dangle in your hydroponic nutrient solution.

A container with pebbles or other supportive growing medium will work just perfect. While your rose needs constant moisture, allowing the roots to remain motionless in the hydroponic nutrient solution will harm the roots. You should settle for a hydroponic ebb and flow system that pumps water continuously past the roots and remains in motion. Normal temperatures (between sixty-five and seventy-five degrees) are ideal for roses. Since they only require six hours of sunlight each day, you may be able to manage without grow-lights. This will depend on the location of your greenhouse and how much daily light it provides. It is always a good idea to have grow lights as backup. One of the special requirements of roses, especially in an indoor garden, is the need for additional carbon dioxide. This will require a trip to a hydroponic supply store for special carbon dioxide tanks to pump through your hydroponic system.

Roses are often very prone to infestations. Some of this can be taken care of by having your roses indoors. Hydroponics also eliminates soil, which is the breeding ground for many insect enemies of the rose. By adding natural predator insects to your hydroponic greenhouse, you can eliminate many other harmful pests. Commercial insecticides can damage or kill your plants. These are not recommended in any case.

If you find it necessary to use any product for pests, try ones like Barricade, found here Advanced Nutrients. These specially–formulated pest products have been designed to take care of any problems and do much less damage to your hydroponic garden plants. Roses do demand a little extra care when grown in the hydroponic garden, but most gardeners feel it is worth it. Their ability to thrive in temperature and light that is readily available allows the hydroponic gardener time to concentrate on keeping the plants pest free and providing for the extra needs like carbon dioxide supplements.

For more tips on improving Roses cultivation in your garden, sign up for the most in-depth hydroponic newsletter on the web.

To become a member of an ever growing group of growers who strive to take their indoor garden to the next level, join Growers Underground.

Can it be too early to love hydroponics?

2009-08-07T12:39:00.001-07:00

Hydroponics is definitely the wave of the future. But it's nice to get proof of this once in a while. The Hooked-on-Hydroponics Awards were just announced for kids who are involved with growing fruits, vegetables, or flowers hydroponically, in a classroom setting. Read all about it at the following url. (For the best hydroponic newsletter on the web, please go to http://www.advancednutrients.com/newsletter)

clipped from www.kidsgardening.com

When children and
teens explore how to grow plants hydroponically (without
soil),
fruitful
questions
bloom,
and these
questions can lead to active investigations and problem
solving.
These studies may even lead to classroom business opportunities
or fuel student career interests. Not least among the benefits is the joy students experience harvesting a crop of their own incredible edibles or bounteous blossoms!

Hydroponic Roses? Check on the seventh floor!

2009-04-30T09:16:00.001-07:00

It seems the future of hydroponics is certainly looking up! High-rise buildings can be transformed into vertical greenhouses to produce fruits, vegetables, and flowers in an urban setting, close to millions of hungry consumers. And yes, you can be hungry for food, but you can also be hungry for beauty! And what can be more beautiful than hydroponically grown fragrant roses?

clipped from features.csmonitor.com

Cities may sprout vertical farms

Proposed high-rise greenhouses could help solve a looming food crisis, professor says.

The world is going to need vertical farms because conventional agriculture can’t handle what’s to come, Despommier says. By midcentury, the world is expected to add another 3 billion people, pushing its population close to 10 billion. Feeding all those extra mouths will require finding an area of agricultural land larger than Brazil – without cutting rain forests needed to stabilize the world’s climate.

And indoor agriculture is more efficient. One indoor acre of strawberries can produce as much as 30 outdoor acres can. In general, indoor acreage is four to six times more productive, in part because of the year-round growing season. “Outdoors, you might get one crop [per year]; indoors, you might get four or five crops per year,” Despommier says.

Hydroponics Fights Intolerance!

2009-02-27T18:56:00.001-08:00

From the country that brought you Osama bin Laden, now comes news that Red Roses are banned in the desert dictatorship. I was so busy marketing our own Red Roses, I missed this news item. However, Pedro and I are considering shipping some Red Roses to Saudi Arabia, just to subvert this asinine edict! Hydroponics against stupidity!

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

Saudi Arabia bans sale of red roses

The sale of red roses and red gifts has been banned by Saudi Arabia's religious police in the run-up to Valentine's Day, reports a local newspaper.

Officials from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice warned flower and gift shops to remove all red items, including roses and wrapping paper, from their shelves.

The authorities believe celebrating Valentine's Day is un-Islamic and encourages relations out of wedlock, which are strictly forbidden.

The crackdown has pushed up the price of the flowers on the black market, with some florists making deliveries in the middle of the night, the paper said.

Hydroponics: Is this the happily ever after part?

2009-01-14T10:25:00.000-08:00

We’ve been married over six months and Pedro and I are as happy as two peas in a pod…Or are we? Our business requires more of our time than ever, in the face of the world economic crisis, and we had to increase our advertising budget since the purchase of flowers is considered a luxury for ordinary folk, especially in tough economic times.

\We’ve geared up our production in anticipation of Valentine’s Day and I’ve been taking bunches of flower catalogues to bed in order to get new ideas for bouquets that we can prepare in advance for the big day! We used to sell wholesale only and let the flower vendors prepare the bouquets, but that is considered a value added option, and with our overhead costs constantly rising, we figured that we should also benefit from the additional revenue, rather than allowing the flower shops to reap all the benefits.

We will have to hire some part-time help to do this, so Pedro is off to the bank today to make sure that our credit line is in place to do that. As you know, credit is increasingly difficult to get these days, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Even though the government is talking about a bailout, and the interest rates have been lowered to their lowest levels, the banks are reluctant to pass on these perks to their customers.

Thank goodness there is one company we can rely on to supply the best possible hydroponic nutrients for our Roses. And that is Advanced Nutrients. Pedro is still enthusiastic about all their products and we hear through the grapevine that they’re planning to launch a new technology, that will eliminate the necessity of taking pH and PPM readings.

Pedro is skeptical about this and he vows to continue to take such readings, even if he’s told that we don’t have to anymore with Advanced Nutrients products. He is dying to know the details and can’t wait for the product launch. He visits the Advanced Nutrients website each day, but it seems to be a closely guarded secret at the moment.

How does all this affect our marriage? After six months, he has stopped doing those little things that ensure that a wife knows she’s special and wanted. Instead of coming home with an extra fine bottle of wine, as he used to, now he comes home with a newspaper full of details of the economic downturn. Instead of putting some wrapped dark chocolate on my pillow at night, now he asks where the aspirin is before he comes to bed.

A woman notices such things and I hope that the economy improves this year, so that he can stop worrying and concentrate on making me happy. After all, isn’t that a husband’s lot?

A fellow hydroponics rose producer worth mentioning

2008-11-21T16:31:00.001-08:00

Once in a while, I come across another worthy rose producer on the web. Since Pedro and I are up to our gills trying to stay afloat in a dismal business climate, I thought it would be an act of kindness to help promote some competitors who love this occupation as much as we do.

There is one major difference between us, however. While they obviously spray poison on their roses, Pedro and I never do that. We rely solely on preventative measures and bio-control, when necessary. It's up to you--do you want to give your significant other a bouquet laced with poison (hey, don't answer that without thinking or would you rather present them with huge, fragrant flowers grown organically, fueled by Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom and protected by Barricade and Scorpion Juice, all from Advanced Nutrients!

clipped from www.rosebudlimited.com

Internally
formulated standards at Rosebud have set out overall
responsibilities for all management staff who can guide
other employees on Good Agricultural Practice (GAP)
including minimal use of pesticides and fertilizers,
environment policy, social responsibility and staff
welfare. To comply with this the farm undertakes frequent
internal audits in order to identify and document any
risk and prepare a time bound action plan. The overall
objective is to reduce the pesticide usage while at
the same time ensuring responsible and safe use of fertilizers
and pesticides. This takes place within the guidelines
set out in the company policy and statutory regulations.
Application of pesticides is guided by scouting and
identifying pests and disease pressures in all greenhouses.

Easy Hydroponics---Scorpion Juice

2008-09-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

Since Pedro and I are so busy, I thought I would entertain you with this very snazzy video. Pedro loves it, because he says that Scorpion Juice has saved our Roses on more than one occasion. Don't let Black Spot rear its ugly head! Immunize your flowers with Scorpion Juice, before disaster strikes! Check it out at click here!

The Wedding Was Super-Wonderful! Our New Hydroponics Greenhouse!

2008-08-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

Honeymooners Visit Every Vineyard in Spain! Pedro and I are great believers in long trips, as opposed to short ones. We both figure that once you're there, you should stay put for a while. Not to mention visiting the relatives on Majorca and Spain proper. Every house greeted us with huge bouquets of roses, delicious tapas, and strong, red wine. We visited so many households that at one point we just looked at each other and decided to escape to a romantic hideaway, which shall remain nameless. We plan to escape to this rustic inn at least once a year, to be able to take the pressures of our growing Greenhouse business.

While we were away a fourth Greenhouse was raised by an expert crew. A wedding gift from Pedro's family. It is covered with glazed, imported glass and now we have to decide what roses to grow in the new one. But I promise to blog at least once a month, so I'll keep the details for the next blog. We haven't even unpacked from the trip and we're smack back in the middle of everything. Not the least of which is the muggy, Mississauga summer!

All of our Greenhouses are now air conditioned, so it's a bit easier to take the heat. Spain was hot, too, so we can't complain. We both have tans that a Hollywood actor would envy.

If you want to enjoy life to the fullest, visit Majorca, lie on its beaches, meet its wonderful people, and taste its incredible food.

Will report more about the trip, next time. Right now I am going to take a shower and hopefully cool down. We put the cart before the horse. We have yet to purchase or build our permanent home. And the house that I inherited from my previous husband, has no air conditioning! :-(

Pedro is on the phone to Advanced Nutrients, ordering a whole line of their products for the new Greenhouse. It's state of the art hydroponics, of course, and we grow our roses using organic products, including their new, fantastic organic bloom booster, Nirvana.

Pedro and I are getting married!

2008-04-19T05:22:00.000-07:00

My long time romantic partner, Pedro, has finally mustered up enough courage to pop the question. We're getting married on Saturday, June 21st, of this year!

As you can imagine, we have a thousand and one things to attend to before then, so I won’t be blogging too often. The Rose business has kept both of us super busy in the last six months, so I haven’t blogged at all. I apologize to the readers of this blog who were looking forward to the regular reports from our three, fully automated Glasshouses.

We have timed the growth of our Roses to have a huge harvest a few days before the wedding, so we’ll have thousands of roses to decorate the Church and the Banquet Hall we hired for the occasion. We have grown very fond of our Midas Touch Hybrid Tea Roses, so the color yellow will be very prominent in the décor.

Pedros large family will be flying in from Spain, so we had to make reservations in advance for all of them. Most of them are coming two weeks early, so they can tour our Glasshouses, before we harvest all of our flowers. Pedro’s family have been growing Roses for generations, so I’m full of trepidation that they’ll find our operation wanting.

“Don’t worry so much, dear Jill,” said Pedro in a soothing voice. “Advanced Nutrients has taught us so much, that now we know more about growing Roses than the master growers of Europe.”

Whenever I start worrying, I just walk into one of our Glasshouses and I inhale deeply. The fragrance of the Roses is therapeutic, I’m convinced of that. And their visual beauty reassures me that I’m doing exactly what the universe wants me to do at this moment in time.

Black Roses for Halloween?

2007-10-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

I now realize that the last time I posted on this blog was the end of August. We just started using the wonderful Advanced Nutrients product, Nirvana, at that time.

Pedro has been using it religiously in all three of our Glasshouses. Our Roses are thriving and our customers are happy. I have no complaints, except maybe concerning the Halloween order that came in.

A private girls academy contacted us and asked if we could supply 1,000 black roses for a huge Halloween party that they are planning.

Now before you choke on your Martini, what we call Black Roses are usually deep burgundy or very dark red (the Hybrid Tea Rose Black Magic is an example.) But that’s not what the girl’s academy wanted.

They wanted us to dye our ivory-colored Julia’s Rose hybrid teas black, by pouring a rich black dye into our hydroponic reservoir and having our Roses suck it up until their petals turned black.

I remember doing something similar in science class in grade school. We had to split the stem of a daisy and put half of it into a glass filled with red dye, the other half into one filled with blue dye.

Done right, the experiment resulted in half the daisy turning red, while the other half was colored blue. Done wrong, the daisy wilted and fell on the floor.

To get back to the Halloween order, I always had fun at Halloween when I was young, so I was seriously considering doing it, but Pedro—having been raised in a staunchly Catholic Spain—was dead set against it.

“It’s terrible luck, that we would be courting,” said he, almost shouting. “Witches and dark powers and the devil himself! It’s bad luck, I tell you!”

(I realized that it would be totally useless to talk about how much fun kids have at Halloween and how it's part of their socialization in North America.)

Besides, Pedro loves our Roses so much, he couldn’t bear to paint any of them black. Since it would take several weeks for the transformation to take place, we missed out on the deadline and the academy went looking for their order elsewhere.

This period before Christmas is slow where the marketing of Roses is concerned, so I sighed as I opened yet another bill during my late night bookkeeping sessions. That Halloween order would have gone a long way toward paying off the money we owe.

Ah, well, I’d rather have Pedro happy, than to have money and be miserable. The Advanced Nutrients company is continuing to supply us with the world’s best plant nutrients, and I will take some more weeks off from my blogging, since the pressures of our business and personal life take precedence. See you next time!

Shading Our Roses From Scorching Sun, Discovering Nirvana

2007-08-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

As if to merely annoy the kids flocking back to school next week, summer seems to have been extended into September in southern Ontario. The forecast calls for temperatures in the upper twenties Celsius and the sun will show its shiny face, more often than not.

Roses thrive on sunshine. Most Rose varieties need at least five hours of bright sunlight per day, but they welcome more, if available. Of course, Pedro and I supplement the sunshine that streams in through the glass of our greenhouses with a bank of High Pressure Sodium lights in each greenhouse.

The lights are on tracks, so they can be pulled aside to let the full power of the sun reach our Rose plants. However, when the sun starts to burn with its intensity, we must activate our shading devices, in order to keep our blooms and foliage intact.

Our Blue Girl Hybrid Tea Rose seems to be the most sensitive to sunlight of all the varieties we grow. As you know, there is no such thing as a blue rose, hybridizers haven’t been able to isolate the blue tint as of yet.

So-called blue Roses are actually lavender or a shade of light pink. For some reason, this pigmentation is susceptible to sun burn, and Pedro and I are very careful to position the shading devices above the canopy, so that the hottest sun between noon and two pm doesn’t scorch our lovingly tended flowers.

Pedro’s favorite screens are retractable, with a 50% shade factor, and are rot, chemical, and UV stabilized. He is very conscious of the potential destructive effects of UV rays (the harmful ones), so he actually ordered UV protection on the glazed glass of all our greenhouses.

The roofs of our glasshouses have vents that open and close automatically, depending on how hot the greenhouse gets.

Digital thermometers are located in strategic spots throughout each greenhouse, and they are tied into the computer system that controls every important function of the greenhouse, from lighting, to ventilation, heating and cooling, the ebb and flow cycles of our multi-bucket hydroponic system, etc.

Pedro came in all excited the other day. “Advanced Nutrients has a new, 100% organic bloom booster, called Nirvana!” he shouted. “It’s a concentrated liquid that can be applied to the leaves or to the roots!”

He sometimes finds it hard to contain his enthusiasm. Sometimes I think that’s what’s so lovable about him.

“It’s been successful in test gardens in almost doubling the size of flowers! It contains vitamins, minerals, amino acids, carbohydrates, and such organic growth stimulators as guano and seaweed.”

“Seaweed has those things you’re always talking about—cyto…cyto…somethings,” I added, wanting to sound knowledgeable. “Yeah, cytokinins, auxins, and gibberlins,” he bubbled. “The web is all abuzz about these natural hormones that aid cell division, nutrient utilization, and overall plant growth.”

“As long as our Roses don’t grow to be over six feet tall, like what happened last time,” I reminded him. “Yes, the Granada and Ambience Roses did grow very tall, but we were able to sell them at the auction for a very good price,” said Pedro.

He got on the phone immediately and ordered some Nirvana for each of our Glasshouses. He also made sure that we have enough Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, our 100% organic basic fertilizer, to last well into 2008.

“The Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid were running low, the last time I checked,” I called out to him, as he was making the phone call. He ordered a generous amount of these products that are designed to recreate the rich, black, humus-like environment of bygone eras in our hydroponic reservoirs.

Pedro insists on ordering Carbo Load powder, even though I’ve asked him a few times to switch over to liquid. “Why would I switch?” he asked. “They do exactly the same thing, and the powder is more economical.”

I reminded him that when I wanted to save money by going with polyethylene for our greenhouses, he’s the one who insisted on glass, imported to boot. “That’s different,” he insisted, “glass lets in more light and it’s stronger in adverse weather conditions.”

We’re growing our Roses in coco coir, so Pedro ordered a large quantity of Sensi Cal Mg Grow and Bloom. It seems that coco depletes or leaches calcium, so this important nutrient has to be replenished.

“I heard an interesting story about SensiZym,” Pedro said after he got off the phone. “A friend of mine decided to do a test grow—one batch of Roses he grew with this enzyme additive, the other one without.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “The Sensi-Zym batch grew to twice the size,” I offered, not without cynicism. But Pedro was dead serious. “Not quite twice,” he said, “but the size of the plants and the girth of the flowers noticeably increased in the batch given Sensi Zym.”

“I thought you added it just to clean the grow medium of plant debris,” I said. “Yes, it does exactly that, but it doesn’t stop there. SensiZym turns that plant debris into easily absorbable nutrients, thus ensuring a healthier, more robust, larger harvest.”

Pedro becomes like a little kid in a toy store when he’s thinking about Advanced Nutrients and their wonderful products.

Movie Offers Galore, Midas Touch and Voodoo Thrive

2007-08-16T22:37:00.000-07:00

The heat wave seems to have broken (I don’t want to speak too soon) so our high temperatures are in the mid-twenties, rather than the low thirties. People are beginning to worry that somehow we missed out on summer, and they’re wishing for the heat to come back.

Not Pedro and I. We are perfectly happy not having to worry about the high temperatures in our three Glasshouses. The sun still visits us, more often than not, but it doesn’t have that burning intensity that could be anathema for sensitive blooms, such as Roses.

The movie had its premiere in Toronto, and we were invited. Our Glasshouse Number Three looked especially wonderful up there on the wide screen and I got all nostalgic about our Ambience and Granada Roses.

I closed my eyes during the final scene, when the mad murderer takes a machete to the Roses, even though by this time the moviemakers had substituted silk and plastic flowers for the real ones.

The week after the premiere, Pedro received phone calls and e-mails from American and Canadian producers, wishing to use our Greenhouses as one of the locations for their next film.

Even though we got reimbursed handsomely for the experience, we hesitated to except any of the new offers, prior to seeing a script. We feel responsible to present Roses and Rose-growing in a good light.

As it worked out, most of the screenplays called for the destruction of the Roses and the Greenhouse itself, either through explosion, fire, or earthquake. Why do big budget movie producers insist on all this violence on the screen?

Pedro decided to turn down all the offers. “Dear Jill, our flowers need some peace and quiet now. It wouldn’t be fair to them to have all this noise and activity to disturb their natural production of beautiful blooms.”

I agreed with Pedro wholeheartedly. Although the money was tempting, we instead concentrated on growing the best possible cut flowers, using the expertly designed plant foods from Advanced Nutrients.

The Hybrid Tea Roses Midas Touch and Voodoo, our newcomers, are thriving on their diet of Iguana Juice Grow, along with the Plus Program of all the additives, supplements, and root colonizers.

They’re still in the vegetative stage, which means that they receive fundamental doses of Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, in order to populate their root systems with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes, respectively.

Ever since I was a little girl, one of my favorite stories was the one about King Midas. It’s the ultimate “be careful what you wish for” story. Dionysus granted Midas one wish for a good deed, and the King wished that everything he touched should turn to gold.

And so it was. But the King grew thin, since every time he tried to eat, the food would turn to gold. He touched the beautiful Roses in his garden, and they turned to the yellow metal, as well.

He lovingly touched his daughter, and even she turned to gold. He became afraid that his whole kingdom would eventually turn to gold, so he asked Dionysus to turn everything back to the way it was.

So now we have a golden yellow Hybrid Tea Rose to commemorate the name of King Midas. The moral of his story is that real wealth cannot be measured in precious metals.

I can’t wait for the Midas Touch Rose to flower, so I can inhale its rich, fruity fragrance. In a way, all the ingredients that we mix into our nutrient solution are aimed at the arrival of that day, when the large, golden flowers will finally open.

Pedro is already spraying these Roses with Colossal Bud Blast, in anticipation of their flowering. This foliar spray can be used throughout the vegetative and bloom stages in order to provide the plants with the ability to absorb organic nutrients better.

Even though Colossal Bud Blast complements our feeding regimen rather nicely, it can also be used as a standalone product. It’s a complete blend of vital nutrients, plus natural biostimulants, chelators, and surfactants.

