If you are looking for a Mother’s Day gift related to plants and flowers, you are faced with a myriad of choices. Will it be fresh flowers — roses perhaps? Maybe a gift certificate to Mom’s favourite garden centre? What about that fountain she has admired at every visit to the garden centre? Of course, there are also wonderful potted plants; hydrangeas, azaleas and miniature roses are just three of the possibilities. However, a mother who is also a gardener might enjoy something else — a potted tea rose.
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This gift choice has several advantages. It can be used as a container plant all summer or it can be planted into the outdoor garden. Mom might not ordinarily buy this for her garden because tea roses are not hardy in our climate zone — unless winter protection is provided — and even then, their survival is not assured. Best of all, no matter whether it is grown as a potted plant or planted into the outdoor landscape, the tea rose will give exquisite blooms throughout the summer.
If you make the choice of a tea rose, avoid the packaged plants in the big-box stores. They may be less expensive but the quality is questionable. These packaged roses may have been on the shelf for weeks and are often dried out and producing weak new growth inside the package. Instead, go to a reputable garden centre and choose a healthy rose that is in a substantial pot. Look for dark-green foliage that has a healthy sheen with no sign of insect damage. There should be no dead wood and the stems should appear healthy and free of mechanical damage. Don’t be bothered by the plant not having any blooms, although if it has one or two that could give your mom some Mother’s Day flowers to enjoy!
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If you think that your mother will grow the tea rose as a container plant, put it into an attractive pot. Black nursery pots are not all that attractive — in fact, they are downright ugly — so the tea rose will be appreciated much more during the summer if it is in an attractive container. If the rose is in a large enough nursery pot and the planting medium seems fresh, you might just leave the rose in its pot and buy another container into which it will fit.
If you want the rose repotted, you have two choices: buy the potted rose and a suitable container, take it home and repot the rose before giving it as a gift; or have the garden centre do this job for you. If the garden centre is to perform this task, you may not be able to take the rose home the same day as you bought it, as it probably won’t be able to do the repotting right away. Before you leave, ask them to add some slow-release fertilizer to the soil so that your mother does not need to worry about fertilizing the rose all summer.
A tea rose makes a wonderful Mother’s Day gift. What mother would not want to have an attractive plant in an equally attractive container that will produce beautiful and exquisitely scented flowers all summer long, whether it be in the garden, on the patio or indoors. Mom will be impressed with your thoughtfulness and the effort you made to give her the perfect gift — but of course, she is the perfect mother, isn’t she?
