Feeding your roses, just like watering, is a very important aspect of rose gardening. Seek out relevant and practical rose gardening advice on fertilizing your roses even before you start planting. Your roses need three essential natural elements, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, to grow to their full potential. Nitrogen encourages vigorous growth of foliage and canes. Phosphorus provides increased immunity to diseases. Potassium provides assistance in reproduction and development of sturdy roots. A good fertilizer contains these three natural elements along with calcium, magnesium, in small quantities, and trace elements of manganese, iron, and boron.
While synthetic fertilizers are manmade from petroleum and its by-products, organic fertilizers are obtained from decomposed fish, bone, seaweed, dried banana peels, manure, canola pellets, etc. You will need to apply synthetic fertilizers frequently, as they do not last very long. Organic fertilizers slowly break down and release nutrients into the soil over a period making it a better choice.
You have to guard against over-fertilizing your roses. Excessive nitrogen can lead to ‘leaf burn’ or ‘leaf scorch’ causing leaves to turn brown or yellow and wither away. In extreme cases, your plant could also die if you don’t follow instructions carefully.
Sprinkle dry fertilizer on moist soil at the base of the plant after removing the top layer of mulch. Gently spread the fertilizer with a rake. Cover with mulch and water thoroughly. Mix liquid fertilizers carefully as per the instructions on the label. Spray at the base of the plant and directly on foliage. Do not spray fertilizers when the temperature is soaring to avoid leaf burn. In spite of precautions, if your rose bush shows signs of leaf burn, rake out the fertilized layer of soil and water deeply. Water can flush out the excessive salts from the soil and restore balance.
Fertilizing at the time of planting can help your rose bush sprout new growth quicker than otherwise. In spring, you will need to fertilize for at least two weeks. In summer, fertilizing once in two weeks with a liquid fertilizer is sufficient. Remember that young plants do not need fertilizing until after their first bloom. Stop fertilizing a month and a half ahead of frost. Do not fertilize in fall.
You need to frequently fertilize large shrub roses, climbers, and old garden roses, while hybrid teas don’t require much feeding. Use half the quantity of fertilizer for miniature roses.
Leaves with brown or purple edges show a definite lack of potassium while yellowed leaves are a sure sign of lack of iron or excessive calcium. You know it’s time to feed your roses if you notice any of these symptoms.
You can use various devices ranging from your own hand to a submersible pump to fertilize your roses. The criterion for determining what would work best for your garden is simply the size of your garden. Few roses mean you can sprinkle or spray the fertilizer. If you have more than fifty roses, you will find that using a siphon device or submersible pump drastically cuts the time you spend on fertilizing your roses.
Anthony Glover is passionate about roses and loves to help people by giving rose gardening advice so they can grow the roses they desire. His website is packed with great articles on all aspects of rose gardening, check it out it’s called RoseGardenAdvice.
Rose Bush Tips
Successful rose bush care, contrary to popular belief is really simple and easy if you follow a few simple rose bush tips. If you start off as easy as possible you will remain more motivated and in turn willing to learn more. You do not want your hobby to turn into a chore.
Choice
At this stage you only really have two choices to make, in this order, where your plant is going to be located in your garden and which rose bush to buy.
Location
History proves that the rose has been most successful across Europe, in the general latitude area where the weather is mild, with sunlight and rainfall but no real extremes. Therefore you simply want to copy this history; specifically rose bushes will need approximately six hours of sunlight daily and watering once a week. Also make sure the plant gets reasonable air circulation and drainage as this can prevent damp problems. Test for drainage by digging a hole about two feet deep and wide and filling it with water, if the water drains away in a few hours this is ideal.
Which Rose Bush To Choose?
Of course there are almost innumerable types of roses but as we’re concentrating on rose bushes best results are going to be achieved by using floribunda. The reason for this choice is because they tend to produce a lot of blooms, they’re versatile and can be shaped quite easily, they were developed decades ago and are therefore relatively hardy. Above all they can mature to be really quite striking.
Planting And Aftercare
Generally it is better to plant your new rose bush in a dormant period; I prefer early spring to avoid frosts. You simply need to provide a hole easily big enough to accommodate the root system and when filled in leaves the bud union about one inch above the normal ground level. Make sure to water well every day for the first two weeks.
Once this initial period is over, watering once a week is ideal so depending on your own location and weather conditions you may not have to water it yourself at all.
Pests And Diseases
The list is endless but don’t panic, with roses prevention is the key to success. If you’ve chosen your rose bushes’ location well you will have already gone a long way to preventing most problems already! Now after it’s planted the golden rule is constant checking and now the hard work of planting is done this should be a pleasure not a chore. If you encounter pests remove them with ideally an organic pesticide but try not to shower the plant completely
Mary Longbridge has been caring for all kinds of roses for longer than my vanity will allow me to admit. To learn more very effective ways to care for roses and more specifically rose bush tips go to http://www.rosestogrow.com and there I will be happy to share my knowledge with you as I am a contributing writer for the website
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