There is nothing else like it in the gardening marketplace, and it does provide us with a Midas touch when it comes to growing our flowers. It contains reduced nitrogen, in the form of amino acids, and reduced carbon, as carbohydrates.

During the bloom stage, we’ll be feeding our Roses not only with Iguana Juice Bloom, but also Carbo Load Powder, which will provide our plants with additional carbohydrates, to be used as building blocks for flower formation.

And even though Midas Touch Hybrid Tea Roses have good disease resistance, Pedro mixes in Barricade every week into the nutrient solution. He also makes sure that Glasshouse Number Three, Multi Rose, receives regular sprayings of Scorpion Juice and Protector, in order to keep parasitic fungi, bacteria, and viruses at bay.

Cooling our Glasshouses in the Hot Summer Sun

2007-08-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

Today it’s 32° C (89.6° F) in Mississauga, and the Weather Channel says that it feels like 39° C. In Hungary, 500 elderly people died last week when the mercury reached 42° C (107.6° F). Yeah, summer can be a killer!

The heat can kill Roses, too. We’re using every trick in the book to cool our three Glasshouses, but pretty soon we won’t have a choice. We’ll have to install air conditioning systems in each and every one of them.

It’s not just the ambient temperature of the air that we have to worry about. The temperature of the reservoir can determine whether our flowers will thrive or stop all growth and bud production.

As you know, we use a multi-bucket ebb and flow hydroponic system to grow all our Roses, and our reservoirs are contained in stainless steel tanks. Everything is state of art, smooth for easy cleaning, and equipped with chillers to keep the rez temp down.

The temperature of the nutrient solution is just as important as the pH or the parts per million of dissolved solids. Pedro still goes around daily with his truncheon EC and pH meters, as well as a digital thermometer, to make sure that the rez temp doesn’t go above 80° F. Actually, it’s best between 65 and 75° F (18.3 to 23.8° F).

In hot, humid Mississauga during the dog days of August it’s not possible to use some of the methods suggested by Pedro. It seems that his Rose-growing family in Spain has used the high pressure fogging method, combined with heat expellers. This method will not work effectively in hot, moist climates, like ours.

Most North American greenhouses use pad-cooling with pressure-less watering and air exhaustion. Huge pads made of various absorbent materials are hung along one side of the Glasshouse, over open air vents, while the other side of the Glasshouse has large, slow-moving fans sucking the exhausted, hot air out of the greenhouse through appropriate openings.

The pads are soaked with pressure-less water. Due to the exhaust fans having created suction, hot air from the outside enters through the pads and thus is cooled and humidified. Since our air is already humid, this isn’t the perfect cooling solution, either.

With high humidity come eager fungi ready to attack our Roses. Pedro is spraying religiously with Scorpion Juice every Sunday, then with Piranha on Wednesdays. The former is like an inoculation, imparting induced systemic resistance against many pathogens and pests, while the latter spreads beneficial fungal spores all over our plants.

Sort of like fighting fire with fire, spraying fungal spores actually does help prevent fungal infections, since the mycorrhizal fungi in Piranha fight off and prevent fungal infestations by such bad guys of the fungal world as Fusarium, Rhizoctonia solani, Pythium, and that all time dread, Gray Mold (Botrytis cinerea).

Up until the second week of flowering, Pedro also sprayed with Protector. Once the blooms mature, however, this Advanced Nutrients product cannot be used, since the active ingredients that combat Powdery Mildew might also interfere with floral growth and coloring.

Now that the heat is so high, I suggested to Pedro that we fill plastic bottles with water, deep freeze them, then put them into our reservoir to keep the temperature down. Ice is by far the best cooling agent. The chillers do their job up to a point, but even they need all the help we can give them.

In the weeks of bloom when the Nutrient Calculator calls for application of Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice into our nutrient mix, it is especially important to keep the temperature of the mix down. Mixing these products in hot water can kill the beneficial microorganisms they contain and render them ineffective.

In fact, most of the products in the nutrient mix should be mixed at room temperature, perhaps with the exception of Barricade, which is slow to dissolve and should always be mixed in the night before, to give it a chance to blend in better.

Barricade is a potassium silicate product that thickens the cell walls of our Roses and thus it makes them less vulnerable to parasitic attacks of different kinds. Not only do microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi hesitate and are kept from attacking our prize plants, but even insects find it hard to get their sucking mouthparts through the thicker cell walls built up by Barricade.

I put Pedro to work researching large capacity air conditioning systems. The York company, which makes air conditioners for many of the world’s tallest buildings, also makes a system that is perfect for Glasshouses.

If global warming raises our summer temperatures another five degrees, we’re going to have to spend the money on such a system for each of our Glasshouses, in order to protect our overall investment in the exquisite Hybrid Tea Roses that grow in Red Rose, Blue Rose, and Multi Rose—our pet names for the three structures that house our ornamental grow op.

Choosing Two New Roses, Filling Our Huge Reservoir

2007-07-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

After the movie shoot, Pedro and I took all our Ambience and Granada roses to the Rose Auction here in Mississauga and managed to get premium prices for all of them. Buyers were impressed with the extra long stemmed beauties, making us think that perhaps we’ll make a “mistake” with Iguana Juice Grow once more in the future.

I was ready to bid for a batch of Granada rooted seedlings, when Pedro stopped me. “No, my dear Jill, there is a tradition in our family. When we harvest a greenhouse completely, not leaving a single rose, we have to choose new varieties.”

“But we were so lucky with our Ambience and Granada Hybrid Teas,” I protested. “It seems foolish not to grow the same variety again!.”

“Whether or not it seems foolish, we must respect family tradition,” said Pedro, and I melted with the sentiment that he included me in his family. After all, I’ve been waiting for him to ask me, but so far there are no marriage plans on the horizon.

So we looked around the auction, and ended up buying a batch of Hybrid Tea Rose Midas Touch, a hardy yellow variety, and another Hybrid Tea, Voodoo, an orange-red blend, a very dramatic mixture.

I questioned growing a yellow rose, since they’re not meant to be grown in cold climates. However, Pedro convinced me that in our climate control Glasshouse it doesn’t matter that we happen to be located in Canada.

Voodoo grows best in the cool of Spring and Fall, it doesn’t like hot, dry summers. “We’ll keep the temperature down and make sure that there’s adequate humidity,” said Pedro.

Voodoo’s parentage can be traced back to Camelot, First Prize, Typhoo Tea, and Lolita, and it was an American Rose Selection in 1986. Rose patents are only valid for 20 years, so we don’t have to pay royalties on this one.

Also possessing an expired patent, Midas Touch was an American Rose Selection in 1994, and it’s supposed to be easy to grow and tolerant of different climates. Both of our new varieties are disease resistant. Of the two, Midas Touch is the more prolific.

Pedro saw how sad I was saying goodbye to growing Granada and Ambience again, so he promised that after a year, we could go back to our original multi-hued selections. “The tradition allows going back, but only after a reasonable time.”

By that time I’ll be in love with Voodoo and Midas Touch and not ready to give them up, either. However, the seedlings were actually cuttings grafted onto disease resistant rootstocks, and they looked quite sturdy and full of healthy vigor.

“Were you serious about feeding them extra organic fertilizer to make their stems grow tall?” I asked Pedro. He said he would think about it, but that he doesn’t like the idea of the Roses growing too close to our High Pressure Sodium lighting fixtures.

We treated all our fledgling Roses with No Shock, in order to minimize the effects of being transplanted. We placed them in the coco coir medium in our multi-bucket hydroponic ebb and flow system, and Pedro mixed up the first batch of nutrient solution for the young newcomers.

Don’t forget that our Glasshouses are huge (125 feet by 40 feet) and that our 2000 bucket ebb and flow system covers 5000 square feet in each greenhouse. Each bucket is fertigated by our ebb and flow system with 2 gallons of nutrient solution four times a day, then the liquid retreats into our 5000 gallon reservoir.

The Advanced Nutrients Nutrient Calculator calls for 19.8 Liters of Iguana Juice Grow to be poured into our pre-mix tank, along with 14.1 Liters each of Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, 5677.53 mL of Carbo Load Liquid, 46.7 Liters of SensiZym.

Week 1 calls for 17 Kilos each of Piranha, and Tarantula, as well as 25.5 Liters of Voodoo Juice. We also have to pour in 31.2 Liters of Seaweed Extract along with the same amount of Organic B. Didn’t I tell you that Advanced Nutrients products are delivered to us by the truckload?

But we have our prize=winning Roses to show for it!

Granada and Ambience Become Movie Stars

2007-07-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, Toronto is a major motion picture production centre. Many American movies are shot up here, as well as numerous Canadian productions.

As you'e sitting at a sidewalk café in the fashionable Yorkville district, Robin Williams could be having a latte at the next table, or Lindsay Lohan could be digging into a fruit cup, laced with Cointreau, no doubt.

And everyone is either producing a movie, or knows someone who is. So it’s not surprising that I was skeptical, when Pedro called me all excited from Toronto and said that he was bringing a movie producer to “scout” our glasshouse number three, the Multi Rose greenhouse.

“They’re shooting a film featuring a greenhouse, and the script calls for hydroponically-grown, exotic looking roses,” said Pedro, hardly able to contain his excitement. “I told them that our Granada and Ambience Roses would be perfect.”

“What about the fact that these roses are really tall, after that mishap with the Iguana Juice Grow,” I asked. “Don’t worry, dear Jill, I showed him some pictures, and he loves our roses.”

I’ve never been “scouted” before, so I didn’t know what to expect. When they arrived, I was glad to note that the producer was a down-to-earth type of fellow, who didn’t know the first thing about roses.

Sure enough, the first thing he noticed was that our Rose plants in glasshouse three were growing way high, with very long stems, close to the HID lights. “They’re beautiful flowers, but why are they so tall?” he asked.

We explained to him that an inattentive staff member fed them the wrong amount of our basic 100% organic fertilizer. “Hey, that’s not a bad development. We could write that into the script. So you have to feed the Roses?”

We patiently explained that once a week we change the nutrient solution in our multi-bucket ebb and flow system, mixing in not only our basic fert (now that our Roses are ijn flower, we have switched to Iguana Juice Bloom), but also a potassium silicate product called Barricade; Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, which are derived from a calcified organic material known as “leonardite;” as well as an energy boost product called Carbo Load Powder.

Additionally, we add Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract in order to provide our Roses with a whole array of Vitamins (from A, B, C, to E and K), as well as growth stimulants and natural antibiotics.

We told the producer that we spray our Rose bushes frequently with Colossal Bud Blast (the bushes, never the flowers) in order to feed our plants through the stomata in their leaves with organic nutrients and hormones that increase the growth rate of the flowers.

“With all this stuff you’re feeding them, can you fatten them up a bit?” he asked. It visibly upset Pedro to hear this. “I realize that they’re taller than normal rose bushes,” explained Pedro, “but they’re perfect specimens, producing exquisite flowers. Not a blemish on them!”

The producer called his art director, his regular director, and his director of photography (a woman!). They arrived within twenty minutes to survey our greenhouse. After going back and forth a few times and sticking their heads together they agreed. “We need to fatten up your roses.”

I called Pedro aside. “Don’t be upset. I just saw a presentation of a wonderful Advanced Nutrients bloom phase fertilizer called Connoisseur. I guarantee you that within a week, our roses will meet their expectations. But it’s costly…”

“Don’t worry, with the money they’re promising us for the shoot, we can afford it,” said Pedro. And so we rushed over to our neighborhood garden shop, bought a big supply of Connoisseur A & B, and started feeding our Granada and Ambience Roses with this premium fertilizer.”

Pedro didn’t mind that it’s not exactly organic, since "after the shoot we’ll just sell all the remaining Roses and start organically with a fresh batch."

Within a week, the stems and leaves of our Roses in Greenhouse Three started to swell up, and the blooms themselves seemed to get bigger by the day. Pedro explained that it was the polyamino alcohols contained in Connoisseur (he read up on it) that caused the plant cells to become elastic, thus able to hold more sugars. The plant produces sugars through photosynthesis.

As the flowers grew bigger, they required more and more carbohydrates, so they drew upon the stored up energy in the cells, and within two weeks the production crew were very happy with our Roses and they were ready to shoot.

There was one hitch. It was a murder-mystery and they wanted to destroy the roses in the final scene. The murderer goes mad and takes a machete to his victim’s greenhouse roses.

Pedro would not allow this on principle. So the production company paid some artisans a huge amount of money to recreate our Granada and Ambience Rose plants out of silk and plastic. They did such a great job that it was hard to tell the difference.

The movie used the real Roses until the very end, at which time we harvested the real ones, and the fake ones took their place. Our long-stemmed Granada and Ambience multi-hued Roses were sold for a premium price at the Rose Auction in Mississauga.

Very fitting for Roses grown with a premium fertilizer. In addition to the polyamino alcohols, Connoisseur contains the best possible amino chelated ingredients available in horticulture.

Summer Supplements and Scientific Studies

2007-06-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

I consider myself the luckiest woman in the world. Pedro is a very considerate and refined partner. He knows when I need companionship, but he also senses when I need to be alone.

That, however, is not why I call myself lucky. I can go into any one of our three glasshouses and marvel at the sea of fragrant blooms, each even more delicately beautiful then the next. I love Roses with a newfound passion, which far surpasses the emotional bond that I used to have with my carnations.

Now that the Rust episode is behind us and I have learned to live with the elongated stems of our Granada and Ambience Roses, things seem to have quieted down for summer. Pedro is experimenting with various products to see how we can grow even better Roses for the marketplace.

For instance, the Eric’s Red and Kardinal Roses growing in our Red Rose Greenhouse are issuing forth bloom after bloom, thanks to the feeding regimen that Pedro has designed.

Based on our 100% fish-based organic fertilizers, Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, the weekly nutrient mix in the reservoirs of our multi-bucket hydroponic systems also contains other products of Pedro’s choosing.

Starting with the basic mix suggested by the Advanced Nutrients Nutrient Calculator, Pedro has added Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract, in order to provide our Roses with the natural hormones contained therein.

Auxins, Gibberlins, and Cytokinins are natural hormones that are found in sea kelp. They aid in cell division, nutrient transport, root formation, flower production, and general growth. They are being discussed all over the Internet as a very useful tool for budding horticulturalists.

Another product that Pedro is experimenting with is Very High Output (VHO) which seems to help in elongating the stems of our Roses, making them that much more attractive as cut-flowers.

Originally marketed by Advanced Nutrients as a product to feed mother plants in the cloning process, it was tried on Roses with quite of bit of success. It does make the stems longer, so Pedro is excited about using it. We were told this by an Advanced Nutrients technical person. They’re always ready to provide good advice, no matter what your problem is as a grower.

Potassium silicate is another thing that excites Pedro. He researched Roses on the web and found out about this study that proved that feeding your Kardinal Roses 100 ppm of potassium silicate helped to immunize them against certain pathogens and pests.

This study was conducted by the Horticulture and Crop Science Department of the California Polytechnic State University. “Based on statistical analysis, silicon had a positive effect on the length of stems of Kardinal Roses.” Silicon also imparts more resistance to pests and diseases.

Barricade is potassium silicate and Pedro was reinforced in his belief that by making the cell walls of our Roses thicker, this AN product helps us tremendously in producing flawless buds and blooms, unblemished by parasitical attacks of any kind. Now he found out that it also helps in elongating the stems of our Roses.

Emerald Shaman does not appear on the recommended products list on the Nutrient Calculator, but it got Pedro’s attention when he was perusing the Advancedpedia. “In ancient China they knew about using fermented vegetable matter to make plants grow,” he commented.

Emerald Shaman contains 88 thoroughly fermented certified-organic herbs, vegetables, and fruits. By feeding these to our Roses, Pedro is promoting their growth through the use of bioactive components that energize them.

The nutrients and enzymes in Emerald Shaman work on the cellular level to accelerate cellular activity, boost root functions, strengthen immune systems, and act as a general tonic for our Roses.

I think Pedro is right. Our wonderful Hybrid Tea Roses all look more perky and abundant since he started using Emerald Shaman. He feeds them through the leaves with this product, but it can also be applied through the roots.

Now that all our Roses are in flower, Pedro is regularly including Sensi Cal Bloom in the nutrient mix. The chelated micronutrients in this product include five different forms of Calcium, an essential ingredient since we grow in coco coir.

For some reason this grow medium requires an extra boost of Calcium—I guess it leaches this element out and it needs to be replaced. At least that’s what I heard Pedro say.

For standalone application of Sensi Cal Bloom 1.25 mL per Liter is suggested. However, Pedro has devised a complicated mathematical formula by which he can add certain quantities of extra ingredients into the nutrient mix suggested by the Nutrient Calculator and still end up with the optimum parts per million for each week’s worth of nutrient solution.

I suggested using Bud Blood, Big Bud, and Overdrive to maximize the size of our Roses, but Pedro insisted on keeping things organic, so we’re using Colossal Bud Blast instead.

Usually administered as a foliar spray, Colossal Bud Blast can also be added to the roots of our Roses. It aids in the absorption of organic nutrients and hormones, which in turn stimulate floral growth.

Colossal Bud Blast contains biostimulants from natural sources, in a synergistic blend with surfactants and natural chelators. I used to use it for my carnations and won many a prize with my blooms because of it.

Another study that Pedro came across recently has to do with our choice of grow medium. Conducted by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, it pitted two grow media against each other. Half the young Kardinal Rose plants were grown in a bark-peat-sand mix, the other half in coconut coir.

The study concentrated on water availability to the roots, as reflected in specific transpiration rates, stomatal conductance, and the specific growth rate of each plant.

Load cells were used to gravimetrically measure the transpiration rate of the plants. The specific transpiration rate (STR) was calculated using this data and taking total leaf area into account.

“The STR and stomatal conductance were also determined using a steady-state porometer,” explained Pedro, but he lost me at that point. Luckily, I had my laptop handy, so I punched up “porometer” and discovered that you can’t find every single technical term easily in online dictionaries.

I presume a porometer has something to do with the porousness of a leaf’s surface so I left it at that. I was only interested in hearing what the result of the test was, not every minute detail.

The yield (the number of flowers produced) by the coir grown plants was 19% higher than in those grown in the bark-peat-sand mixture, and that was good enough for me. There’s nothing like a thorough study to confirm that you were right in the first place.

Rust Never Sleeps, Pedro Gets Up at Dawn

2007-06-14T15:29:00.000-07:00

Those who have spent any time in the Toronto area during summer know that this region is famous for its high humidity. Even though the full extent of hot, sunny days, and humid, muggy nights haven’t arrived yet, the forecast for next week is temperatures in the thirties (Celsius) and night-time humidity going up to eighty percent.

Pedro is back, checking and double checking all the details of our growing different varieties of Hybrid Tea Roses in our three, custom-built glasshouses. One day last week I decided to leave him completely in charge of our Command Bunker to give me time to go into Toronto and do some shopping.

I got an emergency call on my cell just as I was digging into a low-calorie lunch at a Yorkville bistro. Pedro sounded really upset. He discovered some Rose Rust on our Blue Girl Roses. Needless to say, I skipped lunch and drove immediately back to Mississauga.

Blue Girl is a delicately beautiful lavender Rose (so far rose hybridizers have been unsuccessful in producing a truly blue rose). I knew that it was susceptible to Black Spot, but now it seems that it is also prone to Rust.

Caused by a number of species of the fungus Phragmidium, Rose Rust is widespread in the western United States, but it also makes the occasional appearance in the Midwest, as well as Canada (it now seems).

The first signs of Rose Rust are bright orange, powdery pustules on the underside of leaves. Eventually, yellow-to-orange-colored spots appear on the top side of leaves, thus accounting for the name of the disease.

Stems could also be affected, and so could sepals, if our plants were already in flower and had calyxes. As it is, they are still in the vegetative stage, so Pedro caught this fungal infection early enough, before it ruined our crop and made our cut-flowers unmarketable.

If the disease is left untreated, the reddish orange pustules will multiply on the leaves. These are reproductive structures called uredia, according to my research on Google. I punched up Rose Rust on my laptop in the car, and looked for it stuck in a jam on the 401.

Different cultivars of roses react differently to Rust. Some lose all their leaves just after one pustule, some go on producing flowers. Other may wilt in the middle of summer. Since cool, moist weather is necessary for the fungus to spread, during the hot, dry summer months there is little chance of it spreading.

I was breathless as I rushed into Glasshouse Number One to see the damage for myself. Pedro was removing the infected leaves and reprimanding the staff member who allowed the humidity in this greenhouse to rise above eighty percent during the night.

Even though we use Barricade and Scorpion Juice religiously, and we also spray with horticultural oil and baking soda during alternate weeks, somehow the high humidity allowed the fungus to grow during these hot, humid nights.

A de-humidifier should have kicked in during the escalation of humidity, but it was disconnected from the system. The staff member is question unplugged it to service it, then forgot to plug it back in.

It was a compendium of human error and Pedro unceremoniously dismissed the staff member from our employ. “He should have realized that the de-humidifier was not working just by glancing at the board in the Bunker,” said Pedro, still visibly upset.

“If I catch anyone else napping while they’re on duty, I’ll fire them faster than Donald Trump,” said my partner. He can’t stomach incompetence. “Should I spray with Protector?” he asked.

