EasyBloom Forum

I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Robby Flannery and I am one of the on-staff plant nerds here at PlantSense, maker of EasyBloom. I earned my Ph.D. in Plant Biology with an emphasis in Environmental Horticulture from the University of California, Davis under the tutelage of Dr. Heiner Lieth. I have been interested in the horticultural world since I was a child tooling around in my grandfather's backyard. If you have any questions about plants, this forum is the place to post them. I am more than happy to answer them to the best of my ability. Happy Gardening! --Robby

I have a lot of questions, ha ha. I am a totally inexperienced gardener and newish home owner in the San Jose area. I live in what seems to be an eden, so I haven't killed that many plants yet, and my 60 year old house has many beautifully established plants, thank goodness. First of all, rose pruning. I'm trying, I really am. But how bad is it if I don't get there super often, and end up pruning maybe once a month instead of as soon as flowers wilt? And how worried should I be and what should I do about the little black dotty stuff on my roses? The guys who come to cut our grass and do big stuff said, "meh, they're fine," which is part of the reason I love them, but should I be slightly more vigilant? Also, petunias. Do I really need to "deadhead" them? The guy at the nursery said I did, but again, my gardening guys said, "meh, the heads will fall off, they'll be fine." Because I don't have tons of time, I like my gardening guys approach, and I'm trying to reach a happy medium. Lastly for now, I planted pansies instead of violets (which was what EasyBloom recommended for me), I think they said viola or something on the box, lol. I also planted a japanese acacia instead of a japanese fern. Should I just leave them in the ground and see what happens? I've got hydrangea growing in the same area and it does fantastically, even though EasyBloom didn't recommend it for me, so I'm assuming that things other than the recommendations might work considering the "I live in Eden" factor. I have questions about almost every plant in my garden, since as I said, I know next to nothing. But I'll start with these, and thank you in advance for your help!

Yikes, wall of text. I would love a preview post feature. : )

Ahhh...Roses. I am fairly familiar with roses. My PhD research was on roses and chrysanthemums. I've pruned a rose or two in my day. :) Anywho, most roses are very tough. This means that you can give them a good hacking or leave them be in the pruning department for a good while and they won't suffer too badly. Having said that though, it is important to prune roses to maintain a healthy canopy, which will then promote a healthy plant. It is ok to leave a spent flower on the rose plant (this is how rose hips are collected...rose hips are the fruits of the rose plant...fruits develop after the flower is spent). Some roses, however, need to have their flowers removed to produce more flowers, in which case I would want to remove those flowers as soon as they are spent. Luckily, most roses no longer behave this way and are prolific bloomers. As for those black spots on your roses' leaves, this is caused by a fungus called Diplocarpon rosae, more commonly known as black spot. Fungi spores germinate (start to grow from the spore) best when there is high humidity or a good amount of water available. Proper pruning techniques that thin out the canopy of the rose will allow for better air circulation which will decrease the humidity and therefore decrease the instance of black spot. Also, try to avoid using overhead watering that gets the leaves wet. This obviously provides an environment that is primed for fungal diseases. If you have sprinklers, you may not have much of choice with getting the leaves wet. I would also prune of any infected stems. Roses can be killed if they are infected repeatedly, but this would have to be a fairly heavy infection. Usually black spot merely decreases the rose's productivity and mars the overall look of the rose. Also, the fungus overwinters on dead leaves and stems that can be found on the ground. I would recommend cleaning up the dead leaves and stems in late fall. I hope this is helpful. I will now try to answer your other questions in following posts...

As for Petunias, it is true that the flowers will fall off and the plant overall will be fine; however, I would remove the flowers (deadhead the plant) because this prolongs the amount of time that your Petunias will bloom. If you let the Petunias take care of themselves as opposed to deadheading them, they will not bloom for as long of a period. So I would say, it's really up to what you want from the plant. If you want to prolong the color, then deadhead. If you want to enjoy some green with little work, then you don't need to deadhead. I'm assuming that the person at the nursery assumed that everyone would be interested in prolonging the Petunias' blooms, which is why he said that deadheading was necessary.

As for you pansies vs. violets vs. Violas, they're all the same plant, so you shouldn't be too concerned about monitoring them. The genus name is Viola and they are commonly known as pansies or violets.

Japanese Acacia vs. Japanese Fern? Two very different plants that have different environmental needs. I believe I know exactly which plant you are referring to with the Japanese Acacia, but I could be mistaken. Regardless, of the plants I have in mind they all need lots of sun and Japanese Ferns do not. You may have some issues. As for your Hydrangea, I wonder what zone you are in...you may be in an edge case where you miss the "Hydrangea zone" by one zone. This is possible, and I wouldn't mind looking further into it.

I may well be in some kind of an edge zone, I believe I have heard that there are a bunch of "microclimates" in the Bay Area where I live. I live in San Jose, are code 95125. I have been trying to figure out what zone I am in using the "Sunset Zone" system because I was using the Sunset Western Garden Book, and I get the magazine. According to them, I think I am zone 15. I believe according to the regular zoning system I am zone 9. I pruned the roses today, and am glad that I pretty much instinctively did what you suggested. They are watered by sprinkler, maybe I'll bite the bullet and put a drip system in there eventually too, but I'm having enough trouble setting one up in the back yard for now, lol. I cleared out a ton of dead stuff at the base of the plants, and hacked off anything that looked iffy. I did that a few weeks ago too, and the bushes are looking a lot better. As for the Japanese plant issue, I actually planted a japanese aralia when directed to plant a japanese painted fern. I think that might actually be a bit better than an Acacia. You can see why I need to actually check my iPhone when at the nursery, I am somewhat hopeless with these plant names, lol. The hydrangeas were there when we moved in, they are doing fabulously well. They are in the same area where Easybloom suggested I plant the japanese painted fern, wishbone flowers, and lobelia as its top three suggestions. I ended up with Coleus, Violet/Pansies/whatever, and an Iris (all recommended by EasyBloom but not Top Recommendations) and the infamous Japanese Aralia. They are all planted under a beautiful huge persimmon tree, so they get a fair amount of shade, but some sort of dappled sunlight.

Hey Dalia...I think I know what's going on with your Hydrangeas too. I bet that your reading is right on the verge of being adequate for the light situation underneath that persimmon tree. I would recommend you monitor the Hydrangea and then check out the Plant Doctor tab. You will see on the little analog dial for light how close your reading was to what the plant would thrive in. As for the Japanese Aralia, that makes a lot more sense. Your Japanese Aralia should do fine in that shady spot as well. I hope they all do well. Let us know if you have any more questions. Thanks. --Robby

Cool thanks. And I bet that if I had done an additional reading right at the Hydrangea maybe I would have gotten a different result. I did it about 4 feet away on the other side of the tree, not thinking that such small differences would show up.