Have you ever wished that your landscape maintenance men would go to some educational classes so they could upgrade their services? Are you tired of your landscape looking lackluster and uninviting? Do you want a gardener that knows how to prune shrubs the right way, so you won't have those geometric, poodle-shaped shrubs pruned by someone who doesn't know what he's doing? Help is on its way if you encourage your gardener to attend this year's Desert Green Conference.

The Desert Green Conference is Oct. 5-6, at Sam's Town, 5111 Boulder Highway. It is a conference that is strictly designed for professional landscape gardeners, maintenance personnel, contractors, landscape architects, pesticide operators and other folks. Encourage your maintenance company to go to the conference.

Note some of the many subjects that will be covered: Controlling rabbits and other varmints in the landscape, tree horror stories, how to properly plant and care for trees, developing efficient irrigation schedules, proper irrigating of trees in lawns, saving established trees through retrofit programs, designing successful redone landscapes and perennial designs with punch. For a complete list of subjects and how to register for the event, have your professional gardener go online at www.desert-green.org. This program brings coming together the greatest minds that deal with gardening situations in the harsh southwest desert of this grand-ole-land.

Rose Care Stimulates Fall Bloom

If you want large, dark, leafy, green rose bushes loaded with blooms showing off in your garden, now is the time to act. The weather we are experiencing is just what your roses ordered. But roses also need help, said Lee Heenan, rosarian with the Las Vegas Valley Rose Society, to bloom to there maximum potential. And that help comes in the form of grooming (making the bush presentable after a devastating summer) and fertilizing.

Grooming is essential in promoting new growth. From this new growth will come those beautiful flowers you have dreamed about all summer. When you are through grooming, your plants will remain three- to four-feet high, said Heenan.

Select canes that are thicker than a pencil. Reach down the cane and make a final cut just above an outward facing leaf. Hidden at the base of the leaf is a dormant bud. Make a slanting cut on a 45-degree angle, with the bud on the high side of the angle. As a result of this cut, the bush will generate new growth to grow out and keep the bush open so sunlight kisses the crown and lower leaves. Remove all stems that are thinner than the thickness of a pencil at the crown of the bush.

Next, remove any crisscrossing canes to further encourage outward growth. Inward-facing or crisscrossing growth prevents sun from getting to the crown, so remove them. Once again, cut about one-quarter inch above the outward facing buds.

Every cut results in the production of blooms, but don't cut too far down the stem.

Remove no more than one-third of the stem.

Also, remove stems showing leaf scorch, dead and weak stems.

Plan to do your heavy pruning in January.

If you desire to grow exhibition blooms, look for canes one-half inch thick or go down canes until they are that size. Again, cut on an angle one-quarter inch above an outward facing leaf. Seal these cuts with Elmer's glue or another type of carpenter's glue to prevent cane-boring insects from entering in through the cut ends. It may be necessary to stake canes to keep show-roses you want growing straight up.

Feeding is Heenan's next consideration and she was very specific about these instructions.

"Roses are heavy feeders and that's the key to large blooms," she said. Here's her recipe for each bush to get those larger fall bloomers:

• Give plants a good drink before feeding to avoid any fertilizer burn.

• Add an all-purpose rose fertilizer that contains nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Nitrogen generates growth, phosphorous stimulates flowers and potassium makes roses more resistant to diseases. The instructions on bag will tell you the amount to add.

• Add a cup of bone meal. It is a slow-release form of phosphorus.

• Add a cup of sulfur to lower the soil's pH to make nutrients more available for prettier roses.

• Add 1/3 cup of magnesium sulfate or Epsom salts. It puts substance into her blooms.

• Add 3/4 cup of cottonseed meal or fishmeal to improve blooms and prolong their vase life.

• Evenly distribute nutrients around bushes and scratch them into the soil.

• Do not feed roses after Halloween.

Because we water so much, roses may stress for iron. They are suffering for iron if leaves are yellow with pronounced green veins. Correct this by applying Kerex, following label directions. For a more rapid green-up, spray the iron on the leaves.

Expect to have aphids as the weather cools. Look for small, soft-bodied green bugs by turning over a few leaves on new growth. Their sucking habits cause leaves to curl and they leave a honeydew substance on leaves. Spray them off with a strong jet of water or use insecticidal soap.

Finally, reduce irrigations as temperatures cool. Over-watering may encourage root rot.

FALL EXTRAVAGANZA

Plan to spend a "Day With the Experts" on Oct. 14 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Imagine having scores of the valley's most knowledgeable experts in areas of landscape design, horticulture and water conservation in one place for an entire day putting on presentations and workshops on topics ranging from "Landscapes for Small Yards" to "Selecting Healthy Nursery Plants" and a host of other subjects. And imagine that all these activities are taking place at Southern Nevada's pre-eminent public landscaping center, Gardens at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, 3701 Alta Drive. If you've never been to this extravaganza, come this year. It's a "one-stop-shop" on landscape design, irrigation and gardening.

Linn Mills writes a gardening column each Thursday. You can reach him at linn@reviewjournal.com or at the Gardens at the Springs Preserve at 822-8325.