Wednesday, February 11, 2009

I'm back and Tips on Growing Beautiful Roses #2

It's been a long time, but I'm happy to be back. My family and I have been away holidaying overseas, we had a fun and lovely time, but it's certainly nice to be back. I was a bit concerned my roses would suffer while I was away, even though we have automatic reticulation system which turns itself on to water the garden at set times. I was nervous because it's right in the middle of summer here and it gets hot and dry. We have sprinklers restrictions and are only allowed to water the garden with sprinklers two days a week. So when I'm home, at least I can manually hose-water in between the two watering days on days I know are going to be scorchers to ease the dryness. Anyway, I was quite glad to find that my garden actually survived my absence and the lack of water during that time. Some of the roses' leaves do look a bit dry from water stress, but overall I could breathe a sigh of relief none of the plants actually died. One thing I found though was the weeds have gone wild and are "partying" in my garden, urghh! I'll have to deal with that bit by bit. When I went out to check the garden, one thing that came to me was "The roses need to be fertilised", which brings me to Tip #2 on growing beautiful roses. Roses are gross feeders, they love love love food and drink, lots of feed all the time, that's a fact. My fertilisation regime is around every 6-8 weeks or each time I see that there are not so many blooms. I use NPK Blue. (You can use any rose food or rose fertiliser that you trust) I also use cow's manure as a mulch and fertiliser(in time you improve your soil condition), I ocassionally use Sulphate of Iron when I see there is a deficiency in the foliage. I don't use wood shavings or any wood-based mulches as I've read somewhere that they take nitrogen out of the soil and my experience seemed to have matched that and the plants weren't quite healthy and disease resistant. I'll try my best to answer your questions in the comments in my last post, please give me a bit of time, thanks for your patience and interest. I don't know everything, since I'm considered new in terms of growing roses and I'm still learning and experimenting as I go along. (That's the truth!) But I'll tell you what I know. Roses used here: Pink Simplicity(Floribunda, pink), Tamora(David Austin, apricot) and The Dark Lady (David Austin, dark red)

11 comments:

Gone said...

I'm so glad to see you back!! You've been missed.

Your roses are absolutely gorgeous...and I'm glad they were OK on your return home.

;-)

melontha said...

It is always beautiful, this gorgeous roses on display, including tips on rose care are very interesting.
I always had great concern to the beautiful garden on holiday alone allow, they have but fortunately a good irrigation system.

Many warm greetings from Melontha from the still snowy Switzerland.

Marilyn said...

Welcome back dear friend. You have been missed. Glad your garden was ok, that must have been a huge relief. Nice that you had a good time with your family. Thanks for the lovely post. Marilyn

Tracy said...

So glad your roses survived...they are most beautiful! :)

Anonymous said...

Glad your back and hope you had a wonderful time overseas. I just love your blog. Your roses are very beautiful and your photos do capture the beauty of them. Here in Southern Calfornia, the leaves on my roses are healthy looking. At the moment we are having some very cold weather and I hope it will not effect them too bad. Thanks for all the rose tips.

Laura said...

Oh how I love your roses!! Thank you for the tips!

Carolyn said...

Such beautiful roses! Do you have any problems with aphids on your roses-what would you use for that?
Thank you for sharing!
Carolyn

Anonymous said...

What lovely photos. I'm sure these beauties smell wonderful, too! You have inspired me to follow through with my dream of recreating a garden we once had, with roses and a variety of perennials (mainly blue salvias). Your photos are works of art in capturing the beauty of our Creator. Thank you for that - Angela

Carolyn said...

Thank you so much for visiting me and Answering my aphid question.I wll give prythium a try for sure.
Thanks again,
Carolyn

Alison Gibbs said...

Gd to see you back and that your roses survived your absence
Alison

Anonymous said...

Rosy,

It sure is great to see you back in blogland! Love the pink roses!!!