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Rose Chores

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Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. One of my favorite visits last year was to Pat Henry’s beautiful home in Laurens. You can see this segment by searching Making It Grow/YouTube/Pat Henry’s Rose Garden. Because of vole pressure, she forms a screen wire cage around each plant’s root ball before planting it. This fits in with her overall approach of growing roses without spending hours and hours fighting pests and diseases. The time-consuming chores she has are watering with hoses, she doesn’t have irrigation, and pruning. Although she plants disease-resistant roses, and doesn’t spray for blackspot, that annual pruning to remove old canes and promote better air circulation and sun penetration is a critical part of keeping roses healthy in the hot and humid South Carolina summers that make fungal diseases the plague of gardeners – be they growing flowers or vegetables. 

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Amanda McNulty is a Clemson University Extension Horticulture agent and the host of South Carolina ETV’s Making It Grow! gardening program. She studied horticulture at Clemson University as a non-traditional student. “I’m so fortunate that my early attempts at getting a degree got side tracked as I’m a lot better at getting dirty in the garden than practicing diplomacy!” McNulty also studied at South Carolina State University and earned a graduate degree in teaching there.