About Basic Care

Roses are Thirsty But Not
Picky about Food!

by Phil Ash

You probably slacked off some on your watering in December and January; probably didn't feed at all. The time has come to do some of both.

Moist is what you want the soil to be. The easiest indicator to use is your finger. Stick it into the soil as far as you can and then pull it out. If your finger has a light coating of dirt and feels cool in the air, the soil at that point is moist. On an established rose most of the roots will be 12-24' deep and extend horizontally up to twice that distance. That's the area that should be moist. Clearly your finger-test didn't check that whole area, so periodically do a more thorough check and see if your typical watering job is effective.

The sod and your rose will start drying out, how fast depends on your soil mix. Sandy soil will drain and dry much faster than clay soil. Don't over-water, especially in heavy clay-type soils. The frequency of watering similarly depends on your soil. To keep a sandy soil moist will require more frequent waterings than will a thick clay, as is typically found on top of our mesas where so many housing developments were constructed. Continuously wet roots turn dark dead-black, are slimy, and smell bad. A variety of disease or insect problems can arise when the roots are kept wet. Moist is the goal!

Both the top and the bottoms of newly planted bare root roses need moisture. Below the ground, fine whitish root hairs will start growing from the newly planted roots. Moisture encourages this growth; overwatering destroys it. The canes also need to be prevented from drying out. Simply sprinkling the canes with water may be enough. But watch them carefully if you did not cover them up initially. If they start to dry out and die back, you must provide them a moisture source.

Some nurseries give out cardboard boxes to put around the canes that can then be filled with mulch. Keeping the mulch moist helps keep the canes moist. When vigorous shoots start appearing the cardboard can be removed and the mulch gradually washed away. You can make such a box yourself or you can cut the bottom out of a paper bag, put it around the rose canes, and fill it. Or you can take absorbent cloth, like an old tee shirt, cover the canes and keep the cloth moist until good new growth has started. Just mounding mulch around the rose may work too.

As the saying goes, roses are pigs and will eat anything that's on sale. Roses do need a bunch of minute trace elements, minerals, etc. I find it easiest to use a chemical fertilizer that has these in it, something like Bandini's Rose Food, a dry fertilizer. BEFORE FEEDING OR SPRAYING ANYTHING, WATER THE ROSE! The rose has to be hydrated, full of water to make all its systems ready to utilize the food or the spray. Then put out the dry fertilizer and water it in. The package may say to scratch the fertilizer in, but remember the little white feeder roots that suck up the liquid are in the top inch of the soil and are easily disturbed.

Most of the rest of my feedings involve using ingredients that have been dissolved in water. Miracle-Gro, Magnum-Grow, and HighBloom are typical. Frequently feed stores or large nurseries will have cheaper 20-25 pound bag equivalents of these. Reading the descriptions of each, you will see that they are general-purpose in effect or address specific needs. Dick Streeper's Calendar of Rose Care for San Diego recommends regular use of some very basic, inexpensive fertilizers. Every nursery you go to is liable to have their own, special, guaranteed (not inexpensive) brand of mix. They'll all work. But pick out one routine that makes sense to you and follow it for a while so you can see that it does work.

Organic fertilizers can also be used. These include manures, fish products, seaweed concoctions, and various ground meals. Basically, all work best when the soil has warmed up. Some are put on dry and watered into the soil. Others are mixed with water and applied that way using siphons or buckets. Some must sit in large trashcans while they ferment and raise the odor level in the neighborhood prior to application. I especially like liquid kelp and actually add it to everything I feed or spray.

The simplest way to put on liquid fertilizer is with a bucket or watering can. If it says put a gallon out per rose, it's easy to measure that. Hose end sprayers are a rapid way to deliver larger quantities of fertilizer. Using siphon devices or a submersible pump with hose attached can speed up delivery to large numbers of roses. Some fertilizers suggest their use as foliar sprays; that can cause spots on the leaves or stain the blooms.

While food kicks the growth into high gear, the three most important things to the rose are water, water, and water!

This article was originally published in Rose Ramblings, Vol. LXXIV No. 2, February, 2001. © 2001 San Diego Rose Society, Inc.

Keywords: Water, Feeding, Basic