“Protector is primarily designed for Powdery Mildew,” I answered. “But it wouldn’t hurt to immunize our Blue Girl plants against that fungus also,” said I.

A few days later Pedro sprayed all our Roses with the horticultural oil and baking powder solution. “I don’t want to burn Sulphur just yet,” he said, “but if any more fungal infections crop up, I might have to.”

Since the Blue Girl plants were shocked by the invasion of this insidious fungus, Pedro decided to treat them with No Shock, which he had on hand for transplanting seedlings.

No Shock contains Vitamin B-1 (Thiamine Hydrochloride), Fulvic Acid, Mono Potassium Phosphate, and Urea. It is a well-proven product designed to aid plants in overcoming transplant shocks and other forms of stress. Fulvic Acid helps with nutrient circulation, so plants bounce back much faster with this treatment, than untreated plants.

How did the fungus get into our greenhouse in the first place? That is a very good question, and Pedro suspects the fired staff member of moonlighting at a rival greenhouse and bringing it in on his clothing.

As with other fungal infestations, removing all infected leaves is the first remedy. Make sure to clean up any fallen leaves or debris on the floor of the greenhouse. Also, if any pustules from on stems or canes, they must be pruned back to their healthy parts.

Burning sulphur leaves a sticky residue on plants and is not always effective. Feeding your Roses a healthy diet (ours consists of Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, Humic and Fulvic Acids, Organic B, Sensi Zym, as well as the root colonizers Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice) goes a long way toward making sure that they stay healthy and provide you with beautifully fragrant blooms.

Pedro also includes Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract in the nutrient mix of all three greenhouses. He swears that the auxins, gibberlins, and cytokinins that occur naturally in kelp help our Roses with root formation, cell division (growth), and nutrient distribution. These hormones are widely cited on the Internet as the secret weapons of expert horticulturalists.

Pedro also sprays all of our growing Rose plants with Colossal Bud Blast. He discovered in the Advanced Nutrients Advancedpedia that this product is a flower enhancer that can be used even during the vegetative stage of blooming plants.

Consisting of a base-tea extracted from seaweed, alfalfa, potassium phosphate, bat guano and azomite, Colossal Bud Blast also features 22 L-amino acids which are designed to intensify the growth of plant tissues. Azomite is a natural source of minerals and trace elements.

Pedro gets up at the crack of dawn and before any artificial light is turned on in the greenhouses, he goes around spraying both the topside and the underside of each leaf with Colossal Bud Blast.

For the best absorption of foliar nutrients, you must spray early in the day and turn off any HID illumination. During intense light, whether coming from the sun or high intensity lighting, the stomata of the leaves close up and the product is wasted.

The heat of the day also causes the liquid Colossal Bud Blast solution to dry out, increasing its salinity and leaving brown spots on our Rose leaves. Pedro avoids this by waking up early.

I’m really happy to have my partner back and we’ll be interviewing for some more reliable staff in order to avoid any mishaps in the future.

Pedro to Spain, Jill Stays to Troubleshoot

2007-05-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

Pedro received a telegram from his mother asking him to fly home urgently. His father was admitted to hospital—he was seriously ill. “In this age of e-mails and instant messaging, my mother sends a telegram,” was his first response. “I guess old habits die hard.” Then he flew off to Mallorca, leaving me in charge of three large glasshouses growing long stemmed cut Roses,

Even though our operation was fully automated and we had a Command Bunker from where to observe and supervise, I still felt a knot in my stomach. My first thought was “I’m going to miss Pedro. How am I going to run our business without him?”

He was certainly comforting to have around. He checked and double-checked everything, so you could be sure that all possible things have been done to grow the finest Roses our hydroponic ebb and flow multi-bucket system is capable of producing.

It’s not that I could take it easy, I did my share of the work, but the smooth running of the operation depended on Pedro’s presence. And now he was gone.

I had him write down all the phone numbers I could possibly reach him at, as well as his several e-mail addresses. He promised to check his messages, both on the phone and on his laptop.

The first few days were hectic as I rushed from greenhouse to greenhouse, making sure that the Roses looked okay. I could have stayed in the Command Bunker and viewed their progress on the video monitors, but I chose to trust only what I could see with my own eyes.

“Just monitor the readings,” chided a senior staff member, but secretly I didn’t trust all the electronic instruments and sensors. “Electronics have been known to report erroneous readings,” became my mantra.

All of our Roses are still in their vegetative growth stage, but in a few weeks we’ll be switching from Iguana Juice Grow to Iguana Juice Bloom and changing the lighting schedule to start the flowering cycle. The Roses in the first two Greenhouses, the Blue Rose and the Red Rose, were growing according to plan. Hybrid Tea Roses are supposed to reach heights of 4 to 6 feet, depending on the variety.

I figured that during veg growth, when the plants are establishing their roots and strengthening their stems, as well as filling out with leaves, the average Hybrid Tea would get around three feet tall. A height perfectly manageable without stakes or any other means of support in our hydroponic buckets, using cocopeat as our grow medium.

Then during the budding and flowering stage the plants might grow another foot to two or three feet, depending on the hybrid. The multi-colored Roses in Greenhouse Three, Granada and Ambience, however, were shooting up like there was no tomorrow!

Just like Pedro, I checked and double checked everything, and the Nutrient Solution in Greenhouse Three seemed to be exactly the same as in the other two Greenhouses. Iguana Juice as the basic fert, mixed with Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid, to recreate organic soil conditions in a hydroponic setting.

Also Carbo Load Powder, to add sugars that will be needed during bud formation, along with Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, to colonize our root systems with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes, respectively. Oh, and Organic B, a B-complex vitamin designed to reduce plant stress.

I checked all the quantities of each ingredient, and that’s when I stumbled across the problem. The Iguana Juice Grow in Greenhouse Three was obtained from a local, Mississauga Garden Shop, and it must have been an old batch.

Advanced Nutrients switched to a more concentrated form of Iguana Juice some time ago, changing the recommended application rate from 15 mL per Liter to 3.5 mL per Liter. The staff member who was responsible for the Nutrient Mix in Glasshouse Three, got used to the original application rate, and when the new batch of Iguana Juice arrived, he continued to use it at the old rate, even though he should have been using much less of it.

Since Iguana Juice Grow is 100% organic and very gentle on plants, no harm was done, except for the incredible growth spurt of the Granada and Ambience Roses. Some of them surpassed five feet and rising to almost six feet in height! They started bending over and showed signs of needing support.

I got a hold of Pedro and laid out the problem for him. He was understandably upset and said that the sensitive instrumentation should have caught the problem. “What about the discrepancy in Parts Per Million?” he fumed. I was more concerned about support for our really tall Roses.

Pedro air shipped a huge rope net with large enough holes to fit our Rose plants through and as soon as it arrived the staff and I stretched it over the Roses in Greenhouse Three and very gently guided each plant through its own hole in the netting. Then we secured the netting with a special pulley system that came with instructions from Pedro.

Actually, he sent three of these huge nets, one for each greenhouse. So we stretched them over the canopy of shorter Roses, ones that didn’t need the support just yet, but once they reach full height, they might.

“Hybrid Tea Roses might take two or three years to reach their full height,” explained Pedro during a trans-Atlantic phone call. “After that, even if you prune them, they’ll grow to that height, no matter what.”

“The average life that the guide books give for Hybrid Tea Roses is six to ten years, unless you give them exceptional care. My family in Mallorca must have learned to give exactly such exceptional care to our Roses, because some of them have continued to provide us with marketable, long-stemmed Roses for fourteen-years or more. Some Species and Climbing Roses will live 50 years or more and continue to produce flowers!”

His father, as it turns out, was all right. It was just a false alarm. “My parents like to have guests over and then they serve these lavish meals with huge bouquets of Roses on the table and red Spanish wine flowing freely. My father must have overeaten and drank too much Sangria,” explained Pedro.

I couldn’t resist. “When are you coming home?” I asked trying not to show my need of his presence. “Soon, my darling Jill. Then we’ll make sure that the correct formulas are followed in the feeding of our Roses.”

I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax completely until his plane touched down at Pearson International in Toronto this coming weekend.

Lackluster Leaves a Sign of Trouble?

2007-05-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

The ancestors of our Hybrid Tea Roses are still haunting us. After all, Hybrid Teas were first developed by breeding together an Old Chinese Tea Rose with an Old European rose. So it stands to reason that the genes of our Alec’s Red, Julia’s Rose, Kardinal, Blue Girl, Granada, and Ambience Roses still carry some of the genes of their ancestors.

Old Roses had one characteristic that for the most part had been bred out of the Hybrid Teas. The healthiest, most splendid Hybrid Teas have always had shiny leaves. The plants are bursting with fragrant oils, even before the blooms are produced. These oils come out on the leaf surfaces and produce a healthy shine.

Old Rose leaves, on the other hand, were—for the most part—matte. Pedro explained this to me over a latte as I shared my concern that some of our Kardinal Roses seem to have lost the shine on their leaves. “Lackluster, is how I’d describe it,” said Pedro.

So do dull leaves on Roses mean an unhealthy Rose? “Not necessarily,” said Pedro, “it could simply mean that the old, dull leaf gene came to the foreground in this generation, only to recede for the next ten generations to come.”

I hoped that this was the case, but I did notice that some of the dull leaved ones had a leaf here and there which I would strongly suspect of having Black Spot.

Pedro filled me in. Caused by the fungus Diplocarpon rosae, Black Spot is a very common and persistent rose disease. I’ve seen it in friends’ gardens and was told it was hard to get rid of.

Circular black spots with fringed margins appear on the leaves of the infected plants. Soon, yellow outlines appear around the spots and eventually the entire leaf yellows and drops off.

Left untreated, the plant becomes defoliated and the result is reduced bud set, poor flower quality, and susceptibility to environmental stresses. When grown outdoors, winter injury is highly likely. Indoors, the plant becomes overly sensitive to drafts and any drop in temperature.

Since it is a highly infectious disease, always wear gloves when handling infected plants and leaves. Remove each leaf as soon as any signs of Black Spot appear. Collect leaves in a plastic bag and dispose of them without allowing the infection to touch other plants, tools, walls, floors, etc.

According to Pedto, Spanish growers burn infected leaves and plants immediately. In his family greenhouses, Black Spot was always taken seriously and he recalls the contents of an entire greenhouse being destroyed in order to eradicate this disease.

Cancers can also develop on rose stems, which are concentrations of the fungus. Usually most severe in wet weather outdoors, high humidity conditions in the greenhouse can also be fertile ground for this insidious affliction of roses.

We couldn’t take the chance of having all of our Kardinal plants become infected, so we removed the plants in question and sprayed the surrounding ones with Scorpion Juice thoroughly. Pedro increased the amount of Barricade that he mixed in to our weekly nutrient solution.

You don’t want to spray with Scorpion Juice every week, so alternate with a mild solution of baking soda and horticultural oil, week by week. The oil serves a double purpose. Not only does it protect the unaffected parts of the rose plant from further infection, but it also makes the dull leaves shinier.

Our Kardinal roses are halfway through their vegetative cycle, so we’re feeding them generously with Iguana Juice Grow, as well as Organic B, and Humic and Fulvic Acid. Good nourishment is also a way of dealing with any kind of an infection, whether bacterial, fungal, or viral.

The three Advanced Nutrient root colonizers, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, also play a major role in the eradication of disease. By inundating your roots with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes, respectively, these three products help the plant fight off pathogens and pests throughout the growing season.

Sensi Zym is another product that Pedro loves. It supplies over eighty different types of living enzymes that nourish themselves with plant debris in our root medium, i.e. cocopeat. They devour this debris and turn it into digestible nutrients which are in turn absorbed by the roots.

Powdery Mildew, caused by the fungus Sphaerothece pannose var. rosae, is a very common affliction of roses throughout the world, and is especially troublesome for roses grown in glasshouses, such as ours. A white, powdery growth suddenly appears on leaves, shoots, and buds.

New shoots can become distorted and twisted by this fungal infection. Buds infected by Powdery Mildew often fail to open. This fungus doesn’t need wet conditions to develop, as long as the air is humid and warm. Pedro checks the humidity levels in all our greenhouses constantly, in order to ward off an attack by this fungus.

Unlike many other fungal infections, the Powdery Mildew fungus does not require moisture on the leaf tissues for an infection to take place. Small, black, pepper-like structures called cleistothecia are produced by this fungus, and these hide in plant debris. The fungus can survive in these structures, even without a suitable plant host.

Common sense sanitary procedures are vitally important in dealing with any fungal infections. Remove all infected plant material and place in airtight, plastic bags. Diseased stems should be pruned back to healthy wood in the spring, prior to budbreak.

Sufficient space between plants is essential to reduce the risk of this fungal disease. Adequate air circulation is also necessary. Stagnant, hot, humid air is a fertile breeding ground not just for this fungus, but for many other fungal enemies of healthy roses.

There are thousands and thousands of different fungi that infect plants. Aside from the two already mentioned, Roses are particularly prone to Downy Mildew, caused by the fungus-like organism, Peronospora sparsa, and usually propagated in cool, wet conditions.

Botrytis Blight, caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea, is also a common disease of Roses. Cool, cloudy, humid weather can give rise to this infection. Grayiish-brown fuzzy growth appears on infected plants. Pruning cuts or any wounds on the plant are open invitations for this fungus.

In addition to believing in plant science, Pedro also has a superstitious side. He conducts a little ceremony after planting a new crop in each of our greenhouses. It involves a candle, a crucifix, and supplications to Mother Nature to make our Roses safe from any and all infections.

We dealt with the Black Spot problem (knock on wood) and hope to avoid any other fungus, bacteria, or virus before it is time to harvest our hopefully healthy and vigorous blooms.

We Fertigate from Sunup to Sundown

2007-05-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

As you know, Pedro and I grow our roses hydroponically, using an ebb and flow multi-bucket system with coco coir as our growing medium. Actually, cocopeat is what it says on the plastic wrapped bales of processed coconut fibre, but I’m told that’s just another name for coco coir.

Coconut husks are dried in the sun and half of the stuff is made into coco fibre used to fill mattresses, while the other half is processed and compressed into bales for horticulture. Recent studies have shown that rose producers can increase their cut-rose production by 15.6 to 18% if they grow in coco instead of rockwool.

Cocopeat is consistent and uniform in texture. It is composed of millions of capillary micro-sponges that can absorb and hold up to eight times their own weight in water. And yet even when thoroughly soaked, 40% of the cocopeat still contains oxygen, so our rose roots are never completely deprived of this vital element.

When using cocopeat, growers are advised to add Sensi Cal Grow or Sensi Cal Bloom to their nutrient mix on a regular basis. It seems that this grow medium needs the added Calcium to compensate for its tendency to deprive plants of this secondary macronutrient.

We bought our roses as our particular varieties grafted onto disease resistant rootstocks. By the time they reach our greenhouses, these young rose plants are about a foot high with an average of three branches each. We carefully make a large enough hole in the cocopeat to accommodate the young roots of each plant and the ebb and flow cycle begins.

You have to be extra careful not to damage the sensitive roots of these roses. In order to make sure that our flowers grow strong roots that absorb nutrients readily, we add the Advanced Nutrients root colonizing trio, Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, which supply beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes respectively.

Back in the days when I was still growing carnations in soil in my basement rec room, I grew ten pots of flowers with these colonizers and ten other pots without. My carnation plants with enhanced root systems grew about 50% larger than the untreated ones.

Submerged pumps in our large reservoirs flood each bucket at periodic intervals with our pre-mixed nutrient solution. Roses don’t particularly like standing in water, so the flooding of our mature plants is less than 5 minutes long. Inexpensive timers don’t give you an option—the flooding of your grow medium has to take 30 minutes or longer. Our quality timers allow us to choose the exact length of the “flow” cycle.

We don’t irrigate (I should say “fertigate” which is an awful sounding word that indicates feeding as well as watering) at night, but we do start about ninety minutes after sunrise. Initially, we set the timer to flood the buckets only four times per day for fifteen minutes each time. That gave the cocopeat about three-hours to dry out. It sounds like a lot, but it never dries out completely.

As the plants grow larger they require more solution, both water and nutrition. So we gradually changed the timing to once every three hours, then once per two hour period. Through trial and error we have decided that 5 minutes of flooding is plenty for our roses, provided we water more frequently. On extremely hot days we might have to flood our buckets once every hour, perhaps 15 times during the 15-hour daylight cycle in the summer.

Actually, the frequency of flooding depends on the electronic light readings and the PPM needs of our roses. All of these are measured and correlated by a wizard of a computer program that takes the growth or bloom cycle into account, along with the number of ingredients in our nutrient mix.

As our roses drink more and more of the nutrient mix, our fully automated system tops up the reservoir with fresh water. Since fresh nutrient mix is only added once a week, the rest of the time the solution is diluted more and more with water. This changes the pH and the EC and the PPM all across the board.

This used to worry us at first, but we were assured by the Advanced Nutrients tech advisors that even in nature, pH fluctuates a lot and as long as we feed our roses our target PPM for the week, they’re getting adequate nutrition for their growing and flowering needs. Besides, if the pH gets out of whack too much, it is automatically corrected by adding a small quantity of pH Up or pH Down.

Our basic 100% organic fertilizer is Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, depending on the phase of plant growth or bloom. Currently, all of our roses are still going through their vegetative growth period. However, after about eight weeks, the biological mechanisms in each rose plant will signal the beginning of bud and flower production, then we’ll switch over to Iguana Juice Bloom, along with all the supplements and additives.

Scorpion Juice and Barricade figure importantly in the process of growing roses. Even though our plants have been grafted onto disease resistant root stocks, many roses are notoriously susceptible to Powdery Mildew, Botrytis, and Black Spot. In order to ward off these invasive pathogens, a regular spraying with Scorpion Juice is required, once every three weeks.

This very effective Advance Nutrients product impart induced systemic resistance in our roses, so they are able to fight off many insects and pathogens. Our roses are further bolstered by Barricade, which is added in powder form to our nutrient mix.

This Potassium Silicate product is designed to strengthen the cell walls of our roses, for additional protection. Since many insects that threaten flowers are sap sucking, if the cell walls are strong enough to withstand being penetrated, the insects will go elsewhere. Ditto for pathogens.

Pedro and I enjoy spending time in our Command Bunker overseeing the operation and making sure that our three Greenhouses are being heated or cooled, and lighted or shaded properly. Also, that the air in them is being CO2 enriched or ventilated in order to create the best ever environment for our potentially magnificent flowers.

Our Command Bunker and Emma Peel's Voice

2007-05-04T14:43:00.000-07:00

Pedro had a central command hut built between Greenhouse One and Greenhouse Two. We call it our Command Bunker and it has two or three comfortable chairs on rollers in front of an electronic console filled with gauges, dials, video monitors, and a microphone for an intercom system that allows Pedro or myself to speak to our staff in any of the Greenhouses.

Cameras in the three greenhouses observe the overall progress of the work of growing roses, and they are equipped with remote controls that allow us to zoom in on any particular part of the operation. Pedro insisted on putting in an alarm system, in case we’re away from the observation console and need to attend to any emergencies.

Instead of having annoying sounds, such as those car alarms that drive me up the wall, this alarm system works with a series of code colors, such as those used in hospitals. In order not to unduly alarm the staff, a very pleasant computer voice over the intercom says something like “Code Orange in Greenhouse Two.” Pedro had all of us memorize what the different colors indicate. The Orange message, if it were for real, would mean that the pump system has failed in Greenhouse Two.

All data and video images are recorded digitally and kept in the memory of our master computer for future reference. It all sounds a bit Big Brotherish to me, but Pedro swears that as long as we footed the bill to have our three greenhouses fully automated, the additional expense of centralized observation and the recording of data is warranted. “This might save us a lot of money in the long run,” is how he defends our use of this futuristic technology.

One day last week we were admiring the tremendous growth spurt of our Granada and Ambience rose bushes in Greenhouse Three, when the computer voice I’ve nicknamed Emma (for Emma Peel from that old British TV show, "The Avengers.") pleasantly informed us that Greenhouse One was experiencing a Code Yellow. I didn’t need my pocket guide to figure out that this meant that the measurements of our nutrient mix were all of a sudden incorrect.

Pedro and I rushed over to Greenhouse One, and checked the readings on the wall console. In addition to the Master Console in the Command Bunker, each greenhouse also has a wall console where you can check the readings from all the electronic sensors strategically placed throughout the greenhouse. These measure pH, EC, ppm, nutrient mix temp, room temperature, humidity, light levels in lumens, lux, and foot candles, color temp in Kelvin, total wattage, amperes, and voltage being used, parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air,
etc.

According to the readings, the pH of our nutrient mix was way off. For hydroponic roses the best acid-alkaline balance is between 5.6 and 5.8 and now it was reading 6.7 pH. Since 7.0 pH is neutral, the reservoir must have been almost completely emptied of nutrient mix and been flushed with water. Although we do empty the used mix each week and flush with water, this exchange wasn’t due for another couple of days.

Our plant nutrients—consisting of our basic fert, Iguana Juice Grow; the richly organic supplements Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid, and Fulvic Acid; the purely natural source of all essential B-Vitamins, Organic B; the root colonizers Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice; as well as other Advanced Nutrients products containing enzymes, carbohydrates, potassium silicates and calcium-magnesium—are pre-mixed in a special tank.

