Ryan's "BIO"
Ryan Tilley loved roses since he was a kid, but became serious about them in the early '90's when he started his own rose garden at his and Wendy’s first home. By the mid-90s, Ryan was president of the local rose society in Atlanta, GA and the editor of their newsletter.
A meteorologist by trade, he then left The Weather Channel to start a full-time rose business Rose Gardens by Ryan. He started writing a newsletter for his clients, The Georgia Rose that won accolades from peers and rosarians all over. Ryan gained a reputation as THE ROSE MAN of Atlanta. He was a Consulting Rosarian and Master Rosarian with a nationwide reputation for excellent roses and excellent writings about roses.
By the time Ryan retired in 2018, he was maintaining over 100 rose gardens in and around the Atlanta area, including several award-winning gardens that were featured on tours or in national magazines.
Ryan's Bio Continued
Ryan’s personal rose garden in Atlanta included over 300 rose bushes, was featured on the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s Connoisseur Tour and at both ARS National Rose Shows and Conventions held in Atlanta, GA.
Ryan and his wife Wendy moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2018 with their six cats and he now tends his own garden of approximately 250 roses. He continues to receive accolades about his garden and even recently received the coveted “Queen of Show” award for his Neptune Hybrid Tea rose at the Portland, OR Rose Show in 2022.
Ryan continues to write his newsletter, turned magazine, now called The Crazed Rosarian– now in its 104th issue!! In retirement, Ryan and Wendy enjoy their new home, Ryan’s Halloween and Dr. Who hobbies, and exploring the Pacific Northwest and western Canada.
Ryan's Timely Tips
Maidens
See Issue 103,The Crazed Rosarian for this tip and more, including pictures. More on Maidens: coming, Issue 106. Order your maidens from Wisconsin Roses, www.wiroses.com.
Irrigation Prep for Winter
If you live in a cold part of the country, make sure you drain your irrigation system and shut it off so you don't have broken pipes come Spring. Many of you will have this done already, like we have. If we need to water, we will use the house water instead.
Irrigation Prep for Spring
It's a good day to get the irrigation system ready for action, if you haven't already completed this annual chore. I redesigned a few areas of my PVC Dramm system and fixed a few leaks in the soaker hoses. Two of my outside faucets cracked at some point over the winter and will need to be replaced. By doing this now, it will be one less thing to do when the roses really starting growing and will need the usual TLC. Additionally, I will not be fixing the irrigation system in the heat and humidity that will be here soon enough.
Ryan's Journals
It's summer in the PNW finally!
The June Journal is here, July is partly here and more coming...now
JUNE 2024 and JULY, part 1
June 1 - Final dry day before rain Sunday - Tuesday. Not good for the rose show on Thursday. Nothing worthy of cutting and refrigerating for 5 days. I shoot for cutting no more than 3 days before a rose show, soaking in Chrysal hydration and conditioning in my florist cooler. Works great refrigerating blooms nearing show stage. But it will not do miracles for blooms with no real show potential. I am simply not that good of an exhibitor.
June 6 - The rose show has come and gone. And of course, now the weather has turned dry and sunny for the foreseeable future. Should have great roses all weekend. No awards, but they should look great.
June 7 - Many of my entries in the Portland Rose Show won ribbons, but none on the head table. And of course, now the weather is warm and dry, and memories of botrytis are fading away. I wish the Fort Vancouver Rose Show was sooner than June 29 because the first blooms cycle will be over.
June 8 - Racoons are back. I am installing short fencing I used last year around the front of the individual rose beds. I bought more insecticide and spread granules where the digging is occurring, which is pretty much everywhere. And I set out some traps.
June 9 - I also put some smaller rabbit fencing caging around some of the newer roses like Sweet Spirit as they are nibbling on the lower new cane foliage. In about a week or two I hope to take all the cages away when the new canes are higher and out of reach for nibbling. I’m assuming rabbits don’t have ladders.
June 10 - Three years ago, my 2 bushes were loaded with Queens, but there was no rose show back then to exhibit in due to Covid concerns. Since then, I’ve had lots of blooms, but the quality has never matched those blooms. I am considering removing one bush and planting another Kristen Singer or the newer rose Rocket. These maidens are growing well. However, a few other maidens bit the dust before they were ready to be planted out in the garden.
June 14 - Just cut my annual awesome bouquet of Silver Cream in-between the rose shows. That’s me with Silver Cream in the picture above these June journal entries. I planted a second bush right next to the existing mature Silver Cream. Usually, I would have put a duplicate of a rose in a different location in the garden; but, my mature bush has done so well I removed the duplicate Parade Day next to it and replaced it with the new Silver Cream. So far it is doing well.
