East vs. West
Tips on Rose Gardening in Wichita’s Diverse Soil Types
Whether you live on the east or west side of Wichita, you are bound to face rose gardening challenges. This article will illustrate some of those along with creative solutions to have the best garden possible no matter your soil type.
East Side, Heavy Clay
 Raised Rise Beds
“When my husband and I bought our first home in August 1975, we decided on a two story with a very large yard in the Rockwood subdivision, near Central and Rock Road on the east side of Wichita. We were notice gardeners, and I had no idea what kind of soil our yard contained until we started planting our first garden. Luckily for us, a neighbor helped us get started. We had been told that our area was once an oil field, and there were a lot of oil producing machines on our property.
After reading several books on the subject of rose gardening, I decided to do what the book suggested, and that was to check the drainage of the area I wanted to plant. I dug a hole two feet deep and one foot wide, then filled it with water and waited to see how long it took for the water to drain. The day after filling the hole with water, I noticed oil sheen on the top of the water. The same amount of water was still in the hole. Three weeks later that water was still at the same level except for a little had evaporated. I knew that I would have to improve the drainage before I could successfully grow good roses in that location. Our first rose bed was dug by hand; it measured eight feet by eight feet, just the size of landscape timbers. It was four foot deep, and we took the clay soil out and spread it under a row of trees out back. We first spread a load of river rocks in the bottom of the bed, and then we filled the hole with a mixture of top soil, peat moss, and organic material along with some coarse sand. Once the soil settled, I began to plant the roses. They were very beautiful the first season, and I was proud of our accomplishments. However, my husband and boys said they would never dig another hole again. I have to come up with another plan for the next rose bed. We decided to build a larger bed, measuring eighteen by twenty-four feet, but this time we used a rototiller to dig up the top soil, then we built landscape timbers for edging, three timbers deep all around. We brought in more top soil, peat moss, and organics and tilled that in well. When the soil had settled, we planted more roses. This method proved to be much easier and less work than digging a deep hole. We eventually prepared a third bed measuring twenty-four by thirty-six, and it was designed the same way. It was much easier to build raised beds than to try to dig one. The raised beds allowed the roses to be watered well and drain well, and it was the most effective way of gardening with heavy clay soil.” - Pat Horbelt The Petal, August 2008 |
West Side, Sandy Soil 'Sand Bur'
“I lived on the Southwest side of Wichita for 19 year and the soil was sandy to sandy loam. I have since moved to the East side of Wichita and learning to deal with clay soil types!
Sandy/ sandy loam soil is easy to work with and prepare flower beds. Everything seems wonderful, until that you realize that other things in nature also find your soil easy to work with. Let me start at the beginning, when I started preparing flower beds, the soil could be broken and turned with a spade and a hoe only. A rototiller was not needed, if you were energetic. My daughter and I prepared beds and planted annuals, perennials, shrubs and roses. The plants responded and began to grow on bloom on cue! Everything was great the first year and probably the second. In the meantime, I noticed that ‘sandburs’ had also established themselves in my yard, so I have having a running battle with them digging a lot by hand and disposing of them. I also kept searching for a fertilizer or lawn supplement that would rid the lawn of them. Sandburs are sneaky however; they grow on grass like plants (look something like Bermuda). Only after the plant is established do you notice the ‘grass’ is putting on stickers. This kind of grass is called Nut Grass. I found several kind of Nut Grass killer, but you have to be diligent in applications as the seed can remain dormant in the soil for several years and still sprout! The other nasty surprise the soil had for me is that I had lots of underground tunnelers, namely Moles and Gophers. They may even share their tunnels with another underground tunneler called a Vole. The garden/ farm centers told me I must rid the soil of Grub Worms if I hoped to control the mole population. So I began spreading Diazon and other Grub killers. It seemed to help some, but like the Nut Grass killers you have to keep up the application for a long time. The problem with Moles, and the like was that they would get to the underground root system of the rose and eat all the tender roots off, killing the rose. I finally resorted to a system of protecting the roots of the rose by digging the holes big enough to build an underground cage for the roots of the rose I was planting. I planted the rose with compost and other supplement to give it a good start and my roses were able to survive. I made the underground cages of chicken wire and it seems to discourage the critters from attacking the rose. My rose care program was similar to any other program after I overcame this problem - Lots of water, fertilizer throughout the growing season, deadheading, checking for spider mites or other insects, black spot, winter protection, and pruning in the spring. A regular fungicide treatment for hybrid teas and most grafted roses helps keep the black spot away. Some of the roses are more resistant to black spot, such as Earth Kind, miniature, polyanthus and other roses growing on their own roots. I look forward to seeing how the Earth Kind roses do in our Kansas summers and winters.” - Mary Scheulen The Petal, August 2008  'Gopher' |