Establishment of Roses in High Soil Moisture Conditions

A section of new research plots within the Veterans Memorial Rose Garden (VMRG) at Mississippi State University suffer from high soil compaction and poor drainage issues similar to conditions often found on urban development sites. Such soils are expensive, difficult or even impossible to completely remediate. Several attempts to drain, rip and amend the soil on the VMRG site have failed to solve the problem. Trials of garden plants are now in process at this site to test their ability to survive or thrive in highly disturbed, degraded and wet soils. The first trial in this series tested the establishment of 7 rose cultivars in soil moisture levels ranging from well-drained to continuously wet.  Cultivars included ‘Knockout’ and ‘Pink Double Knockout’ as large shrub roses, ‘Red Drift’ and ‘Peach Drift’ as groundcover shrub roses, ‘Sunshine Daydream’ as a floribunda, ‘Francis Meilland’ as a hybrid tea, and ‘Look-a-Likes Phloxy Baby’ as a polyantha. A no-spray, low maintenance protocol was followed for management of the roses. The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with 2 replications per cultivar per block with 4 blocks. The roses were planted 6 feet apart. The control block is on the highest ground with well-drained soil. The remaining blocks vary in soil wetness by their elevation within the field. Soil moisture, growth data, SPAD readings, and ratings of quality and disease were collected monthly May through October, 2013. Cultivars varied significantly in all of the parameters measured according to soil moisture with the exception of SPAD. A second year of data will be collected if a viable number of roses leaf out this spring after a full year of growing in wet soils.