June 15 - Raccoons are digging in all the rose beds. I distributed more soil insecticide down and watered it in to get rid of their food source. Just my luck that I put lots of extra mulch down this year only to have it dug up again. Traps are not working.
June 16 - Many bushes are starting to get bloomed out. The exceptionally cool weather is helping to make them last longer on the bush, but hot weather will be here by Wednesday.
June 17 - Thrips have not been a problem since I misted the buds and blooms a few weeks ago. But today, I saw some thrips damage on several New Zealand buds, so I got the Solo pump-up sprayer out and misted some Malathion over the tops of the roses that still had a lot of buds. Be sure to keep the pressure up as far as it will go when misting the buds and blooms. Next time I will use Conserve when I resume my main season sprays where I will be spraying the entire bushes.
June 18 - First aphids and thrips of the season on New Zealand, but not much on any other varieties. Not enough to worry about spraying. But I did pick off the buds and blooms that were affected.
June 19 - Wow! I have a new best indicator bush for powdery mildew...The McCartney Rose. In less than one day a beautiful long basal break was inundated by the fungus and turned all the new red growth into a wrinkly, white powdered mess. At first glance, I thought it was wilted, but closer inspection revealed the truth. I mixed up some Eagle 20E and misted a few of the mildew-prone varieties which include the underwhelming Affirm along with Sweet Mademoiselle and Neil Diamond to name a few.
June 20 - Damn raccoons are still rooting up much of the garden and destroying the nicely mulched appearance of all the beds! I am putting the rabbit fencing (some of it with barbed wire) back up the way I did last year to limit the digging to just the edges of the border. I can tolerate a little damage, but this damage is too great. I keep moving the traps around the garden hoping to catch them like last year. So far, no luck.
June 21 - Ninety degrees today and not much blooming. I am still holding off spraying another main season spray to see how long I can go in-between applications. So far, I am up to about a month and counting. In Atlanta I would have made 4-5 applications during that same time period.
June 22 – The newly planted roses are doing nicely. Rabbit fencing has done a good enough job to allow me to remove the cages. I am still seeing baby rabbits so I will continue to be vigilant for any new rabbit damage.
June 23 - Last year’s new Sweet Madam Blue has really hit its stride this year. Glad I added it at the last moment in spring 2023.
June 24 - A few more roses, especially New Zealand, have just enough thrips to get me to apply Malathion to the buds and blooms. Top Cream has some really impressive blooms right now. Even though blooms are supposed to be “pure white”, they are showing a lot of pale pink and white old-fashioned blooms, most likely due to the cool nights of the past few nights. As for fragrance, Top Cream delivers.
June 25 - I have been spending some time going around and staking tall, top-heavy canes before some random east wind blows it over. The tallest of them all is Octoberfest, which always have stems growing upward straight as an arrow. The canes are sturdy, so I am leaving them for now.
June 26 - I removed the cages I put around the new roses that were being nibbled on by rabbits since the new basal breaks are taller than the rabbits can eat. I used these cages to help protect other roses from the nightly destruction caused by raccoons.
June 27 - I continue to expand on my fencing to stop raccoon damage. Even though nearly every bed now has some sort of fencing along the edge, the raccoons are digging up the area just outside of the fence which is also unacceptable. So, I am going to talk to a landscaper about putting some kind of border that is around 4"- 6" high right at the grassy edges to go along with the fence. This could be something like 12-foot landscape blocks, a regular border wood, or some other option that they might suggest. When I was younger, I would have done a border myself. But right now, it is too much of a job to tackle myself. Once the border is done, I could make a few more “doors” to enter the rose beds at certain points.
June 28 - A few of the roses like Love’s Promise, Tickled Pink, Liz’s Charm, Pope John Paul II, Lemontini, and the recovering mature Neil Diamond from 2023 need a little boost; so, I have started mixing up some good old-fashioned alfalfa tea that consists of using Peters 20-20-20 along with Fish Emulsion, some alfalfa pellets, and Epsom salts to make a small batch of Alfalfa tea. After a few days, it will be ready to use. The recipe is reprinted in Issue 107.
June 29 - The severely winter-damaged Pacific Celebration has almost fully recovered. I had to cut it back to the bud union a few months ago and it has responded well. Nothing much to take to the Fort Vancouver rose show as most bushes are completely bloomed out. The next flush should start in a week or two, just in time for my birthday.
Past Journals
Extras