A Stroll Through the Garden: Fertilizing and other tips to help roses bloom
This has been an interesting year for many plants. My roses did fairly well and I had a normal supply of blooms. I have two rose shrubs in the front yard that bloomed. The roses are a dark pink-colored Rugosa rose, and these two shrub roses are still a good green.
My therapist at the Towers in Ashland asked me about why her roses were losing all of their leaves and most of the blooms in June. She said to me, "Eric I have lost so much of the beauty of the roses I feel like I need to remove these roses from my yard. Should I fertilize my plants and water my plants to get them to grow again?"
Before we get busy fertilizing anything, we have some serious issues to discuss. To fertilize roses properly, you need to know the cut-off date for fertilizing roses is the last day of July. You might have just a few weeks to help get the roses to come back. She thought that was an odd answer, as I do, but the very simple reason is you should not have new green growth that may suffer damage from the frost that will occur in September or October.
From March to the end of July you can fertilize your roses. Hybrid teas, floribundas, shrub, knockouts, and species roses all vary with the nutrient amounts that they will require to some degree. The climbers and ramblers should be fertilized more because they are quite vigorous. If my therapist would have asked me in March, we could have and would have talked about the age of the rose and what we were trying to do. We could have talked about the drought aspects of the summer and how to address the challenges.
Soil, sunlight important factors to consider
Again, before we get started fertilizing roses in the spring, first take a look at where you planted the roses and do a soil test as normal. Most roses are very demanding in their requirements. First, roses need full sun, which comes to a solid six hours of sunlight each day during the growing season as a minimum to do well. Second, since roses are heavy feeders, the best conditions to plant roses in would be rich, organic, moist, well-drained soil. You should consider planting roses in containers from the end of October to the end of March so you can begin planting container grown roses soon. Bare-root roses can be planted during the rest of the year.
As you might imagine, you also should water the roses. Watering is important since roses are heavy feeders. They also demand a lot of water. I have heard from 5-10 gallons per week. Over the years I try to let the plant tell me its needs. If I see wilting, I water and, if I see yellow leaves, I stop watering. There is more than just that. I explained each plant should have an average of 1 inch of rain per week. The guide I use is my finger; if my finger is moist at least 1 inch down in the soil, then we are good. If not, then you need to water.
Proper pruning encourages growth
Formative pruning is an attempt to encourage a strong development of a multi-stemmed plant with strong shoots forming close to the ground to create a balanced framework of branches and encourage flowers. Remove damaged or broken shoots and cut back any shoots growing across the center of the bush.
Prune back strong healthy shoots to within 3 to 6 inches of the ground level, cutting to an outward-facing bud. Proper pruning also encourages good flower development at the right time of year. What I know is that I try not to prune anything for the first year.
As the rose continues to grow, the aim of pruning roses changes from shoot production to make an open-centered plant with good circulation of air around the branches. One of the struggles with roses is this sort of pruning should be done annually, which is another topic that needs to be addressed to have good flower production.
Roses are heavy feeders, and you are going to need to address these needs maybe more regularly than you may have planned. The normal nutrients have their purposes. Top dress the soil around the rose forming a ring with about one hand full of rose food in April or March before the leaves have formed and hoe the fertilizer into the soil. In June do about the same kind of top-dressing as in April.
From April to July, you are going to want a liquid fertilizer application once a month of a standard water-soluble rose food that will answer the nutrient needs of the rose. Those hose applicators are amazing and is about the best for this particular job. If you want to raise show-stopping roses, you are going to need to hand spray a lighter nutrient solution of this same rose fertilizer. The foliar application will allow the blooms to take off. Compost tea applications can be an alternative.
To let you know, the latest report from my therapist is the roses survived the summer and are doing much better. She told me she even had some recovery of the leaves coming back and more flowers latter in the season.
The Queen of the flowers, the rose, is one of my favorite topics. If you have any questions, please email me at ewlarson546@yahoo.com. I shall answer them to the best of my ability. In time I shall leave links to my blogs on my website ohiohealthyfoodcooperative.org. Have a wonderful stroll through your gardens this week.
Eric Larson of Jeromesville is a veteran landscaper and gardening enthusiast and a founding board member of the Ohio Chapter of Association of Professional Landscape Designers. He encourages your gardening questions by sending an email to ewlarson546@yahoo.com.
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Tips for keeping roses rosy year in and year out