This mixing takes place the night before the nutrient solution is poured into the main reservoir of our multi-bucket ebb and flow hydroponic system for growing roses. Each day the roses suck up about 20% of the solution in the reservoir and the reservoir is automatically topped up with water. What happened in Greenhouse One is that through a faulty timer the reservoir was almost completely drained of solution and topped up with pure water.

This procedure threw off every single measurement, including pH, EC, ppm, and the nutrient mix temp. Luckily, the system is equipped with a manual override, so Pedro and I are able to make corrections, whenever they’re necessary. We mixed up another batch of nutrient solution and took several pH readings, one half hour apart. After we got the exact reading of 5.7 pH twice in a row, we knew that the solution was stable.

We allowed it to stand overnight, just to give the Barricade a chance to dissolve completely. Then we took another pH reading and made sure that our EC reading was appropriate for the week of vegetative growth that our Blue Girl and Julia’s Rose bushes were experiencing.

Finally, we drained the reservoir of the water that was put in there by mistake and replaced it with the proper nutrient solution. Luckily, no harm was done since it never hurts to irrigate our roses just with water. Then Pedro boosted the ppm a tiny bit, just to make sure that our roses would get ample food to grow and produce award-winning blooms.

Growing Roses is Harder than Growing Carnations

2007-04-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

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!).

Growing Roses Gracefully with CO2 and Calcium

2007-04-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

The technicians who installed the three large boilers in our three glasshouses alerted us to a tangible cost savings that we weren’t aware of. The boilers use natural gas to heat the water. When they are being used to full capacity in the winter in order to heat the greenhouses, as well as provide hot water in pipes to heat the nutrient solution in our ebb and flow hydroponic rose growing operation, one of the by-products is the manufacture of CO2.

Pedro said that he was aware of that but didn’t know of any technology that was able to capture and measure this CO2 so it could be supplied to the greenhouses in the required quantities. In Spain they just vent their boilers to the outside and let the CO2 escape into the air. What a waste!

The technicians directed us to a firm that currentlymakes the required technology and it is affordable. Actually, when you do the math, it’s much less expensive than buying bottled CO2 and releasing it in the greenhouses.

Given that Ontario has long winters and that the boilers will be operating perhaps eight months out of the year, I was thrilled when Pedro used his calculator to figure out how much money we would save over bottled CO2.

Granted, we would still need to use the bottled stuff in the summer when the boilers are only used to heat a limited supply of hot water and not for central heating. But being able to capture, control, and measure the CO2 is something that we didn’t know about.

Rose varieties grown for the cut flower market are markedly different from the roses grown to help beautify your backyard. The factors that influenced our choices as to which varieties to grow are abundance of flowers, stem length, bud shape and size, vase life, disease resistance, color, and fragrance.

In addition to Alec’s Red in Glasshouse B, Pedro suggested growing Kardinal, a medium-sized classic shaped red rose with a velvety texture. “Are you sure?” I asked, since my research indicated that this rose was the rage perhaps ten years ago, but since then has been superseded by six or seven other varieties.

Pedro stuck to his guns, since he said that people never get tired of a classic. Besides, it is long lasting in a vase and perfect for Valentine’s Day! So now we’re growing half Alec’ Red and half Kardinal in Glasshouse B, which is our Red Rose glasshouse.

Glasshouse A, nicknamed Blue Rose, is growing Blue Girl and Julia’s Rose, which are both long stemmed and classic in shape, while glasshouse C, Multi Rose, has the vibrant, exciting Granada and Ambience. The latter is highly recommended for glasshouse growing by the University of California at Davis.

Kardinal, by the way, is a Hybrid Tea Rose that is rumored “never to get Black Spot, is highly resistant to Mildew, and lasts a very long time in the vase,” according to a rose expert, whose opinion I respect. Pedro says that Kardinal was developed by a German company that specializes in disease-resistant hybrids.

Of course, Pedro and I made sure that all our new arrivals were duly sprayed with Scorpion Juice, in order to impart an induced systemic resistance against major pathogens and pests, anyway. No use taking chances where invasive threats to our roses’ health are concerned.

Barricade is a weekly ingredient in our nutrient mix, which at present is headlined by Iguana Juice Grow, blended with Organic B, the three Grandma Enggy’s supplements (Humic and Fulvic Acid and Seaweed Extract), as well as Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice in order to strengthen the roots of our roses.

Barricade strengthens the cell walls of the rose molecules and thus helps ward off the main threats to rose production today, i.e. Powdery Mildrew, Two-spotted Spider Mites, and Western Flower Thrips. The Rose Mosaic Virus, which used to be a major threat, has largely been handled by the nurseries, which sell only RMV-free certified stock.

University of California researchers have recently discovered a group of ladybug beetles that feed on the fungus that causes Powdery Mildew. We’re in communication with this university, to see when these ladybugs might be commercially available.

The predator mite, Persimillis, is already available as an effective bio control of Spider Mites. Many strawberry growers in California use it in their Integrated Pest Management program.

Blue sticky tape throughout the greenhouse attracts and traps Western Flower Thrips. Most insects are attracted to the colour yellow, but it seems that thrips are different.

Common sense sanitary procedures go a long way toward preventing fungal, bacterial, viral, and insect infestations in our valuable crop.

We have the highest standards where cleanliness of ourselves and our staff is concerned. Outdoor clothing, which might have microorganisms or insect spores or larvae attached, is left outside and people’s hair must be washed frequently and covered with nets, if too long.

We have installed fine mesh screens on all vent openings and the area surrounding the greenhouses has been thoroughly weeded before we started the operation. A weed or an unwanted bush next to the door of your greenhouse could house a colony of unwanted insects, such as Mites or White Flies.

Calcium is essential for healthy flowers, especially roses, so we add Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow to our nutrient solution. Almost 7% of this very effective Advanced Nutrients product is made up of Calcium, in five different forms.

The easily absorbable and pharmaceutical grade Amino Chelated Calcium is at the top of the list, but Calcium Acetate, Calcium Chelate, Calcium EDTA, and Calcium Proteinate make sure that this essential mineral is available for the benefit of our roses, along with a whole list of micronutrients in synergistic balance.

Calcium is essential for the absorption of Phosphorus and Potassium by our roses. Magnesium, the other major ingredient in Sensi Cal, is essential for the absorption of Calcium. It’s amazing how interconnected things are in the plant world!

Even though Calcium is listed as a secondary macronutrient (after Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium), it is vital for plant growth and the formation of crisp, distinct buds and blooms on our roses.

Jill & Pedro's Hydro Roses officially opens

2007-04-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

Last week the glazed glass arrived from the New York factory, so the workmen have been working in a feverish frenzy to finish for our grand opening yesterday, April 4th!

I knew that Pedro wanted the three huge glasshouses finished in time for his birthday, and they were—in the nick of time. Pedro was born on April 4th. He’s a fiery Aries, someone who is passionate about life and is very actively accomplishing his goals.

He was disappointed that his parents could not come to the opening from Mallorca, due to ill health, but his brother and three cousins were here and congratulated us on our new enterprise.

His brother is due to take over the Mallorca greenhouses, so he toured our facilities with great interest. It seems that their operation in Spain isn’t as automated as our state-of-the-art rose growing facilities here in Mississauga.

Every aspect of our rose production is computer-controlled. A light sensor measures the lumens and the micromoles per meter and adjusts the bank of HID lights accordingly. During the summer, if the sun gets too hot midday, the computer will close built in shades over the glazed glass, to keep our roses from burning.

Our banks of lights operate on tracks, so they can be pulled to the side when not needed. In the winter, three large water boilers take care of heating our greenhouses through an intricate system of radiator pipes. Hot and cold water pipes also run under our ebb and flow hydroponic system reservoirs, to make sure that the nutrient solution is at an optimum temperature at all times.

We also have a superb ventilation system built into each greenhouse, with the option to switch over to air conditioning if global warming gets any worse and such intense cooling is required. Right now these huge, super quiet in-line fans handle the cooling, bringing in (hopefully) cooler air from the outside and getting rid of stale air from inside our greenhouses.

Instead of heat-producing, propane-burning CO2 generators, we made a deal with a company to provide compressed CO2 in large, metal cylinders equipped with timers that release just the right parts per million into the greenhouse air, that matches the ppm of our nutrient solution.

We took delivery of our first large shipment of Hybrid Tea Roses grafted onto disease resistant rootstocks. In glasshouse A, nicknamed Blue Rose, we will be growing Blue Girl and Julia’s Rose. In glasshouse B, Red Rose, we’ll be growing nothing but Alec’s Red. In Glasshouse C, Multi Rose, we have started growing Granada and Ambience.

It will take a few days to have the operation jump into high gear. We have hired some expert technicians and horticulturalists, who take pride in their work and in our goals of producing the most beautiful, fragrant, marketable roses in Mississauga.

Each glasshouse measures 125 feet by 40 feet, giving us 6000 square feet of workspace. A thousand of that is taken up by the processing room and all the equipment, so 5000 square feet is covered with a 2000-bucket hydroponic system. Each rose bush will occupy 2.25 square feet, leaving room for aisles between the ebb and flow tables.

Our bucket system is adjustable. Pedro was worried that some of the plants might get bushier so they will perhaps need more than the 2.25 square feet allotted at present. We’ll just remove a bucket here, a bucket there, and allow for the individuality in size. But the bigger bushes better produce many more marketable blooms, or else!

There was a big delivery from Advanced Nutrients, with a truckload of products designed to feed our roses the best organic nutrients available in today’s market. Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom will be our base fertilizer, augmented by Organic B, the purest, most effective B vitamin available, and the three Grandma Enggy products that made Pedro swear that Grandma Enggy was Spanish.

Her Humic Acid, Fulvic Acid, and Seaweed Extract arrived in large containers, and will be added to every new batch of nutrient solution that we mix up for our three reservoirs. Pedro couldn’t make up his mind between Carbo Load Liquid or Powder, so he looked both of them up in the Advancedpedia.

“They’re identical in what they do, but the Liquid is easier to use and it dissolves quicker, so we’ll buy that, even though it’s more expensive,” said my fifty-fifty business partner and I hardly had a say in the matter.

“Carbo Load will ensure that our rose plants will have an adequate supply of carbohydrates for the flower building stage, when the size of the blooms are determined by the plants,” explained Pedro, when he saw that I wasn’t too pleased with his arbitrary decision.

“Don’t the plants produce sugars on their own?” I asked naively. “Yes, but through photosynthesis it’s a time consuming process. It takes six molecules of water coupled with six molecules of carbon dioxide, to produce only one molecule of sugar and six molecules of oxygen. So you see our roses will need a boost when they’re ready to bloom.”

I smiled and gave in, just like I agreed to the glazed glass, instead of plastic cover for our greenhouses. Pedro has so much passion that his enthusiasm is contagious. I also read on the Advanced Nutrients website that Carbo Load helps nourish the beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes in Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice. We just received a huge supply of these root colonizers.

“Don’t forget to use these half strength,” I reminded Pedro, who has been writing enthusiastic e-mails back to Spain about all the wonderful Advanced Nutrients products that have produced such outstanding results for some of the rose growers in Mississauga that we have visited.

I forgot to mention that we’ve done the rounds of rose growers in the area, hoping to get pointers about local market conditions and horticultural tips from people who have been growing roses for a long time. Most of them were impressed with our plans and were keen to hear all about the Advanced Nutrients products that we’re planning to use.

This all happened so fast that my head is spinning, but I consider myself lucky to have met such a wonderful man who shares my passion for growing and selling beautiful flowers.

Greenhouse Rose Production--Spectacular Ambience

2007-03-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

The three greenhouses on the outskirts of Mississauga are nearing completion. A spike of warm temperature has facilitated construction. We are awaiting the arrival of the glazed glass from a factory in upstate New York.

Commercial cut flowers are increasingly produced using hydroponic methods. In Israel, soilless rose producers are grossing two hundred thousand U.S. dollars for every 2.4 acres of greenhouse space. This might be the highest per acre income from any agricultural endeavor world-wide.

97% of Israel’s rose growers use hydroponics. Many of these greenhouses are computer-controlled. By regulating the bloom stage of rose production, perfect-sized roses can be grown according to the calendar to be harvested just before Valentine’s Day, on February 14th.

Competition from developing countries, such as those in Africa, is threatening cut-flower production in Israel. Field hands in Africa are paid ten dollars per month. The only way the hydroponic growers can compete with that is to computerize more and more of the operation, thus cutting down labor costs.

Low labor costs in Colombia allowed that country’s rose producers to grab 40% of the U.S. market, forcing many California growers out of business.

Mississauga is home to an International Rose Cooperative Auction House, which will allow Pedro and I to sell our flowers in the increasingly competitive marketplace.

When I was growing cut carnations in my basement rec-room I marketed the flowers myself to retail outlets in the area, making my profit margin larger but my distribution costs also increased.

With three huge glass houses producing cut roses that method of distribution would not be feasible. By becoming part of an international marketing process, we’ll be able to sell our flowers strategically. Most cut flowers are sold around the time of the major holidays of Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Thanksgiving.

Roses are by far the most popular flowers sold in the U.S., with 1.5 billion roses sold per annum. Around 1000 acres of greenhouses in America are devoted to rose production. These greenhouses produce flowers year-round and are responsible for double the number of commercially grown roses outdoors in the field.

Flowers have slightly different micronutrient requirements than vegetables. In addition to balancing the NPK of our 100% organic base nutrients—Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom—with the NPK of Colossal Bud Blast, we also plan to add Sensi Cal Mg Mix Grow and Sensi Cal Mg Mix Bloom to our Ebb and Flow system reservoirs, in order to provide the exact micronutrients required by roses.

When our flowers become mature and in extended flower production, we plan to maintain our roses on the bloom nutrients, which are formulated by Advanced Nutrients to keep our rose bushes producing more and more copious flowers.

Sensi Cal Mg Mix Bloom, for instance, not only contains 4.59% of Calcium (Ca) in three different forms, including a chelated form, but also 1.5% of Magnesium (Mg), 0.15% or Iron (Fe), 0.09% of Manganese (Mn), 0.045% of Zinc (Zn), 0.0015% of Copper (Cu), 0.027% of Boron (B), 0.012% of Molybdenum (Mo), and 0.0036% of Cobalt (Co).

In addition to the trace amounts of these micronutrients, which are essential for healthy flowers, Sensi Cal Mg Mix Bloom also has 2.0% of Nitrogen (N) in the form of Calcium Nitrate, which guarantees crisp, robust plant foliage, and plant growth in general.

The macro and micronutrients in this and other Advanced Nutrients products are designed to produce a synergistic effect, which means that they will interact in a very effective way to provide our roses with much needed nutrition and growth and bloom enhancers.

Colossal Bud Blast, for instance, contains a form of urea that increases the pigment content of flowers, helping to produce incredibly vibrant blooms. I used it extensively on my prize-winning carnations and can personally attest to its effectiveness.

The Potassium Nitrate in Colossal Bud Blast has proven to increase the speed of bloom formation, as well as the abundance of flowers. This well-researched product was originally designed as a foliar spray, but it can also be effectively added to the root zone of flowering plants, both during the vegetative and flowering stages.

Speaking of spectacularly colored blooms, Pedro has added another Hybrid Tea Rose to our production list. This one is called Ambiance, and it has a three-tone motif of bright, canary yellow, coral red, and burnt orange. He had a dream about these colors then he spotted the picture in a catalogue.

“I’ve been looking for this rose all my life,” announced Pedro dramatically. “The market for multi-colored roses is increasing, just as more and more people are buying multi-swirl ice cream flavors. The old, single-hued ice creams aren’t exciting enough, according to Pedro, and neither are the single colored roses.

I reminded him that the single biggest sellers are still the red rose varieties, especially around Valentine’s Day, so I’ll insist on growing Alec’s Red. But Granada and Ambience are like the Spanish spices that Pedro likes to add to his cooking.

I also told him about Scorpion Juice and Barricade, two Advanced Nutrients products that are designed to make the lives of flower growers much easier. Pedro knew all about spider mites and aphids and Black Spot and Rust. He’s seen all the pests and diseases to which roses are prone.

Preventative spraying with Scorpion Juice will impart induced systemic resistance to our roses so that insects and pathogens won’t have a chance. Using Scorpion Juice is akin to giving our plants a “vaccination” that arms them with strength to fight off the invaders.

Similarly, adding Barricade to our nutrient mix will build up the cell walls of our rose bushes and flowers so that insects and destructive microorganisms will not be able to penetrate them. The Potassium Silicate in Barricade not only reinforces the walls of rose cells, but it also helps to increase plant metabolism, which causes faster growth and more robust rose plants.

“I will e-mail my father to tell him about these products,” said Pedro. “Our roses on Mallorca could use a good vaccine to keep pests and diseases away.”

Three glasshouses in time for Rose Planting

2007-03-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

Despite the winter weather, construction is progressing at breakneck speed and soon our three glasshouses will be a reality. Pedro and I are deep into the planning stage. We are equal partners, which means that if we disagree we have to compromise in order to overcome the hurdle.

So far we’ve agreed on using an Ebb and Flow hydroponic system to grow our roses in the medium of coco coir. We are going to use a 100% organic feed regimen, with Advanced Nutrients Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom being our base nutrients, with Colossal Bud Blast making the NPK more attractive to roses.

We’ve agreed to name our company Jill & Pedro’s Hydro Roses with a 50-50 capitalization. Pedro’s share is coming from family money, while my share was made possible by an inheritance from a recently deceased uncle.

We’ve also managed to establish new credit lines from the bank, which is essential for the cash flow of any business venture.

What about my previous decision to grow Hybrid Tea Roses, as opposed to the other varieties? Pedro agreed that Hybrid Teas were the most marketable, but he thought that my choices—Alec’s Red and Julia’s Rose—required further consideration.

He was being very diplomatic. He said that “in addition” to my choices, he would like us to grow a few more varieties. It seems that there is a multi-coloured very fragrant strain called Granada, which his family has been growing for a number of years.

It’s continuous blooming, extremely disease resistant, hardy zones 6-10. It’s been around since 1964, so it’s no longer subject to patent. It grows to three, three and a half feet and it mixes the colors rose-pink, lemon-yellow, and nasturtium red.

He showed me a picture of a Granada rose, and I fell in love with it right away. Another exquisite rose that Pedro would like to grow is called Blue Girl. It’s also very fragrant, grows to four or five feet in height, with classic, high pointed blooms of lavender blue.

It seems that there is no such thing as a perfectly blue rose, but this comes as close as it gets. Somehow the color lavender sneaks in whenever breeders attempt to hybridize a purely blue rose. Blue Girl originated in Germany, and has won the prestigious Rome Gold Medal.

So we put in an order for these four varieties, but we’re keeping an open mind about other Hybrid Teas that might fit in with our plans. We also put in a huge order at Advanced Nutrients for Iguana Juice Grow, Iguana Juice Bloom, Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid, Fulvic Acid, and Seaweed Extract, as well as the root colonizers Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice.

Pedro has contacted a fellow rose grower in Mallorca, who is using these root colonizers from Advanced Nutrients, and he received a glowing report. The guy sent him some before and after pictures of rose bushes treated with these beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes.

He was astounded to see the size and quality difference, as well as the number of blooms on the treated bushes. “I look forward to using all these products,” enthused Pedro as he examined the bottles and labels I had left over from my carnation growing days.

Hydro System Choices--Go Organic, Stop Synthetic

2007-03-08T22:32:00.000-08:00

Pedro and I had a long discussion about the pros and cons of each hydroponic system. Even though his English is excellent, there is still a slight communication problem when it comes to technical words.

It turns out that the Nutrient Film Technique system that his family’s greenhouses were using in Majorca (by the way, he says it’s spelled Mallorca, in Spanish) wasn’t exactly a pure NFT system.

NFT was the way hydroponics got started. It involves growing your plants in a constant flow of nutrient solution, a truly aquatic form of agriculture. You could call it aquaculture. There are two major drawbacks in trying to use this system to grow roses—the roots of rose plants don’t like to be continuously immersed in water and rose bushes would just topple over in water, without some means of support.

The way Pedro’s family got around this was that they converted their NFT system into a quasi Ebb and Flow system, by systematically draining and flooding the system using the pumps at periodic intervals.

The horizontal tanks of this system are placed on a slight slope on purpose, so the nutrient solution always flows in one direction. Then a pump at the deep end catches the overflow and recycles it back to the beginning.

The other major drawback for roses is the lack of support for the plants. Pedro’s family suspended some strong twine netting over the entire pond, so the rose bushes actually grew through the netting and were supported by it in their maturity.

I argued that it would be real difficult to adapt this system for the coco coir medium. I still thought that using the same Drip Irrigation System that I used for my carnations would be better. However there were several reasons why my idea wasn’t great either.

Small scale Drip Irrigation Systems, like the one I used, are geared to recycle their nutrient solution, which makes them highly economical. The same DIS setup on a large scale would have to run to waste, which means that the cost of replacing the nutrients each day would be very high.

