Roses are true garden classics. From antique to modern, the fun comes in choosing from the myriad types to fit your fancy and landscape.
If you love to see shrubs and perennial flowers showing off their colors in late summer and early fall, try modern rose types that are ever-blooming.
These shrubs make their comeback this time of year. Still, it comes down to the care you provide these repeat bloomers.
Some varieties to look for include roses in the "Easy Elegance" series, as they thrive and bloom again in the cooler, late summer months. Also, the "David Austin" lines combine characteristics of old-fashioned roses with modern ones that will put on a nice show for fall.
For roses, their big flush of color and bloom tends to be in June and early July. In our region, that's also when they endure weather extremes and pests.
Too much rain or not enough precipitation causes stress, plus, roses' nemesis — the Japanese beetle — is most prolific at the height of summer.
After rose bushes make it through those challenges, their blooms can tend to look a bit bedraggled. And as older garden rose varieties will bloom just once a season and form rose hips as they get ready for cooler temperatures and overwintering, the ever-blooming kind still have more showing off to do!
Ensure a later bloom by adding fertilizer or compost, encouraging any new growth, and removing spent and faded blossoms.
For the repeat blooming roses, you'll want to interrupt the formation of rose hips, as that sends a message to the rose bush: "Season's over! We're not going to flower anymore!"
Instead, before rose hips form, remove old blossoms to help the rose bush channel its energy into forming new blooms. Snip off or "deadhead" any faded rose blooms, and the plant will re-blossom through the end of September or so.
Do let your rose bushes form hips eventually, though, because they'll need to go into dormancy and overwinter.
And now is the time to aid your rose bushes by helping control Japanese beetles. You can do this with beneficial nematodes. These are microscopic insects that you spray on the soil. Look for "Hb" nematodes, as they are the types that go on a seek-and-destroy mission for Japanese beetle grubs.
Add them to a hose-end sprayer, then spray the area wherever Japanese beetles were feeding earlier in the season, as this is where they laid their eggs.
Once you've sprayed, water it in well for a couple days in a row if it doesn't rain. Then next year, you should have fewer beetles plaguing your roses.
The best time of year to prune blueberry bushes
Q: Can I prune my blueberry bushes this fall? They are quite overgrown. - Mark, in Bakersfield
A: Be patient for now, then prune your blueberry bushes later in winter, once everything's gone dormant.
When you prune, try to not only reduce the bushes' overall size but also remove some of the old growth that's not flowering and fruiting as efficiently.
Take out any crossing branches, and aim for seven to nine main stems of different ages on an established bush.
More from All Things Gardening: Pruning 101: Blueberry bushes
As long as you prune before the leaves and buds start coming out, your blueberry bushes will respond in kind next spring.
More lilac woes
Q: Over the last week or more, here in Manchester and Dorset, I’m seeing lilacs, fruit trees and others with little to no leaves on what were healthy plants. What’s happening? Can I help my lilacs? - Jacki, in Manchester
A: The past several summers have been hard on lilacs in our region. Luckily, lilacs are hardy and will bounce back.
In spring and early summer, our region got lots of rain. That encouraged fungus and virus growth. Then, in July and August, hotter and drier conditions prevailed. That combination of a wetter spring followed by a hot, dry summer stressed lilacs, and many dropped their leaves early.
The best thing to do is clean up the dropped leaves to get rid of any disease inoculum they might be harboring.
Then, check the lilac bush itself. If you see green buds on the bush, or if you see green on the stems when you nick the bark, that means the lilac is fine.
And next year, you'll be celebrating your lilacs in spring!
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