MAGC Garden Manager Steven Schwager explains what you can do now to get the best blooms later.
The Rose Garden is one of the highlights of any visit to Marin Art & Garden Center from spring well into the fall months. There are over 150 varieties of all types of roses, climbers, shrub, hybrid teas and floribundas, with labels to help you identify them behind one of the few fences at MAGC to keep out the hungry deer. The garden was designed and planted by the Marin Rose Society in 2004, and our garden team and volunteers keep the plants in thriving condition.
The care schedule we follow is adapted from a Bay Area rose expert, tailored to meet the specific needs of our environment here. After deep pruning in the winter months, we use several types of amendments to enrich the soil and feed the plants. We rely on organic pest control, even including a ladybug release from the Ross School’s kindergarteners one spring to help combat aphids. We’ll be covering various aspects of rose care in our series here, and you can download our garden team’s maintenance plan to follow along at home. Do you have topics you’d like to see us cover, or questions we could answer? Write to gardentips@maringarden.org and we’ll do our best to help your garden knowledge grow.