They are also very tricky to maintain on a large scale, and need constant monitoring of the pH and CF levels. Since these levels differ from the reservoir to the centre of the growing medium, where the roots are, I had to use a syringe to take samples from deep within my rockwool slabs.

To do this on a large scale with coco coir would be unmanageable. So we were back to square one in trying to choose the most favourable hydroponic system for our three large rose greenhouses. (We signed the papers, btw., purchased the real estate, and construction has begun on the project.)

In a large Drip Irrigation setup you’d have to take levels perhaps several times a day and add pH Up or pH Down to your nutrient solution, then take another pH and CF reading, until you get everything just right.

Also, the pumps and drippers tend to clog up frequently, causing drought stress in the plants after the grow medium dries up. The need for constant maintenance and upkeep would just about kill any profits that Pedro and I might see from our rose growing operation.

We finally decided on an Ebb and Flow system, modular in design, where we could add as many buckets as we needed for our large rose bushes. The coco coir will sit well in the buckets for an extended period of time, and since 40% of this grow medium always stays dry, the roots of our rose plants will be able to breath.

The Advanced Nutrients tech guys told us to use airstones regardless in our reservoir, even though every time the system floods and drains, it sucks air into the grow medium, causing even more aeration. Ebb and Flow is the Rolls Royce of hydroponic systems and Pedro was impressed by that.

The nutrient solution is recycled, which was another point in the favor of choosing this solution to our dilemma. Now we had to finalize our plans for plant nutrients. Pedro had second thoughts about using Grow and Bloom, with a tiny bit of Micro. He said he had a dream and the way he interpreted it, meant that we have to use organic fertilizers and supplements.

Luckily, we figured out that if we use Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, then supplement it with regular sprayings of Colossal Bud Blast, we could manipulate the NPK so that it becomes favourable for roses.

The NPK of Iguana Juice Grow is 3-1-3. If you add the NPK of Colossal Bud Blast (0-3-6) you end up with a combined NPK of 3-4-9, which is a good, low Nitrogen rose NPK.

Iguana Juice Bloom has an NPK of 4-3-6. When the NPK of Colossal Bud Blast is added, you wind up with a combined NPK of 4-6-12, which is very good for blooming roses.

Pedro was still complaining that this solution is the best, but it’s not perfect. Seems his grandmother had a special, organic food preparation for roses, which somehow got lost during the war and his family have been trying to recreate it ever since.

“Iguana Juice comes close, but I feel there’s something missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it,” said Pedro, and he had a sad look on his face.

I suggested we go have dinner in an Argentinian restaurant. They serve the best churasco, with roast potatoes swimming in butter and grilled red peppers to top it off. My mouth waters just thinking about it. Pedro cheered up and with the decisions we made this week, our rose growing operation is that much closer to becoming reality.

The Perfect Partner--Expanding to Commercial Scale

2007-02-28T22:54:00.000-08:00

This past week has been tumultuous, to say the least. Not only did I meet a wonderful man (yeah, he’s single) but he turned out to be an expert rose gardener with some cash to invest in a venture.

Don’t worry, I checked out his bona fides and he passed with flying colors. His family comes from Majorca, off the coast of Spain, and they’ve been growing roses ever since the Moors settled in the Iberian Peninsula.

He took all my plans and pointed out the amateurishness of what I was planning to do. To have a tiny hydroponic setup in the basement and an outdoor rose garden in a cold climate isn’t exactly commercially viable.

I guess deep down I knew this already, but I needed an expert to point out my mistakes. But he not only criticized, he offered an alternative solution. This sounds really attractive, the more I think about it.

He suggested buying some real estate in the zone that allows agriculture on the outskirts of Mississauga. He agrees that hydroponics is the way of the future, so his plan is to set up three huge glass greenhouses to grow roses on a commercial scale.

“Why don’t we cover the greenhouses with plastic to save money?” I asked naively, but Pedro (yeah, that’s his name) said that his family has been growing roses under glass for centuries and he wasn’t about to change.

He pointed out that plastics deteriorate in the sun and that the molecules the plastic cover sheds eventually settle on and are absorbed by the roses. He realizes that glazed glass is much more expensive, but he swears by it and has adjusted his budget projections accordingly.

Coincidentally, a favorite uncle of mine passed away last month and it was a real surprise that he left me some money. I didn’t even know that he was a player in the stock market and he seemed to have made some astute investments that created an investment fund in the six figures.

(It's great that he cashed in before this week's market jitters!)

He didn’t have any children, so he divided the money between my two brothers and I. This inheritance enables me to talk to Pedro as an equity investor in his rose growing scheme.

Before you start thinking that all this is moving too fast and that my head is clouded by the fact that I’m attracted to Pedro (I don’t deny this), rest assured that my accountant and lawyer are both involved in these preliminary stages of the venture.

Pedro already found the ideal location and we’ll be signing the partnership papers in a few days. The next step is to purchase the land. He’s happy to call the company Jill & Pedro’s Hydro Roses and was very pleased that I had done the marketing research that proves that we’ll be able to sell the flowers in this fast growing community.

Pedro was also very interested in what I was planning to feed our roses. He said that his family has been growing roses organically but that he wasn’t opposed to synthetic fertilizers, per se, provided that they have a proven track record. I showed him my albums of my prize-winning carnations, and he was impressed.

“I grew all these beautiful flowers using Advanced Nutrients products,” I told him. He spent hours doing research on the Advanced Nutrients website--he especially liked the Advancedepedia. “What a great company, they’ve really done their homework,” was his conclusion.

Then he insisted on calling the company’s tech info line. He told the man on the phone that he wanted an in-depth session. He quizzed the tech guy about Micro, Grow, and Bloom, their composition and Nitrogen content. It wasn’t enough for Pedro that Micro has 5% Nitrogen, he wanted to know in what form. (The answer was nitrates.)

Then he asked about the Nitrogen in Grow. It turned out that of the 2% Nitrogen in Grow, 1.7% was also as nitrates, with only .3 as Ammoniacal Nitrogen. So the tech guy ended up agreeing with my solution of minimizing the Micro in order to cut down on the Nitrogen content of our fertilizer mix.

Pedro liked Sensi Cal Mg Grow and Sensi Cal Mg Bloom, because they contained the same list of chelated micronutrients featured in Micro, but without the 5% Nitrogen. Pedro agreed that giving our roses too much Nitrogen would result in too much vegetative growth at the expense of superb blooms.

By skillfully blending Grow and Bloom with a small quantity of Micro, we will end up with an NPK of 3-6-10, which is within the suggested ratio of the Nitrogen being 50% of the Phoshphates and 30% of the Potassium.

“Always pour in the ingredient with the most Nitrogen first,” warned the Advanced Nutrients tech guy, so we will be adding the proper quantity of Grow first of all. Then a reduced quantity of Micro, and finally, the Bloom.

The reason these three ingredients come separately is because if they came in the same bottle the chemicals would bind together and they would be useless to our roses.

Pedro was elated with Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice and said that he has been looking for products like these for years. “I knew the trick of treating the roots with beneficial microorganisms,” he said, “but obtaining them was never easy. Thanks so much, dear Jill, for introducing me to Advanced Nutrients.”

He also explored the advantages of using Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid and was very glad to hear from the Advanced Nutrients technical people that the company is working with local farmers in growing half their crops with Humic and Fulvic and the other half without, in order to verify the benefits of these two magic ingredients.

Pedro is certain that using these two Grandma Enggy’s products, along with her Seaweed Extract, will result in prize-winning blooms the very first season of our greenhouse operation. “It’s a myth that you have to wait one or two years before you can have huge roses,” he said.

“If you treat your flowers right, they’ll reward you with large, fragrant blooms. But you have to have the correct watering and feeding regimen, as well as the proper lighting conditions."

Pedro agreed that coco coir is the best growing medium for roses, but instead of my Drip Irrigation System, he recommended using the Nutrient Film Technique that they’ve been perfecting in Majorca.

We’ll have to have further discussions about this, but he showed me some pictures of the flowers they have produced in their greenhouses and they truly knocked me out. Not only is he a handsome man and an expert rose grower, but also an accomplished photographer.

Where is this all leading? I’ll report next week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Selecting Best Varieties, Expanding to Backyard?

2007-02-21T17:21:00.000-08:00

We’re still getting some wet snow and flurries, but I see in the forecast that there are some sunny days ahead. The thermometer will drop to -9 Celsius tonight, but after even lower temperatures during the last week of February, they say that it will warm up in March.

My friend in British Columbia is already pruning his roses and enjoying the crocuses that have sprung out of the comparatively warm ground. Here in Ontario, spring comes much later, but we’re used to it.

I’ve been doing a lot more research and some creative thinking. While my basement rec room was perfect for growing carnations, I’m worried that it won’t be big enough for roses.

I have practically nil experience growing flowers in soil, but a fellow grower is trying to talk me into converting my bare back yard into a rose garden this spring.

At 35’ x 30’ the yard is 1050 square feet, which is about four times the size of my basement. I would still have the hydroponic setup in the rec room, but this would increase my yield substantially and provide me with much needed experience growing roses in soil.

I could plant the same varieties indoors and out and see which ones thrive in either environment. Or I could diversify the varieties that I plant, thus increasing my attractiveness to potential buyers.

I’ve been poring through nursery catalogues and books, trying to pinpoint the varieties of roses that I would be interested in growing. I decided to grow only Hybrid Tea Roses, since they are the aristocrats of the rose world and come closest to what I imagine a rose should look like.

Hybrid Tea Roses have been around since 1867—they are the result of crossing the delicate Tea Rose with a variety known as Hybrid Perpetual. Contrary to rumors, some of the Hybrid Teas have retained their fragrance, even though they have been bred and cross-bred for so long.

At first I was attracted to a bi-color rose called Piccadilly. The vivid reds and yellows of this classic shaped rose give it a very classy appearance. It grows vigorously, but only reaches two and a half feet when fully grown, which would be ideal for my grow space.

However, its disease resistance has decreased in recent years, so now it’s prone to pathogens. Regardless of its beauty, I decided to pass on this variety.

Then I came upon a hybrid called Fragrant Cloud. It was introduced in 1964, so the commercial patent on it had definitely run out. However, I’ve since found out that it’s brilliant red color does fade with age and it’s also prone to Black Spot and Mildew. This headache I can do without.

My first real choice is called Alec’s Red. It’s a multiple award winner that grows to about three feet tall at maturity and is widely available. It is a good choice for exhibitions and cut flowers and its fragrance is rich and sweet.

It is also a classic shaped rose and its crimson petals hold their color well. The clincher? It is disease resistant, which is a blessing for a first time grower. Even though I plan to use Barricade liberally, in order to increase the ability of my flowers to ward off pathogens and pests, it is still comforting to know that the rose has built in resistance, as well.

If I do decide to plant outdoors, I’ll probably choose a magnificent pink rose called Admiral Rodney. It grows quite tall (over 3.5 feet) and its blooms are exceptionally large and well shaped. Ideal for cut flowers or exhibitions.

One of the wonderful things about roses that if they are well tended, they’ll continue to produce blooms for many years to come. So it would save me the hassle of starting a new batch of flowers every four months in my grow room.

The other variety that I decided to grow in my basement is Julia’s Rose, named after a famous flower arranger. It is somewhere between pale yellow and ivory in color and only grows to the height of two and a half feet. It has average disease resistance, but it is specifically recommended for growing indoors.

An added bonus—Julia’s Rose is well known for its long, straight stems. Perfect for the purpose I had in mind. It only needs light pruning.

If you’re growing outdoors, pruning is usually done before the spring growth begins, while the plant is still dormant. You can either prune lightly, moderately, or heavyly. Heavy pruning means you only leave the wooden stems and cut them about five inches off the ground.

In moderate pruning the major stems are cut back to about half their length, while light pruning involves cutting the stems to about two thirds their length. All roses will benefit from pruning, since the new shoots will be young and vigorous and bud formation will be enhanced.

For long stemmed roses, the grower needs to pinch the side buds in a process known as disbudding, which allows for the major bud at the tip of the stem to grow large and striking.

To prolong the flowering season, roses should be deadheaded—that is the faded blooms should be cut before they produce rose hips and seeds. Each bush will have blooms that are not suitable for long-stemmed cut flowers.

The process of deadheading the unsuitable blooms allows for more nourishment to go to the long stemmed, usable ones. The energy that normally would go into seed production is diverted back to help the selected blooms to grow large and fragrant.

Another way to make sure that as many long stemmed flowers as possible are produced by each rose bush is to treat them with Advanced Nutrients Very High Output (VHO), which has been tested and proven to help elongate the stems of the selected blooms.

Additionally, during the flowering stage, Carbo Load Liquid can be added to provide the roses with much needed sugars that they burn up to make their exquisite flowers. For extra fragrance, I plan to add Sweet Leaf, that contains highly sweet berry sugars and molasses, that help to enhance the fragrance of flowers.

I still have to figure out that exact combination of Micro, Grow, and Bloom in order to make sure that my roses won’t get too much Nitrogen. This would cause vigorous vegetative growth at the expense of flower production.

By cutting back on the amount of Micro (5-0-1) I use, I’ll be able to adjust the NPK of my nutrient mix to best suit my roses. That is what’s so great about this Advanced Nutrient 3-part—it is very flexible and you can use it in any combination you want. Or, as I've mentioned previously, I could use another Advanced Nutrients product with micronutrients in it (such as Sensi Cal Grow) to compensate for the reduction in Micro.

I can't eliminate Micro entirely, since it is absolutely essential. The micronutrients that it contains in trace amounts help to prevent deficiencies that can hurt your rose plants. The signs of Magnesium deficiency, for instance, are the yellowing of leaves at the centre, eventually causing these leaves to fall.

Iron shortage in your nutrient solution results in large yellow areas on your leaves, while Manganese deficiency shows up as yellow bands on your leaves. So applying only Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium (NPK) by themselves could still result in damage to your rose bushes, unless you make sure that the micronutrients in Micro are included in the diet of your roses.

Hydroponic Systems and Commercial Roses

2007-02-14T16:21:00.000-08:00

I must be insane! There’s three feet of snow outside my door and I’m dreaming about setting up a fragrant rose garden! Valentine’s Day, the biggest single day for rose sales is almost over and whatever rose topic I punch up on Google, I get over a million hits.

An old beau showed up at my door with a dozen red roses this morning. I took it as a good sign. I tried to visit a rose grower to pick his brain after lunch, but my Montana SV6 got stuck in my driveway. So much for primary research.

I did find out a few things this past week encouraging me to proceed. It seems that I am able to keep my Drip Irrigation Hydroponic system to grow my roses. But I will have to decide between using large growing trays or individual buckets.

In either case, as I said last week, my grow medium of choice is coco coir. It will enable the roots of my rose plants to breathe, even when the medium is soaked with nutrient solution.

An alarming bit of information has to do with growing roses commercially. It seems that many popular varieties are patented and you need to obtain a license to grow them commercially.

Then I discovered that rose patents only last for 20 years, so any roses that were bred before 1987 are okay to propagate and sell, without a license.

Some of the Old English Roses that I have my eye on definitely fit into this category. However, many sources say that David Austin roses are very popular these days.

I visited his website and was unable to find any reference to commercial licensing. He seems to be selling more of the bushy rose varieties to the home gardener, rather than the long-stemmed roses for cut-flower propagators.

But a point in his favor is that most of his roses claim to have a fragrance. So I’ll have to explore his selection further, before I make my final choices. He sells directly from his website, and I presume that he ships anywhere in the world, although Canada is not listed as one of his destinations.

Commercial roses are usually budded or grafted onto a sturdy rootstock and sold as a unit. They are guaranteed to be true to type.

Believe it or not, I even looked into the possibility of growing roses from seed (just like I did with my carnations), but I found that it is a lengthy and laborious process. Also, most sites stressed that the seeds need to be obtained from rosehips freshly removed from plants, and not allowed to dry out.

Germination takes ninety days using the wet baggie method and there is no guarantee that you’ll even get flowers during the first year of growth. If you choose to try and germinate the seed outdoors, it will probably take two years to get a rose plant out of it.

Oddly enough, several websites advertise dried rose seeds through the mail, but I would hesitate to order from them, since the experts are clear about not letting the seeds dry out.

Those of you who have been reading this blog ever since the beginning know that my grow space is my basement recreation room. It measures 12’x20’ so what I basically have is 240 square feet of space.

I own six 600W High Pressure Sodium lights with ballasts, and six 4’x7’ grow trays to go under them. If I allocate 1.5 sq. ft. per rose plant, I can grow 18 plants under each light, for a total of 108 rose plants.

I still have to do my homework in order to achieve this, but I presume that I can periodically get four long stemmed roses from each plant. There are professional methods for doing this and I am determined to master them.

Advanced Nutrients will supply my nutrients. I figured out that it will be better to use Grow and Bloom, without Micro, as my base fertilizers, in order to minimize my Nitrogen content. Then I can use Sensi Cal Grow and Sensi Cal Bloom to provide the micronutrients necessary to feed my rose plants.

Since I will be buying seedlings or cuttings with bare roots, I will probably need No Shock and Jump Start in order to compensate for the stress that shipping and transplanting will cause.

In order to strengthen the roots of my roses, I will of course use Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, as well as SensiZym.

Piranha colonizes the plants’ root systems with beneficial fungi, while Tarantula does much the same with helpful bacteria. Voodoo Juice contains friendly microbes that also aid root growth and food absorption.

Sensi Zym has over eighty types of beneficial enzymes that are bioactive and will eat the plant debris in my coco coir grow medium.

Roses require over six hours of direct sunlight or its equivalent per day. I plan to give them double that yet always being careful not to scorch them with the powerful lights.

No nutrients need to be administered during the hours of darkness in the grow room, and I plan to raise the light level gradually in the morning to simulate sunrise. When the lights reach their peak in about an hour, the watering cycle can begin.

Every twenty minutes the grow medium can be flooded for 30 seconds. On a daily basis, roses can be watered thirty times. Roses do not like their roots to be totally immersed in water for any length of time.

Major pests and diseases of roses are downy mildew, botrytis, and black spot. You also have to watch out for aphids, fungus gnats, thrips, and white flies.

Yellow sticky traps hung above the canopy will trap any flying pests that dare to invade my grow room (hopefully none) while mixing Barricade into my nutrient mix will help the strengthen my plants’ cell walls to help them fight off any pathogens and pests.

I also found out about a practice called “bending,” whereby the unproductive branches of the rose bush are bent down and secured in that position in order to benefit the productive branches of the plant.

They do this by helping to increase sugar production for the whole plant. It is necessary that the buds on the bent branches be below the stem of the branch for this process to work.

My head is buzzing and I have my work cut out for me. Next I’ll have to decide on what rose varieties I want and where to order them. Given 20,000 different types of roses and dozens of sources, these decisions will not be easy ones.

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

2007-02-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

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.

My Right as a Woman to Change My Mind

2007-01-31T23:34:00.000-08:00

It’s always a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. I’m changing mine in a big way. If heretofore I was known as the carnation lady, let me be known henceforth as the rose lady.

I can hear the gasps of all you carnation lovers out there! What is she doing? Has she lost her mind? How did it happen?

Well, as I wrote to you last week, I had just planted all my carnation seeds, two per rockwool cube, and waited for germination. Well, through circumstances beyond my control (or divine planning) most of my carnation seeds turned out to be duds.

Yes, zilch, nada, forget-about-it. At the same time, as if by magic, I was invited by a mutual friend to visit a basement rose growing operation, in a room not much bigger than my basement rec room.

I was enthralled by the roses, which were just about ready to harvest in anticipation of Valentine’s Day. That day is a huge sales day for rose growers the world over. And some of the prices they fetch!

I came home to a grow room full of dud seeds and a few carnation Mother Plants, which could have continued to produce flowers until they were 18 months old. I donated my Mother Plants to a friend who’s continuing to grow carnations, and said adieu to my carnation growing operation.

What’s so great about growing roses? Aside from the exquisite beauty of the flowers, there is something to be said for marketability. Specialty roses sell for many times the price of carnations.

It’s a new challenge for me. I was getting kind of sluggish, winning prize after prize with my Dianthus caryophyllus flowers. That’s just a fancy name for carnations, you don’t have to go running for your dictionary.

Am I insane? Starting to grow roses in the dead of a Mississauga winter, missing out on the Valentine’s Day bonanza, having had zilch experience where the propagation, nurturing, and growth of these delicate flowers are concerned?

I am determined to become the best floriculturalist for roses possible. This means doing reams and reams of research on the Internet and in the Library. I have already started and this will probably take a few weeks. I’ll keep a step by step journal and share it with you week by week on this blog.

My first smart step was to call the technical help line at Advanced Nutrients. I’ve been talking to them frequently about growing carnations, they were surprised to hear that now I am planning to switch to roses.

Your Drip Irrigation hydroponic system should be fine for the roses, the man informed me, but your feed rate will probably change. Can I continue to use my basic 3-part fertilizer, Micro, Grow, and Bloom? You should be able to, since it is the best choice for many plants and flowers.

At various stages, you can vary your nutrients with just those three products, higher veg for structural, higher bloom for blooming.

First up is the pH question, which is the most frequently brought up issue on the Advanced Nutrient help line. The basics are well known. A pH of 7 is neutral, meaning you have a completely balanced acid-alkaline mix.

