By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Cindy Kaneshiro displays one of the flowers produced by a Gene Boerner Rose bush in her Maunalani Heights garden.
ROSES are the most widely planted shrubs in the temperate regions of the United States and among the easiest plants to grow there. The glitch is that we don't live in a temperate region, we live in the subtropics. Roses become a little trickier to cultivate here, but according to Cindy Kaneshiro of the Honolulu Rose Society, it isn't that difficult. Anyway, if there isn't some kind of a challenge, you might as well cultivate a weed like nut grass. You'll notice there is no Honolulu Nut Grass Society. Blooming successes
Because there are some tricks to successful rose-growing, the Honolulu Rose Society is offering a Saturday class on the subject, from 8:30 a.m. to about 2 p.m. May 31 at Jefferson Elementary School near Kapiolani Park. There is a $20 fee which includes morning refreshments and lunch. For enrollment information, call Tom Mui at 528-5800 during the day or at 988-6235 in the evening.
"The class is designed for rose growers (or wannabes) in Hawaii," Mui said. "Roses grow year around here, on a 45-day cycle from cutting one crop until the next flowers are ready for picking." Mui, an attorney who lives in Manoa Valley, and Kaneshiro, a teacher at Jefferson and a resident of Maunalani Heights, are in different microclimates for rose growing. Mui gets more rainfall and Kaneshiro gets more wind, but they each cultivate prize-winning roses. "You can grow roses anywhere on the island as long as you know what you're doing," Kaneshiro said.
Both Mui and Kaneshiro grow most of their roses in pots rather than in the ground because it is easier to control soil conditions and insect damage. Which brings us to the rose beetle. Remember that electronic game, "Pac Man," that chewed up everything in sight? Well, the rose beetle makes Pac Man look like a picky eater. Overnight, a rose beetle team can chomp its way through much of a single bush.
The principle speaker at the workshop on May 31 is Baldo Villegas, a respected entomologist and research scientist working for the state of California. He cultivates more than 600 rose bushes on his property in Santa Clara. Villegas gives advice on rose growing on the Internet, where he is affectionately known as "Bugman."
"He's got four insects named for him" Mui mentioned without envy. Villegas' specialty is integrated pest management, using biological controls rather than insecticides, but Mui prefers a low-tech approach to wiping out beetles. "Hit 'em with a hammer," he advises.
Another member of the faculty will be Charles Bigelow of the long commute. He lives at Kula, Maui, and is an associate professor at Stanford University. When he made the move to Maui, he brought with him 600 plants from his Palo Alto garden and replanted them at Kula. He will discuss old garden roses, the fragrant ones that are now becoming popular again. (In an all-out effort to hybridize for color and shape and long-lasting flowers, the hybridizers woke up one morning to realize that they bred the scent of roses out of the blossoms. They are now successfully reversing their work.)
The other two teachers are Steve and Diana Steps, co-chairmen of the American Rose Society Environmental Committee, who will discuss soils.
If it's so easy to grow roses, why go to a rose school? "Anybody," says Mui, "can dig a hole in the ground and stuff in a rose bush. As long as it is watered and fed and gets full sun, it will grow. But it's the refinements you need to know. When to fertilize, and with what? Where to plant and how to prune? That's what brings the beautiful flowers, and the flowers are why you grow roses."
Mui buys many of his rose plants from mainland catalogs, Kaneshiro prefers to use local garden shops. The choices are greater from mainland distributors, but the local shops are more aware of our growing conditions, "and you don't have to wait for the mailman," Kaneshiro said.
Finally, two pieces of rose trivia. Tea roses, which have been cultivated in China for thousands of years, were probably given that name by the English, who began importing root stock in the late 18th century. It wasn't that the blossoms smelled like tea, but that the plants were shipped from China in the boxes holding the exported tea.
And some growers say that if you fill your rose vases with 7-Up instead of water, you roses will last longer. It has something to do with the sugar and the citric acid in the soft drink.
Gardening Calendar
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