It is advisable to grow most plants in a more acidic environment, since the nutrients are more available to the plant in an acidic solution. As to the exact pH that is recommended for roses? You’re going to have to do diligent research on that, said the man.

It’s not that easy to find the exact pH required for hydroponic roses, when punching up the topic on Google yields hundreds of thousands of hits. I tend to favor the academic sites, since I presume they know what they’re talking about. There are too many amateurs posing as experts on the Internet.

I will report back as soon as I find the definitive answer to that question. Also, the issue of humidity is all-important, since roses tend to be plagued with viral and fungal diseases such as Black Spot and Powdery Mildew.

With regard to these diseases, Advanced Nutrients recommends using Barricade in your nutrient solution, a spraying regimen of Scorpion Juice, as well as Piranha and Tarantula as foliar sprays. You have to alternate these products and spray at five-day intervals, since the effects of one are cancelled out by the other.

I thought I would be smart and choose disease resistant varieties, but when it comes to choosing roses to grow, the types and varieties are endless. I know exactly the type of look I want (Hybrid Tea Rose) but inbreeding has killed the scent of many of these varieties.

The more I research, the more I think I’ll have to grow two different types, one for appearance and one for fragrance. The fragrant types I’m drawn to at the moment are the Bourbon varieties, that first appeared on the isle of Bourbon in the Indian Ocean in the 1800’s.

They come in colors that range from white, to deep pink, to scarlet and possess a very heavy fragrance. The drawback is that they’re bushy and grow big. You couldn’t fit too many of them into my limited size basement grow room.

So you see, the choices are not as easy as all that. I will have to continue for my search for the perfect rose that looks like a Hybrid Tea rose with a very heavy fragrance, is disease resistant, and doesn’t grow too large.

It seems that in order to have the best choices, believe it or not, mail ordering them from a large catalogue is recommended. However, since I don’t want to order roses with any soil attached, I would have to order bare-root plants, which are only shipped during early spring while they are dormant.

I have gotten rid of all traces of my carnations (not without shedding a few tears, mind you) and have flushed my hydroponic system with pure water over and over. I am using Advanced Nutrients Wipe Out to clean all my trays, tools, and utensils, and then to wipe the walls.

I’m even wiping the light fixtures (I have six 600W High Pressure Sodium lights with ballasts), I am so careful not to transmit any viral, bacterial, or fungal infection from my carnations to my future roses.

I hope I don’t have to wait too long to put in an order, but it’s best to be sure than to make a mistake. This is a huge change in my life, and I figure if it takes a few weeks to implement it, then so be it. Wish me luck.

Starting from Seeds, Germinating, Nurturing

2007-01-24T22:10:00.000-08:00

The deep freeze is on in Mississauga, Ontario. The other day it was minus fifteen Celsius (in the daytime!), but with the wind-chill factor it felt like minus twenty-seven. This is more like Winnipeg, than a suburb of Toronto.

For the past week I’ve been planting and nurturing seeds. As you know, I grow over 400 carnations each grow and bloom cycle in the basement recreation room of my suburban house.

I use a Drip Irrigation Hydroponic system under six 600W High Pressure Sodium light fixtures and I recently harvested my prize-winning blooms, which were delivered to select stores in the area. I’m glad to report that they sold very quickly.

This is more of a hobby-grow operation for me, since my divorce settlement left me not rich, but comfortable. I have always fantasized about growing flowers—specifically Sims carnations, the long-stemmed, single bloom variety. What better way to recover from a divorce, than to make one of your major dreams a reality?

In addition to pure, filtered water, I nourish my carnations with a basic nutrient and some supplements from a Canadian company, Advanced Nutrients. They are very helpful and their technical advice line is very reachable.

I grow my plants in rockwool slabs, but my germinating seeds need special care. Using a chopstick, I very carefully make two holes in the centres of 400 rockwool cubes. I insert two carnation seeds of different varieties, chosen for their color or disease resistance or novel appearance.

The reason for two seeds, instead of one, is in case one does not germinate, there is always a back-up. If both germinate, I only keep the stronger one and discard the other.

Germinating seeds need light above all—as much as possible. I use special grow-lite fluorescent tubes that I hang just a few inches above the rockwool cubes. Some growers keep the lights on for 18 hours a day--I keep them on for 24 hours. I find that it doesn’t hurt my seeds to have an abundance of light.

I keep my growing cubes in plastic trays with transparent plastic covers to keep the moisture in. I water the cubes in the morning and let them dry out by nightfall. You have to take the cover off for about an hour at night, in order to allow the moisture to evaporate, before the chill of night sets in.

Temperature is a very big consideration. If you’ve ever been to an agricultural show where a whole bunch of eggs are hatching, you know that they do it under heat lamps to maintain an incubator-like temperature.

So I set my oil-based rads at full blast and also hang a number of heat lamps above the trays. Even with so many sources of heat, the temperature in the trays never goes above 55º to 60º F, or 10º to 14º Celsius. You want to make your seeds comfortable, you don’t want to bake them.

If you’re germinating in hydro, small rockwool cubes are a good idea. If you’re growing in soil, small peat pots should be used. Some growers say the smaller the better. It doesn’t hurt to have your seedlings root bound. That goes for transplanting, too.

When you get the first set of true leaves, it’s time to transplant. By this time I have dipped my seedlings into their basic fertilizer, Micro and Grow, and after the transplant I treat them with Advanced Nutrients No Shock and Jump Start, two excellent products designed to minimize the stress of being moved and give a grow boost to your tiny plants.

I generally take the root-bound rockwool cubes and cut openings for each one in my rockwool slabs, which are two to three inches thick. It’s better to have thicker slabs, in my experience, since they retain moisture better.

Somewhere along the line, I also tend to treat my seedlings with Scorpion Juice in order to impart induced systemic resistance to many pathogens and pests.

The rockwool slabs rest in large, three by six foot trays that are situated under the lights and the drippers of my hydroponic system slowly soak the nutrients, along with root colonizers, supplements, and additives, into my grow medium. The trays are at a slight slant, so the excess nutrient solution goes to one end and is retrieved and recycled back into my reservoir.

My seeds are germinating as we speak. This time I’m trying a deeper tray for my rockwool cubes designed to retain moisture a little bit longer. You don’t want too much excess moisture, since this is the time for that dreaded seedling disease, Damping Off. Mold or Mildew can also form in the atmosphere in the tray is too humid.

I have a friend in British Columbia and she told me that her crocuses and daffodils are starting to break through the surface of the soil in her garden. Seems they have balmy temperature out there. I’m afraid Ontario will stay wintery cold for quite a bit longer.

But indoors, in my very own basement garden, seeds are starting to sprout shoots and new life is beginning. I find seed germination a very exciting time and it always gives me new hope for the future.

It is magic, if you think about it. How does the old adage go? From tiny seeds, mighty trees grow, or some such. All the color, beauty, fragrance, and design of my carnation flowers are contained in every little seed.

I read on the Internet about terminator seeds and the global fight to stop the multinationals from foisting yet another greed-motivated disaster on us. These seeds are genetically engineered to be infertile. If allowed to spread, they would in effect make it impossible for small farmers to harvest and store their own seeds for the next planting season.

These giant corporations want to patent the very basic life patterns of seeds, so that they can profit from selling them to you each year. The case of Monsanto vs. a courageous Canadian prairie farmer was covered in the media a couple of years ago and it made me very angry.

Deep Freeze, Bloom Harvest, Electrical Conductivity

2007-01-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

I’ve been adding Overdrive for the past two weeks, and now it’s time for the final flush and Final Phase. Yes, it’s almost harvest time, and I’m looking forward to cutting and bunching up my exquisite blooms and delivering them to select florists in our area.

I was watching Conan late last night and saw that temperatures in New York City are in the seventies. People are shedding their coats. When that happens in Canada, I start seeing shorts and T-shirts on the streets.

But, alas, the deep freeze is coming. I checked the long-term forecast on the Weather Network online and we are currently going down into the minus 8-10 Celsius range. That’s not all—on January 17th, the thermometer is supposed to dip to –11 degrees in the daytime and –22 degrees C at night.

That’s only five days from now! I checked my oil-based radiators to make sure that they are working properly and also the main gas-fired furnace for the house, which I had cleaned and maintained back in September.

Thank goodness, the solar panels have been installed on the roof and have been tested out and are working properly. We’ve had a whole number of overcast days, but the sun is due to come out soon, so the batteries will get fully charged in order to kick in in case of a power failure.

As you know, I use a drip irrigation hydroponic system in my basement recroom to grow circa 400 single stem Sim carnations each cycle, with extra cuttings in between from certain Mother Plants that continue to produce flowers for up to 18 months.

Every sixteen weeks I harvest all the remaining blooms and start most of my flowers from seed. Only the Mother Plants survive this excision and only as long as they continue to produce marketable flowers.

I checked the Nutrient Calculator on the Advanced Nutrients website, and double checked the quantities of ingredients that I have to mix in to my new batch of nutrient mix. After I flush with Final Phase I harvest my flowers and empty my reservoir.

For the Medium Feeding Bloom cycle, the Electrical Conductivity in my tank went up to EC 2.28 or 1600 parts-per-million (PPM). It always starts off lower during week 1 of the 8-week cycle, then gradually goes up to the maximum, only to descend again before the final week.

During the Vegetative cycle of my carnations, the solution goes up to EC 1.71 or 1200 PPM during week 4 and up to EC 2 or 1400 PPM during week 8. Then it drops back to EC 1.42 or 1000 PPM during week 1 of the flowering stage.

I’ve become much more conscious of my EC meter ever since I had a talk with a tech guy at Advanced Nutrients. He said that EC is a better measurement to use, than parts-per-million. In fact, different EC meters give different conversion from EC to PPM.

The one that Advanced Nutrients uses is made in New Zealand. It’s called the Bluelab Truncheon CF/EC/PPM meter and it converts EC 1 to 700 PPM.

The accuracy of my readings determines how rich the diet is that I’m feeding my flowers. For instance, during the eight weeks of vegetative growth, I am mixing in a total of 993.6 mL of Micro, the same amount of Grow, and 185.04 of Bloom, in order to make sure that the NPK ratio is at an optimum level for my carnations.

Other ingredients during vegetative growth include 1412 mL of Mother Earth Super Tea Grow, a total of 836.8 mL of Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid, 792 mL of her Fulvic Acid, 3832 mL of B-52, 118.48 mL of Barricade, 2800 mL of Scorpion Juice, 3912 mL of Sensi Zym, as well as a total of 112.64 grams each of Piranha and Tarantula, and 541.6 mL of Voodoo Juice.

All those ingredients in my reservoir solution add up to a value of EC 2 or a measurement of 1400 PPM. Electrical conductivity in a solution is measured by inserting two probes and measuring the strength of the current between them. Not the resistance, just the flow of electricity, much like a voltage meter.

If you add more ingredients or subtract some, you should alter your quantities to maintain the proper EC. Also, don’t forget to take pH readings each time you mix up a new batch of solution. The desired pH level for hydroponic growing is 5.6 pH.

Aggressive Bloom Boosting with Amino Acids

2007-01-03T00:12:00.000-08:00

I’m still bleary eyed from watching all those movies last week and also from having had one too many Martinis on New Year’s Eve. No, there’s no man in my life, I went out with a girl friend.

My carnations are my sole preoccupation at the moment and I love it that way. I’ve been adding Big Bud Liquid to my reservoir. This bloom enhancer has to be added during weeks 2, 3, and 4 of the flowering stage of my carnations.

I did this same regimen during the last cycle—I wound up with the biggest, most fragrant flowers imaginable! Was I ever excited!

This time I decided to read up on what I was feeding to my sweet-smelling, colorful bread-and-butter crop. Yes my divorce settlement paid for the house and the overhead, but a girl still has to eat, doesn’t she?

I use Big Bud in addition to my basic 3-part fertilizer, Grow, Micro, and Bloom. Big Bud doesn’t add any more Nitrogen, per se, but it does add 19 essential and non-essential amino acids, which are being used almost as a reduced form of Nitrogen, since they contain some molecules that embrace Nitrogen in their structure.

Besides, plants when they flower need more Phosphorus and Potassium, which Big Bud does contain. It also has Magnesium, another element that plays a major role in bud formation.

Amino acids are the basic building blocks of protein. Among the 19 amino acids in Big Bud are L-Tryptophan, L-Lysine, L-Glycine, L-Proline, and L-Alanine. The specific rates of these ingredients are designed for aggressive heavy-feeding of greenhouse and hydroponic crops.

When used in conjunction with Bud Blood and Overdrive, Big Bud builds the flowering sites, while Bud Blood helps to initiate flowering and Overdrive adds weight, girth, and density to my flowers.

They are definitely not meant to go into your reservoir all at once. Were you foolish enough to do that, you’d fry your crop to a crisp, according to the tech guys at Advanced Nutrients.

This time I’m also mixing in Bloom Booster Pro, since the very informative Advancedepedia says that if I reduce the weekly amounts of my basic fert, thus cutting back on the NPK ratio, I’m allowed to mix in this additional bloom enhancer.

Check with the Nutrient Calculator when performing this manoeuvre, since you have to be careful not to exceed the recommended EC reading. EC stands for electrical conductivity and it has to do with the strength of your nutrient solution and how all the molecules interact.

I prefer Big Bud Liquid, since it’s very convenient to use. If I wanted to be more economical, I could use Big Bud Powder, which contains the same bloom boosting ingredients.

One must not neglect the root colonizers every third week or so. Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice have been beneficially invading my root systems for the past three harvests and the health of my flowers below the rockwool slabs determines the size of my blooms above the slabs.

The blooming process entails a veritable eruption of alkaloid and protein synthesis, and the amino acids in Big Bud are the building blocks upon which this biosyntheses is performed.

Blossoms, colors, and fragrance are the result of these biological processes and that’s why I swear by Big Bud, even though some of my grower colleagues believe that I’m being too aggressive in going after gigantic blooms.

However, when they come up against me in the flower shows, I’m the one who walks away with the ribbon or medal or whatever they happen to be awarding for best-in-show.

Handsome Hunks and Blossom Fairies

2006-12-27T10:42:00.000-08:00

Well, we did have a trace of snow on Christmas Eve, then a bit more of the white stuff on the Big Day itself, but alas, mixed with rain. The near freezing temperatures and the turkey on the table kept most people off the golf courses, but my daily trek to the movie houses was undisturbed by the weather.

First I went to see “The Good German” with George Clooney (why does he have to be so good looking? Just made it more poignant that I was munching on the popcorn all by myself). It’s about an American journalist in post-war Berlin.

I’m a sucker for fantasy, so “Night at the Museum” followed, in which Ben Stiller plays a guard who gets menaced by the exhibits that come alive at night. It was funny and scary at the same time.

Since I hate horror movies, I avoided “Black Christmas,” but did see “Blood Diamond” which has enough horror in it, thank you. It also has Leonardo DiCaprio, who is a great inspiration for giving up spinsterhood.

“Dream Girls” opened Christmas Day. It’s a thinly disguised story of the Supremes. My dad was a big fan of that group, so I watched with interest. Can be summed up with one word—glitzy.

I cried toward the end of “Charlotte’s Web,” and lusted after Daniel Craig in “Casino Royale.” All-in-all, I saw twelve movies in three days, and I’m all popcorned out. I loved “The Queen” with Helen Mirren, even though I think that the accidental death of Diana wasn’t entirely an accident.

On the way home from the last movie, I stopped in at Blockbuster and rented one that I missed the first time around. “Must Love Dogs” stars Diane Lane as a woman left stranded when her husband goes off with a younger babe. This one hit too close to home, but it had an interesting twist.

John Cusack plays a very handsome, sensitive male who builds hand-crafted wooden boats. He too was left abandoned by his ex. So Diane’s sisters put her profile on the Internet and John answers the ad. Or was it Diane answering Cusack's ad?

The mix-ups and foibles of Internet dating have Diane answering an ad by her own father, and her father’s middle-aged paramour hooking up with a fourteen-year-old, when she impersonates a teenager on line.

In spite of these hijinks, “Must Love Dogs” is a love story that leaves you feeling that perhaps that great love of your life is yet to come. Please!

The love of my life at present is gardening, more specifically growing single stem, Sim carnations in my basement rec room. As you know, I’ve set up a professional grow space with a Drip Irrigation Hydroponic system and my flowers have been receiving accolades at flower shows.

I grow them in all different colors, but my current favorites are pink blush and lemon yellow. There is something about bright colors in the middle of winter that cheers one up. Even if one is without a honey to snuggle up to at night.

Ever since I started using Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Golden Honey Fulvic Acid I noticed that the colors of my carnations have become richer and more vibrant. I got excited by this, so I researched these two Advance Nutrients products to ascertain their secret.

Humic Acid gets its name from humus, the rich decomposed organic material in fertile, black soils. It’s no secret that rich, organic soils have grown the best vegetables and flowers since humankind started to till the soil.

Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid are both derived from “leonardite,” a vein of hardened, organic material that has to be mined from deep below the surface of our planet.

What accounts for the more vibrant colors that I noticed on my carnations? Humic acid, according to its entry in Advancedpedia, increases chlorophyll synthesis, which explains the bright green color of the plants treated with it.

It also accentuates the colors of my flowers, helps reducable sugar accumulation, gives a boost to nutrient uptake, accelerates plant growth, aids root respiration, and increases the nutrient and mineral content of my flowers.

Fulvic Acid speeds up cell division and root formation, aids plant respiration an nutrient uptake, and spikes plant membrane permeability. Depending on the permeability of the cell walls, the transfer of minerals and nutrients play a major role in the growth rates and increased yields of my carnation plants.

Used in conjunction with Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract, these three Advanced Nutrients products have a synergistic effect which multiplies their individual benefits manifold.

Seaweed Extract contains essential B’s and many other vitamins, including A, C, E, and K, as well as natural growth stimulants, antibiotics, auxins, and gibberellins.

I had to look up these last two. Auxins are substances that in minute quantities act to promote the growth of plants, specifically in root and bud formation.

Gibberellins are closely related plant hormones that regulate certain processes in higher plants such as flower formation, seed germination, and stem elongation.

Long stem carnations can certainly benefit from gibberellins. The word reminds me of goblins, which serves to reveal my fascination with fantasy. When I was a little girl I used to imagine that each flower had a tiny fairy living among its petals.

To this day I find myself talking to my carnations. Or am I really talking to the tiny, unseen fairies? The woman who founded the Findhorn community used to do the same thing to her peas and vegetables.

After talking to them for a number of years, she found that the Findhorn vegetable garden was consistently producing the most abundant vegetable crop on the unforgiving soil of the British Isles.

So talking to my carnations might be one of the secret ingredients in my award-winning harvest. The others are the Advanced Nutrient products that I use to feed my flowers.

In addition to Micro, Grow, and Bloom, this week I started mixing Big Bud into my hydroponic reservoir. This bloom enhancer is famous for producing large, scented flowers.

Whitish Christmas, Big Buds, Darkened Theatres

2006-12-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

While people are flocking to golf courses in Ontario, we might still get a whitish Christmas. The weather network forecasts flurries for December 25th, and light snow for Boxing Day.

Then the thermometer will dip down to minus 4 on the 29th, only to gradually go back up again to the plus 4—plus 6 range during the first week of the New Year.

The demand for flowers historically increases at this time of year, so I’ve already sold all that I’ve harvested from my mother plants in the last week or so.

My carnations are universally going into flower now, so I’ve applied Bud Blood only for one week. This bloom enhancer has to be mixed into your nutrient solution only for week 1 of the bloom phase.

As you know, I use a Drip Irrigation Hydroponic System to grow my flowers in the basement recroom of the house I bought after my divorce. Since single people are at a disadvantage at Christmastime (especially if their parents are deceased or live far away), I started a new tradition of attending as many newly released movies as I can.

It’s not that I haven’t been invited to spend the holidays with friends, but those that have families are only inviting me out of pity, while my single friends prefer to spend the holidays with people with whom they’re romantically involved.

Since I lack a significant other at the moment, I’m afraid it’s the silver screen and popcorn for me during the holidays.

I spend a lot of time with my flowers these days, babying them, making sure that they’re well fed. I’ve been using Emerald Shaman, which is a blend of over eighty certified organic herbs, vegetables, and fruits. The twist is that they are fermented—a process perfected in the Orient over centuries of experimentation.

Although it can also be used as a foliar spray, I prefer to mix it directly into my reservoir for root feeding. I’m also adding Sensi Cal Mg Bloom at this stage, in order to provide my carnations with essential Calcium and Magnesium, as well as some much needed micro-nutrients, such as Cobalt, Iron, Copper, Molybdenum, and Zinc.

Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract is also blended into my mix at this time, since it is very much like a multi-vitamin, as well as an organic smorgasbord for the flowers that I love.

As an added bonus, Seaweed Extract also contains natural antibiotics that help my carnations develop a resistance to spider mites, aphids, scab parasites, powdery mildew, and other harmful fungi.

As I’ve said, during week 1 of my bloom phase I add Bud Blood to my reservoir, during weeks 2, 3, and 4 I add Big Bud, and weeks 5 & 6 it’s the turn of Overdrive.

These Advanced Nutrients bloom enhancers are very powerful and they should never be mixed together and given all at once. Doing so would irreparably damage your flowers.

If you check their individual NPK and add it to the NPK of your basic nutrient (in my case Micro, Grow, and Bloom) you’ll see that mixing them together would give your plants much too much nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for their own good.

I’m about to spend my holidays in darkened movie theatres. Whatever your pleasure, hope you enjoy yours!

Greenhouse risks, Ice storms, Stocking up

2006-12-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

Although present temperatures in Mississauga are relatively mild, according to the fourteen-day trend on the Weather Network website, our temperatures are about to plummet into the minus three to minus six Celsius range.

Historically, as in many other places, January and February are the coldest months in our area. My thoughts returned this week to the famous Ice Storm of 1998, when freezing rain fell on Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and parts of New York State for five days straight.

The results were catastrophic. Utility poles were falling like matchsticks and over a hundred transmission towers collapsed under the weight of the ice. Millions of trees fell and over 4 million people found themselves without power, some for extended periods of time.

I was happily married then (or so I thought) and I wasn’t growing carnations. My husband and I shut off all the water mains into our house and drove our SUV down to New York City, to be able to fly down to Cancun for the duration.

The storm happened right after the Christmas holidays, January 5-10, almost nine years ago. Thinking about it now, it started me worrying about what might happen if a similar disaster were to strike. What would happen to my flowers? Am I ready?

No escaping to Mexico this time, if it does happen. I started making enquiries about alternate sources of power. Southern Ontario gets a lot of sun, even in winter, so I’m making arrangements for solar panels to be installed on my roof.

A half a dozen 185W panels will supply enough energy to run one 600W High Pressure Sodium light until the emergency is over. I can’t afford to buy a complete solar system, which would run all six of my 600W lights.

These six solar panels will provide additional electricity to run my Drip Irrigation Hydroponic system as well as some of my fans and one oil-filled radiator for heat.

A complete solar system generating 4000 Watts is out of the question, nor can I afford to buy a diesel generator that is big enough to handle such a large load. Both of those options exceed thirty-thousand dollars, which is out of my reach at the moment.

In addition, I have to make sure that I have enough plant nutrients on hand to feed my flowers. If an emergency happens, transportation will certainly be affected, so I can’t count on any supplies getting through.

I ordered enough of my basic 3-part fertilizer, Micro, Grow, and Bloom, to last me a couple of months. I also replenished my Mother Earth Super Tea Grow supply, as well as the quantities required for a sixty-day period of Grandma Enggy’s Humic and Fulvic Acids, which are essential ingredients in my feeding regimen.

I took stock of my B-52 and Barricade supply and found that I had enough to last me until March. But as far as Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice are concerned, I had to re-order all of them. Ditto for Scorpion Juice.

The Nutrient Calculator calls for generous portions of Sensi Zym to be mixed into the nutrient solution, so I asked Advanced Nutrients to send me some more of this vital ingredient. I used to pick up these supplies from my local garden shop, but now I find that the Advanced Nutrients online store is so much more convenient.

The acid-alkaline balance correctors, pH Up and pH Down are also very important to have on hand, so I made sure that I had plenty of these left over from my last order.

The estimated cost of the 1998 Ice Storm was five and a half billion dollars. I am determined not to become just another statistic on the debit side of the next disaster.

I found a booklet online called “Risk Reduction for Greenhouse Growers,” and ticked off all the possible things that could go wrong with my grow operation. Electricity supply failure will hopefully be handled by the six solar panels that are being installed as I write this.

They provide direct current (DC) so I have to get a converter to Alternate Current (AC) which is in general use.

Equipment failure is the second category of risk and I’m brainstorming with some fellow flower growers about what to do if my Drip Irrigation System malfunctions.

A constant supply of clean water is essential for any flower growing operation, so I’m having a special filter installed to purify my water source. Recently, there was a turbidity problem in British Columbia that played havoc with greenhouses in that province.

The weather is always an unknown factor. I just have to make sure that I have adequate heating and cooling for any temperature extremes and adequate stores of supplies in case the weather cuts off my supply routes.

Disease, pests, and the fluctuations of the market place are always risky. By using Barricade and Scorpion Juice I’m reducing the risk of pathogens and pest attacks on my flowers.

I don’t have time to worry about the market variable right now, since I must make my deliveries in time for Christmas. My carnations will grace many a holiday table, and I’m proud of that.

The Nutrient Calculator--certainly a godsend

2006-12-08T17:00:00.000-08:00

I’m working with the Advanced Nutrients Nutrient Calculator (easily found on the top line of their website main page) and currently it’s week 5 of the vegetative growth of my carnations.

As you know, I switched over to their main 3-part fertilizer, Micro, Grow, and Bloom. Oddly enough, you mix all three of these even during the vegetative stage, albeit the Bloom at a much lower percentage.

For instance, my reservoir size is 80 Litres, so during week 5 I mix 128 mL of Micro (always mix this ingredient first, all by itself), then I mix in 128 mL of Grow, followed by 24 mL of Bloom.

“Why do you need Bloom during the grow cycle?” I asked the Advanced Nutrients tech guy, naively. “It’s to balance the N-P-K ratios,” was his answer. “But you must have noticed that the suggested amount of Bloom that you have to mix in is only about 10% of the total fert mix,” said he, knowledgeably.

“I noticed it was a much smaller figure,” said I, “but now that you mention it, it is about 10%.” He went on to explain—“Grow is NPK 2-1-6, Micro is NPK 5-0-1, while Bloom is NPK 0-5-4. When you put them all together, you wind up with an NPK of 7-6-11, which is just about right for your carnations.”

For the totally uninitiated, the NPK ratio is the percentage of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium in your fertilizer.

Other ingredients that I have to add to the mix during week 5 are Mother Earth Super Tea Grow, to add that organic touch to my synthetic fertilizer, and Grandma Enggy’s Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid. These are products that are also richly organic and are derived from a layer of “leonardite” that is mined from deep within the earth.

I have to mix in 180 mL of Super Tea Grow, while 108.8 mL of Humic Acid, and 100 mL of Fulvic Acid. Remember, the exact measurement depends on the size of your reservoir. In this case, as perhaps in other cases as well, size does matter.

In addition to the Micro, Grow, and Bloom, there are ten other ingredients suggested by Advanced Nutrients. B-52 is a B-complex vitamin to reduce plant stress (500 mL in week 5), while Barricade is a potassium silicate product that literally gives your plant immunity from many pathogens and insects, from the inside out. (14.96 mL in week 5).

By the way, the optimum ppm for week 5 is 1200 and your EC reading should be 1.71. The parts per million (ppm) is a particle count in your solution, and it should go from 800ppm for week 1, to 1400 ppm in week 8. The EC reading has to do with electrical conductivity—don’t ask me to explain it.

No Scorpion Juice, Piranha, Tarantula, or Voodoo Juice should be added in week 5, but these ingredients are very important to add during the course of other weeks.

SensiZym, however, is called for in week 5, to be precise 500 mL of this product containing live enzymes that like to munch on the root debris in your grow medium. It serves to purify your grow medium as well as to enhance the growth of your plants by making the roots more efficient.

Once you mix all these ingredients in your mixing tank, you have to take several pH readings to make sure that the acid-alkaline balance has settled, before adding this nutrient solution to your reservoir. The optimum hydroponic pH balance is 5.6. You may add pH Up or pH Down, depending on the correction necessary.

The Nutrient Calculator is a godsend for growers like me who are not too strong on technical details. I’m an artist at heart, who rejoices in the beauty of my carnations and am happy to have found a company that helps me make sure that they get fed the proper nutrients.

Now only if Advanced Nutrients could come to my home and prepare my meals for me with the same meticulous attention to quality and detail as they prepare the meals for my carnations, I’d be all set.

Ventilation: avoiding excess humidity

2006-11-29T23:19:00.000-08:00

Whenever I tell my neighbours that I have a fully equipped grow room in my basement recreation room, inadvertently the conversation turns to pot. “Did you hear that Snoop Dog got busted the other night after his appearance on The Tonight Show? Yeah, he was leaving the Burbank studios and the cops pulled him over. Had enough drugs on him to make Pharmasave envious.”

As soon as it becomes clear that I’m only growing innocent flowers, they seem disappointed. “We were hoping you could invite us over for your harvest celebration!” I always try to interest them in buying a bouquet for their loved ones. I keep some fresh greens on hand just for such emergencies.

Then they start fretting about the humidity and the mold. “We saw on TV that all these grow-ops have mold and mildew covered walls and that they’re totally unhealthy for the neighborhood.” I reassure them that the media exaggerates those problems and that the humidity and bad fungi in my grow room are controlled by making sure that there’s adequate air movement and ventilation.

Stomata are tiny pores on the underside of leaves that can’t even be seen with a naked eye. They’re like the nostrils of an animal, in reverse. They control the amount of carbon dioxide that’s inhaled, along with the oxygen that’s exhaled. Stomata are easily clogged by dirt and dust particles in the air and the filmy residue left over from some sprays.

Outdoors, the stomata are cleaned by the wind and rain. The indoor horticulturalist must either wipe each leaf by hand, or use a mister to stimulate rain and good air circulation to mimic wind.

I not only have a powerful exhaust fan located near the ceiling of my grow room to suck hot and humid air out, I have two ventilation fans located on opposite walls near the bottom of the room to bring fresh air in from the outside.

It addition, I have two oscillating fans near the floor, aimed up at the bottom of my Drip Irrigation Hydroponic system and the rockwool slabs that hold my carnations. These fans push oxygen into my reservoir, as well as circulate the air under the leaves where the stomata are.

I feed my plants a basic diet of Advanced Nutrients Micro, Grow, and Bloom, always pouring the Micro into my mixing tank first, then the Grow or the Bloom, according to the cycle that my plants are going through.

My babies suck up a considerable amount of water along with the nutrients, and this moisture is transpired into the air of the grow room by the leaves. Without adequate ventilation, this moisture would cause a 100% humid environment, leading to the dreaded mold and mildew problems of the grow ops depicted on the TV news.

I make sure that my humidity never rises above fifty percent. Whenever it does, the fans automatically kick in on high setting to clear all the humid air out and fresh, dry air in. When the temperature outside is below zero Centigrade, my two oil-based radiators jump in to warm up the inflow of freezing air.

This week I’m mixing Carbo Load Liquid, Calcium Mg Mix, and B-52 into my reservoir. I figure I eat more sweets and chocolates in the winter, so my carnations probably need more carbohydrates.

Calcium and Magnesium are constantly depleted by the growth of my babies, so they have to be replenished.

And I also take a B-complex supplement, so why should my plants be any different? B-52 helps increase their resistance to stress and it ensures that young plants grow up healthy and vigorous.

Check out the Advancedepedia for detailed product descriptions on all these wonderful supplements.

I did real well in the flower show last week, thanks to the dynamite nutrients I feed my carnations.

Using oil-filled Radiators, and nutri-filled Seaweed

2006-11-23T23:39:00.000-08:00

As you know, my basement rec room—where I grow my prize-winning carnations—measures 12’x20’ for a total of 240 square feet. At either end of the room I have installed two DeLonghi oil-filled radiators, with timers..

Running at their medium setting for a more gentle heat, these radiators provide enough BTU’s to keep my entire grow space at an even 15º to 18º C (59º to 65º F). This is the optimum temperature for growing disbuds or Sims, which are the long-stemmed, single flower carnations that I grow.

Oil-filled radiators became popular in Europe, but now they’re all the rage in North America, as well. This particular model (TRD0715T) generates heat at three levels, 600 – 900 – 1500 Watts, radiating 2,050 – 3, 070 – 5,120 British Thermal Units (BTU’s) of heat per hour.

The oil is permanently sealed into the unit (no chance of spillage) and it radiates a more even heat then fan-forced electric heaters. These are ideal for small grow operations, like mine, while a Hot Water Boiler is preferable for larger ones.

I augment my radiating heat with infrared radiation from my 6 – 600W High Pressure Sodium light fixtures, as well as with hot water pipes running under my grow medium (rockwool slabs). I had an extra large water heater installed, since I hate to run out of hot water for my leisurely baths that I prefer at the end of the day.

In addition to the timer, the de Longhi also has a metal thermostat, which is more accurate and lasts longer than the cheap plastic ones on their competitors’ products.

I spoke to the Advanced Nutrients technical advisor, and he reminded me that Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, as well as Sensi Zym, should be added at three week intervals, but only at half-strength in hydro grows. I must have misread their Nutrient Calculator, thinking that they’re only supposed to be administered at the beginning of the grow cycle.

I am also adding Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract to my regular diet of Micro, Grow, and Bloom for my carnations. Seaweed Extract contains many different vitamins, as well as natural chelates that help with the uptake of nutrients.

This miracle product also contains natural antibiotics, that cause my carnations to develop resistance to aphids, spider mites, mildew, scabs, and many types of fungi.

I initially mixed it into my reservoir at the application rate of 5 mL/L, but I also intend to use Seaweed Extract as a foliar spray. It stimulates beneficial bacteria, increases cell replication, plant metabolism, and accelerates growth.

I’m heading for another flower show at a downtown hotel. Wish me luck! Given the size and quality of my flowers these days, my luck has been preordained by using Advanced Nutrients products to feed my babies.

Dropping temperatures, keeping it cool

2006-11-17T00:07:00.000-08:00

Here in Mississauga, nighttime temperatures this coming Monday will go down to minus 4º Celsius. That’s only 24.8º for those still of the Fahrenheit persuasion. In other words, it’s cold. In Ontario, the closer we come to winter, the colder it gets.

Everyone knows that flowers grow best during the warm season of the year, so if you’re growing carnations—like I am—in your basement recreation room, you have to fool your babies into thinking that it’s still a warm season. (I do this with several oil based electric radiators, as well as hot water pipes running under my growing medium.)

Not too warm, mind you. The optimum temperature for disbuds or Sims—the kind I grow—is 15 to 18º C, or 59 to 65º F. Carnations do not like the temperature to be above 22º C (72º F) and neither do I. I’m just a Canadian lass, used to cool temperatures. I’d wilt in Florida, to be sure.

High humidity in your grow room should also be avoided. Whenever I see a gardener misting her flowers, I tell her that it’s an open invitation to fungal infestation. My drip irrigation system injects the nutrient solution into the rockwool slabs that my flowers grow in and the moisture never touches the upper part of the plant.

As you know, I’ve switched nutrients a number of times, but now I feed my babies a basic diet of the Advanced Nutrients 3-part (Micro, Grow, and Bloom) along with some vitamins and bloom enhancers. I also like to add Grandma Enggy’s Humic and Fulvic Acids, as well as Carbo Load Liquid, in order to boost my babies’ growth with energizing carbohydrates.

Humic acid adds natural drought and stress resistance, protects against diseases and pathogens, and stimulates root branching.

Fulvic acid provides for faster growth and nutrient absorption. Its secret is an organic loamy material called “leonardite,” which is mined from deep places beneath the earth’s surface.

I was turned on to these magic products by an elderly gardener who claimed that Grandma Enggy was one of his relatives. He grew the most beautiful orchids using these and Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract, which is another Advanced Nutrients product that I’ve been meaning to order.

Their online store is open for business 24/7

Choosing a Lighting System, Feeding my Babies

2006-11-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

If you think that growing carnations in your basement rec room might be something that you’d want to do, first consider the variables. You’d have to make some important decisions, each of which will impact on your pocketbook.

You’re creating a total environment for your flowers, that means attempting to bring the sun indoors. Thank goodness that lighting technology has progressed far beyond Edison’s primitive incandescent light bulb. The two main lighting sources you have to choose from are Metal Halide or High Pressure Sodium.

Many gardeners will recommend Metal Halide, because it comes the closest to emulating sunlight indoors. It has good lumen maintenance and long life expectancy. As a lamp ages, it starts putting our less and less lumens, but only gradually.

After twelve months of use at 12 to 18 hours per day, the lamp will put out only about 85% of its original brightness, and it should be replaced. Metal Halide bulbs emit light at the blue end of the spectrum, just as the sun does.

I chose High Pressure Sodium for my six 600W fixtures, since I’m growing flowers. When plants are in their flowering stage, they need light at the red end of the spectrum, which HPS provides. However, during the early vegetative stage, I use conversion bulbs to give my carnations much needed blue light, without changing the ballasts on my fixtures.

My lights use a lot of electricity and generate much heat. The heat is taken care of by high performance, variable speed fans that literally suck the hot air from my grow room and bring in cooler air from the outside.

This works fine ten months out of the year, except during the hottest summer months it has to be augmented by buckets of dry ice or some other coolant. If Mississauga summers get any hotter, I might have to invest in an air conditioning system, either air or water-cooled, which can be costly.

When your electrical use suddenly spikes upwards, you draw the attention of the power company. Many times they alert law enforcement because they suspect that something illegal is going on. I’ve had to ward off many an inspector who thought I was growing marijuana. When they discover that it’s only carnations, they seem disappointed.

I’ve had another talk with my tech advisor at Advanced Nutrients and he advised me against overwatering my carnations. He said because I grow in rockwool slabs, they retain moisture much longer than other growing media, so I have to water less.

As you know, I use a drip irrigation hydroponic system to grow my babies, so I had to turn it down a notch to accommodate what he said. Perhaps I was giving them too much solution. Using Micro, Grow, and Bloom, I’m giving my flowers all the nutrition they need, but I have to remember that their root systems also need oxygen.

My hot lights take care of the drying out periods between waterings. In my reservoir, I also pour Sensi Cal Mg Mix Bloom during the flowering stage. I pre-mix 1.25 mL/L of Sensi Cal, along with 2 mL/L of B-52, an excellent B-complex vitamin, and the bloom enhancers Bud Blood, Big Bud, and Overdrive, in sequence.

O.5 g/L of Bud Blood only during the first week of flowering, 5 mL/L of Big Bud Liquid during weeks two, three, and four, and 2.5 mL/L of Overdrive during weeks five and six.

I never use these flower enhancers all at the same time, because they’re very powerful additives and would burn my poor carnations to a crisp if I did.

It takes a woman to change her mind

2006-11-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

After singing the praises of Sensi One Grow and Sensi One Bloom last week, I feel a little foolish. But it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. Perhaps it had to do with the way my dictionary flipped open to the word “powder” the other day. “A finely ground or pulverized mass of loose particles formed from a solid substance in the dry state.”

Perhaps it was my reaching a different technical guy at Advanced Nutrients, who convinced me that a liquid fertilizer would be better for my drip irrigation system and my carnations. So I’m switching back to the “traditional” 3-part Micro, Grow, and Bloom that Advanced Nutrients told me to use in the first place.

It’s not that the Sensi One fertilizers are not everything I said they were in my last posting. It’s because powders are slow to dissolve in a hydroponic situation, and using Micro, Grow, and Bloom liquid trio turns out to be more cost effective and equally beneficial to my flowers.

I’ve visited the Advanced Nutrients website many times before, but this is the first time I used their Nutrient Calculator, which is a wonderful feature that lets you plan your feeding regimen week by week. It includes the ppm to use—start low and increase by increments of 200, until your reach your maximum desired level. For light feeding, that might be 1200ppm, for heavy feeding, up to 2000ppm. Then decrease by increments of 200, until harvest.

I take a middle course with a medium-feeding regimen. Week one—1000ppm, week two—1200, week three—1400, week four—1600, week five—1400, week six—1200, week seven (the harvest week)—300ppm. Always give your plants a break during that final week.

Week eight, I usually flush my system with Final Phase, then the cycle starts all over again. I have to be careful to add Micro to my reservoir first, then Grow, and then Bloom. I have to remember never to mix these three ingredients in their concentrated form, in order to prevent any possible binding of the micronutrients, which would defeat their purpose.

During the first two weeks, I add my root enhancers—Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice. These are only added at the beginning of the growing cycle. Toward the end of the flowering stage I will add one bloom booster at a time.

Since I keep my stock plants for up to 18 months and just harvest the cut flowers every two months or so, I find that Micro, Grow, Bloom mixed all together serves my purpose better, than a fertilizer specifically timed to the vegetative, then the flowering growth of plants.

This 3-part reliable plant food regimen includes all the micro and macro nutrients that I was raving about last week, along with the 2 to 4 of the highest quality chelators per micronutrient and pharmaceutical grade precursors to ensure the highest quality possible.

Please visit the Advanced Nutrients website or talk personally to their technical advisors in order to find the perfect plant food for your flowers or vegetables. And don’t be like me—do the research, choose the product, and then stick to it! This wonderful company backs up all their products with a 100% money back guarantee!

A Perfect Balance of Micro and Macronutrients

2006-10-27T02:49:00.000-07:00

A few postings ago, I told you how I switched over my main nutrient source to Sensi One Grow and Sensi One Bloom, with the addition of Overdrive to guarantee fast and prolific bud formations as well as large flower size.

Since then, I’ve been finding out wonderful things about my main nutrients. Sensi One Grow NPK: 13-4-12 and Sensi One Bloom NPK: 11-8-17 are the best powdered concentrates specifically designed for the vegetative growth and the flowering cycles of my carnations.

The micro and macro nutrients in both of these products are perfectly balanced. They contain Ammonium Nitrate, Boron EDTA, Boron Proteinate, Calcium Carbonate, Calcium Chelate, Calcium Nitrate, Di-Potassium Phosphate, Iron DPTA, Iron EDDHA, Iron EDTA, Iron Proteinate, Magnesium Carbonate, Magnesium Nitrate, Magnesium Phosphate, and Magnesium Sulphate/Sulfate.

Furthermore, the ingredients in these two products include Manganese EDTA, Manganese Proteinate, Molybdenum EDTA, Mono Potassium Phosphate, Phosphoric Acid, Potassium Bicarbonate, Potassium Borate, Potassium Carbonate, Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Phosphate, Potassium Sulphate/Sulfate, Urea, Zinc EDTA, and Zinc Proteinate.

No I don’t have a scientific mind and they might as well be talking gibberish when the Advanced Nutrients website lists these names of synthetic nutrients. However, I do know how to punch things up on Google and there I found that Boron, just to pick one at random, is an essential micronutrient for plants, even though its role in plant metabolism is not fully understood.

Normal cell division is thwarted by a case of boron deficiency. This can result in the development of side shoots, which I definitely do not want on my carnations, as well as brown specks and stripes on the stems and the leaves, which would lessen the market value of my flowers.

In addition to Overdrive, I will start using Bud Blood in week one of flowering, Big Bud in weeks two, three, and four, and Overdrive in weeks five and six. Then I’ll give the bloom accelerators a rest.

I always keep in mind that I can’t use the above three products at the very same time. This would burn my carnations to a crisp.

The size of my flowers is increasing and more markets are opening up for my carnations. I enjoy making beautiful bouquets just as much as tending my sensitive crop of long-stem Sim carnations.

Sometimes mistakes turn out to be blessings

2006-10-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

Further to my episode with HyOx, I forgot to mention that when you reintroduce Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, it is a good idea to do it at half the recommended strength. It seems that these three microbial root colonizers should be used at half-strength in a hydroponic setting, especially when used in conjunction with Carbo Load Liquid or Powder.

The carbohydrates in the latter product energize and increase the size of the microorganism colonies to such an extent in water, that they tend to overgrow and turn the roots into mush covered in brown slime. I was spared this experience, since I used the HyOx for a short time, which killed off half the colonizing microbes.

In fact, for those growers who find themselves in a similar situation with these products, the correct remedy is to flush their hydroponic systems with a mild solution of HyOx and then reintroduce the Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice at half the strength. With some crops, especially sensitive vegetables, the Piranha and Tarantula are too aggressive, and only the Voodoo Juice should be reintroduced.

Oddly enough, this problem does not exist if you’re growing in soil. This is why I was not aware of it before I switched to my hydroponic system. The general rule with hydroponics, according to the technical expert at Advanced Nutrients, is that synthetics work better than organics, since the larger parts per million of organic nutrients and additives tend to clog up hydro grows.

When asked what products I should use to increase the size of my flowers and accelerate their growth, he said that Colossal Bud Blast was safe to use as a foliar spray, even though it contains organic chelators and transfectants. It gets absorbed by the plants and won’t clog up by hydro system.

The Advanced Nutrients tech guy also warned me not to use Bud Blood, Big Bud, and Overdrive at the same time, because doing so would burn my plants to a crisp. They are meant to be used in succession, with Bud Blood during the first week of flowering, Big Bud during weeks two, three, and four, and Overdrive during the fifth and sixth week. During the final two weeks you should not use any accelerant. I was told to flush my system at this time with pure water, a step especially important for edibles.

I told him that the entries for these products on Advancedepedia could be misread by growers, since they emphasize that these products should be used together. He promised to look into it but reiterated that using them together at the same time would be calamitous since they each contain high levels of fertilizing chemicals that could irreversibly damage your plants.

The rule of thumb is to use one base nutrient and one bloom enhancer at a time. The more time I spend with my carnations, the more I learn about what their needs are. They are very sensitive to what I feed them and it’s my responsibility to give them only nutrients and additives that help them grow into beautiful, ornamental cut flowers.

Advice? Don't forget the grain of salt

2006-10-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

Be careful whose advice you take is a good motto. My version is never listen to fellow growers who don’t know what they’re talking about.

A few postings ago I mentioned that I started using HyOx, a perfectly good Advanced Nutrients product designed to increase oxygenation of your root systems. A friend who grows orchids hydroponically told me about it, and it sounded good.

Yesterday, I was casually browsing through the Advanced Nutrients website, and exploring one of their new features, called Advancedepedia. It has in-depth information on all of their very effective products and how they help growers to get higher yields in a hydroponic setting.

When reading all about Tarantula, a blend of 57 types of beneficial micro-organisms that colonize your root systems, I came across a reference to HyOx and how it should definitely NOT be used in conjunction with Tarantula, Piranha, Voodoo Juice, or SensyZym. It seems that the increased oxygen will kill the organisms contained in these products, thus rendering them ineffective.

Needless to say, I stopped using HyOx immediately and then I started to panic. By trying to help my carnations, I ended up inadvertently hurting them. I looked up the technical help number for Advanced Nutrients and literally started to sweat as I dialled it.

A very helpful man on the other end of the line asked me to calm down and proceeded to explain that although I might have killed some of the helpful microbes supplied by the root enhancing additives, the process is not irreversible. He said I did the right thing by stopping the HyOx immediately.

The next step is to reintroduce the beneficial bacteria, fungi, microbes, and enzymes of the four products mentioned. It might take some time, but my carnation roots will be re-colonized, without too many adverse effects, since I only used HyOx for a short time.

He told me that it was a trade off. Some growers prefer the high oxygenation provided by HyOx to the benefits of using Tarantula, Piranha, Voodoo Juice, and SensiZym. Others use an air stone in their nutrient reservoirs, which is also an effective oxygenating agent, and it doesn’t harm the micro-organisms.

I was very grateful to this man, who managed to allay my fears. My carnations will continue to get the synergistic benefits of the bacterial and fungal root colonizers, while making sure that their oxygen supply was up to snuff.

In order to help my carnations get passed this stressful error on my part, I fed them some B52, an anti-stress formula of B vitamins. In addition to all the essential B’s, Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Biotin, and Folic Acid, it contains humic acid and kelp, as well as calcium and magnesium. B52 can be used from start to finish of the complete cycle of my flowers, either as a root feed in the nutrient reservoir or as a foliar spray. It not only counteracts stress, but also stimulates growth.

To calm my nerves further after this episode, I started looking through photographs of bedside bouquets that I supply to hospital gift shops in order to select one to feature in a brochure. Seeing the beauty of my flowers served to cheer me up.

Sims Carnations, One-part Fertilizers, High-Carb

2006-10-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

Being a novice in this business until recently, I had to learn quickly. For instance, other growers kept referring to Sims or disbuds, as opposed to spray-type carnations. I knew that the former indicated single flower, straight stemmed carnations, but why call them Sims?

Google worked its magic, and I soon found out that they’re named after a Scottish horticulturalist, William Sim, who emigrated to America in 1885 and started breeding carnations in his greenhouse operation near Boston around 1900.

Although he died in 1940, his successors continued to breed and spread the many hybrids that he perfected. From 1950 to 1985 the Sim carnation dominated the market. Subsequently, spray carnations and other Fusarium resistant strains increased in popularity, but I still prefer the classic look of the Sim carnation.

Depending on how long I want the stems, I cut my carnations every five weeks. The stock plant stays active and produces more blooms for about 18 months. It could go on flowering for a much longer period, but it is wise to start with fresh seedlings every 18 months, since flowers from old stock are more susceptible to diseases.

I use Piranha early on in the growing cycle to strengthen my root systems with beneficial fungi and help with nutrient absorption. The experts at Advanced Nutrients recently told me that Piranha can also be used as a foliar spray, in order to ward off mold and mildew, as well as Sclerotinia, Pythium, Fusarium, and Rhizoctania, and all the various ailments these pathogens cause.

I have switched over my main nutrient source to Sensi One Grow and Sensi One Bloom, with the addition of Overdrive to guarantee fast and prolific bloom formation as well as large flower size.

I decided to go with the one-part grow and bloom fertilizers, because I am not very good at mixing according to formula and I am finding that this powder dissolves completely, doesn’t clog up my drip irrigation system, costs less than other fertilizers, and guarantees fatter flowers.

Only Advanced Nutrients has a 100% money back guarantee on all their plant nutrients. If the product doesn’t live up to your expectations, you get a refund. But I’ve yet to return any Advanced Nutrients product since they all do what they claim to do!

For that organic touch, I add Grandma Enggy’s Seaweed Extract, which brings the energy of the oceans into my grow room. My carnations love the Seaweed—as soon as I started using it I could discern a noticeable perking up and brightening up among my flowers.

I still use Colossal Bud Blast as a foliar spray to further increase the size of my buds, as well as Emerald Shaman to use the ancient Oriental technology of fermented plant foods to increase vigor and guarantee bountiful harvests.

And before I give my carnations a chance to get sluggish, I add Carbo Load Powder to my nutrient regimen, which enhances their energy with much needed carbohydrates. Regardless of how my flowers are an extension of my personality, carnations have no need of low-carb diets!

Grow Room Upgrade, Boosting Bloom Size

2006-09-28T01:28:00.000-07:00

Switching over to a Drip Irrigation Hydroponic System of growing my carnations also gave me the chance to upgrade my entire grow room. As you know I have six 600W High Pressure Sodium lamps providing the much needed light for my flowers. At present I run them with Conversion Bulbs, which come as close to supplying sunlight indoors as possible.

I covered the four walls with large sheets of plastic--white on the inside, black on the outside. Plants need periods of total darkness in order to start flowering, so the black plastic acts as protection against light coming in during these dark periods. The white side of the plastic facing the plants reflects the light and makes sure that my carnations get every possible lumens necessary for photosynthesis.

Near the top of the grow room is an exhaust fan, removing the stale air from the room. Two air vents near the bottom of opposite walls bring in fresh air from the outside. Above the vents are the shelves to hold the ballasts for my lights. Automatic timers control the exhaust fan as well as an air intake fan located on the opposite wall. These fans are variable speed jobs, so when it gets hot they can cool the room within minutes, while at other times they can merely ensure minimum air circulation.

A third fan is placed on the floor aimed at the trays that hold the rockwool slabs with my carnations growing in them. This fan assures adequate air and oxygen getting to the root systems. As a further measure to make sure that enough oxygen is getting to the roots, I was advised to use HyOx, and Advanced Nutrients product designed for this purpose.

Oil-filled radiators have been installed wired to a thermostat. If the night time temperature, for instance, drops below a certain point, these radiators make sure that my carnations don’t get a chill. Much of this is operated automatically, as are the pH and CF measuring devices that make sure that my reservoir of nutrients is always at the optimum acid-alkaline balance, as well as at the right conductivity factor of the dissolved salts and nutrients.

In addition to the Grow-Micro-Bloom regimen, I will also test-run Sensi One Grow and Sensi One Bloom, as well as Sensi Grow A and B and Sensi Bloom A & B. I will experiment with these nutrient regimens, all made and guaranteed by Advanced Nutrients, in order to find just the right plant food solution for my carnations.

I am also planning to test out Big Bud and Bloom Booster Pro, to make sure that I’m using the right flower enhancer. The former was developed by the legendary plant scientist, Dr. Hornby, and is 100% guaranteed to increase the size of your harvest, or you money back. What have I got to lose?

Bloom Booster Pro will turn small flowers into larger ones, and since my carnations have the reputation of being the biggest blooms at the flower shop, I can’t afford not to use this product, which is packed with rich ingredients that enhance not only the quantity, but the quality of your flowers.

Other growers have been very enthusiastic about these Advanced Nutrients products, but I want to see for myself. I’ve also heard good things about Grandma Enggy’s Fulvic and Humic acid, refined from organic matter called leonardite that is actually mined!

Grandma Enggy is another legendary figure, whose Eastern European family have been farming organically for hundreds of years. Her Golden Honey Fulvic Acid is a natural product that is designed to augment synthetic nutrients. It contains the accumulated proteins that took a long time to mature underground, as well as vitamins and other growth enhancing elements.

The experts at Advanced Nutrients are more than willing to give you advice either over the phone or on their website. For instance, they told me about SensiCal Mg Mix, which not only contains the proper amounts of calcium and magnesium in easily absorbed formulations, but also other micronutrients that are essential for the health of my carnations.

I will continue to report on a weekly basis as to how my flowers are doing in their new, hydroponic environment. World wide sales of cut-flower carnations total ten billion U.S. per year. That’s not a figure to take lightly or for granted. These flowers deserve the best possible care and feeding regimen that horticultural experts can devise. For this expertise, I am sold on products made by Advanced Nutrients.

I’ve tried their competitors and in my estimation, Advanced Nutrients wins hands down every time!

Drip Irrigation to Produce Prize-winning Blooms

2006-09-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

The Dutch have a reputation for growing flowers. They also perfected a hydroponic system known as the Drip Irrigation System. This is the one I choose to grow my carnations as of today.

As I said in my last posting, I got tired of watering so many pots. Also, growing in soil left my flowers susceptible to pests and diseases. Not to mention that it was messy. So I had the wall to wall carpeting ripped up in my basement recroom and went down to the bare concrete.

I noticed when I bought the house that the floor wasn’t entirely level, and now this sloping has actually worked to my advantage. I had a drain put in on the side toward which the floor slopes slightly, and now I can just turn the hose on to clean the floor whenever I need to do it.

I’m starting my plants in rockwool cubes, then when the seedlings get big enough, I put them in rockwool slabs. I was advised to use a slightly thicker slab, ten or twelve centimetres, rather than a thin one, since it absorbs more nutrients and gives more support to my flowers.

These rockwool slabs are placed in large plastic trays and each plant is fed individually by a dripper that is connected to a reservoir of hydroponic nutrient solution. As you know, I use Advanced Nutrients products to feed my flowers, since they have plant scientists on staff who test each of them and offer a money back guarantee of their performance.

The experts at Advanced Nutrients have convinced me to switch to Grow, Micro, and Bloom, a three-part hydroponic fertilizer that is second to none. This is only the basic part of the diet I feed my carnations. I also use B-52, a dynamite Vitamin-B formula that helps to reduce stress and SensiZym, a product that is chock full of growth enhancing enzymes that help produce magnificent flowers.

I use a low-pressure drip system that recycles the nutrients solution back into the reservoir. It involves a bit of work, since I have to make sure that the drippers don’t get clogged up and I have to flush my rockwool slabs with pH balanced water once every two weeks, in order to get rid of accumulated salts.

The system itself has a whole array of tubes, pipes and fittings. Adding to this are the water pipes under the rockwool slabs, which run hot water in the winter and cool water in the summer, to keep the temperature of the feeding solution exactly at the right level.

The optimum temperature for growing disbuds (carnations whose side buds have been removed to help the main bud grow bigger) is 15º to 18º C (59º to 65º F). Flowering is initiated by mild temperatures and the length of “daylight,” which in my case is provided by six 600W High Pressure Sodium lights, with conversion bulbs to provide light in the blue spectrum. Once flowering starts, I switch to regular HPS bulbs which provide light in the red end of the spectrum.

In addition to root enhancement additives, such as Piranha, Tarantula, and Voodoo Juice, which colonize the root systems with beneficial fungi, bacteria, and microbes—I also plan to use Vita Boost Pro, an extremely helpful multi-vitamin formula to ensure plant health, and Bloom Booster Pro, which guarantees award-winning, huge flowers and is a bloom enhancer with superior ingredients.

And if I really feel adventurous, I'll invest in a container of Hammerhead PK 9/18, which is a new Advanced Nutrients product based on the scientifically proven principle that at the last stage of flowering, plants need twice the strength of Potassium, as Phosphorus, and that their Nitrogen needs have already been met by the base nutrients being administered through my Drip Irrigation System.

Pesky pests & watering too many pots

2006-09-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

Before I became a horticulturalist, I was a consumer of cut flowers. I loved to buy or receive bouquets as gifts and arrange and rearrange them in vases. I had a big collection of crystal and ceramic containers and spent a lot of time decorating my home. My old home, that is, the part of my life that is a closed chapter now.

One thing I noticed about cut flowers is that often they came with uninvited guests. Cut daisies, for instance, often had leafminers leaving a telltale pattern on their leaves. Once I received a bunch of flowers from a friend, who is no longer one, and I noticed tiny green pearls moving around on them. I found out later they were aphids.

Indoor soil gardening is not immune from these parasitical insects. During my first growing cycle I had an infestation of white flies. Instead of checking with the experts at Advanced Nutrients, I decided on my own to use a chemical bug spray. Not only did it discolor my carnation crop, but it actually killed some of the flowers.

Since checking with the experts, I’ve put a fine mesh bug screen on each ventilation duct and started using Protector, Barricade, and Scorpion Juice religiously. Protector was designed to ward off and fight Powdery Mildew specifically. Barricade strengthens my carnations from the inside out, making them resistant to bugs, mold and mildew, as well as drought and heat stress.

Scorpion Juice inoculates my carnations with Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) which wards off a whole slew of pathogens, some of whose names I can’t even pronounce. These three miraculous products by Advanced Nutrients ensure a pest and disease free environment for my flowers, and they do so without the use of poison.

This harvest looks especially bountiful and in order to celebrate, I have come to a major decision! After I cut, sort, and deliver my carnations, I am going to go hydroponic! There are several reasons for this, the major one being the amount of trouble it involves watering 216 eight and a half inch pots! Try it sometimes!

I started using an eight-litre watering can, and of course my arm almost fell off. Then I got smart and put a watering valve on the end of a hose, and that made it easier. But it was still a messy proposition, what with the dirt splashing onto the floor, causing sanitation problems.

My basement rec room, which I transformed into a grow room, has wall to wall carpeting, which I covered with a thick sheet of plastic. But inadvertently water does get under the plastic, causing mold and mildew problems. After I clear out all the pots (I’m donating them to the Salvation Army) I’m having the carpet ripped up and going down to the bare cement floor.

This will necessitate a whole new approach to heating my basement during the severe Ontario winters. Stay tuned for details.

In my next posting, I’ll tell you exactly which hydroponic system I chose to use, as well as the whole array of products by Advanced Nutrients that are aimed at the hydroponic gardener. For instance, Sensi Zym, which contains 88 powerful enzymes to guarantee faster and larger harvests! And B-52, which packs a wallop with its pharmaceutical grade vitamins, for healthier, more robust flowers.

Or such hydroponic additives to my regular fertilizer regimen, as Big Bud, Overdrive, and Bloom Booster Pro, which enhance growth, flower formation, and harvest quality and quantity.

How I became a horticulturalist

2006-09-07T04:05:00.000-07:00

Hi! My name is Jill. I live in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. A year ago I got a divorce (good riddens!) and had to find a new place to live. My kids are all grown up, thank heavens, so it was the beginning of a brand new life.

I bought a house with a large, basement rec room. The settlement was large enough to last me a couple of years, but I’m the kind of person who needs a hobby to occupy me.

I always had a passion for carnations. I even learned their Latin name, Dianthus caryophyllus. About the same time, a friend had to leave the country quickly and he had all sorts of indoor growing equipment, which I bought off him for very little money.

Setting up a carnation growing operation in my basement rec room wasn’t easy. I needed help. I looked around on Google, and found a very helpful website, which had a technical help line listed. I called, and my life as a horticulturalist had begun.

Advanced Nutrients told me that the six High Pressure Sodium lights were perfect for the size of my rec room—12’x 20’ or 240 sq. ft. I could fit 36 eight and a half inch pots under each light, with two carnation plants in each pot. This would produce 432 single stem carnations per four months growing period.

I found out that Fusarium Wilt and Fusarium Rot were the major problems in carnation growing, so I bought my seedlings from a reputable garden shop and treated them with No Shock, in order to minimize the dangers of damping off and other seedling diseases.

I decided to grow straight stem, cut-flower type carnations, rather than spray-type, free flowering ones, since I checked with two florists in my area, and they seemed to prefer them. Even though growing carnations started off as primarily a hobby and a passion, it didn’t hurt to have found a market for them.

In order to ward off Fusarium and other pathogens, I treated my perlite and rich soil mixture with Scorpion Juice, Barricade, and Protector. These three products guarantee pest, disease, and pathogen free plants and flowers. Advanced Nutrients is the only company that guarantees all of its wonderful products, and I can attest to the fact that they do what they claim to do.

I wanted a gentle, 100% organic fertilizer to help boost the quality and size of my flowers. I chose Mother Earth Super Tea Grow and Bloom, which can be used both for hydroponic or soil gardening. Their macro and micro nutrients are balanced just right to aid at different stages of the lives of my carnations.

I’m looking forward to my third harvest this September, and with each new crop I learn something new. I found out about Colossal Bud Blast, a magic foliar spray, that enhances the size of my flowers and accelerates growth. Some of my carnations are almost twice the size of the ordinary ones at the flower shop!

Growing carnations has not only filled my life up with hundreds of colorful blooms, but also took my mind off my divorce. I’d rather enjoy the palette of crimson, pink, lavender, orange, lemon, white, and cherry colored flowers, than worry about the man who is no longer a part of my life.