Dr. Rose

Dr Rose is an anonymous author whose opinions may differ from those of the society. Any advice given by Dr Rose and acted upon by the reader is done purely at the reader’s risk. Both Dr Rose and the society cannot be held responsible for damage to a person or their roses.  Well I have survived another year and I am here to answer all your queries.

 

Dr Rose

How many times should I feed my roses and what type of fertiliser should I use granular or soluble feeds.

 

Hector from Ton Pentre

 

Well Hector there are a few things to consider here.  Have you applied any organic matter to the soil around your rose bushes? If you have then this will feed your bushes long term throughout the season.  All you will need is a spring dressing of a granular fertiliser like blood fish & bone. I would apply 136gms per square metre .or if you are very old like Dr Rose then 4oz per square yard. I never buy rose fertiliser because the manufacturer is cashing in on a niche market.  The addition of a few trace elements which you might not need will certainly cost you a lot of money.

 

If you haven’t applied any organic matter then a spring base dressing of fertiliser like blood, fish & bone may begin to run out by August.  In this case you can give an additional dressing

usually about mid July so it will kick in before your spring dressing runs out.

 

Soluble feeding is normally only applied to plants in pots which are watered much more frequently.  However if you find you need to water you could add a soluble fertiliser to the water.  There is a school of thought that bushes should have a potassium dressing to prepare them for the winter but really all that is needed is for nitrogen not to be in excess in the autumn.  This would encourage soft growth which might be susceptible to frost damage.

 

Dear Dr Rose

Last year my foliage looked like it got burned, was it the sun or was it something I did with feeding.

 

Hilary from Blaencwm

 

Hilary

I haven’t got a crystal ball, how could I possible know what you fed your roses with or how much.  I doubt it was the sun; we didn’t get much of that last year.  What’s more the sun doesn’t shine for long in Blaencwm because you are surrounded by high mountains.  Are you sure it was not something you sprayed with, did you work out the dosage correctly.  Last year growth was very soft with all the rain.  Spraying in sunshine (what little we had) could result in scorch on tender foliage.

 

Dr Rose

When is the best time to cut roses for cut-flower to decorate my house?  My husband says first thing in the morning but I’m not sure.  I have a very shady garden.

 

Name withheld from Llwynypia.

 

If you are who I think you are then your husband doesn’t get up in the morning anyway.  Yes that old man of yours is right, either in the morning or the evening when the stems are full of sap is the best time to cut your blooms.  Certainly not at midday when the sun is at it’s highest.  The fact you have a shady garden is more worrying and would suggest you could cut your blooms at any time during the day.   There again roses don’t do very well in a shady garden, they certainly are a sun loving plant.  I suggest you get the old man to bed at night instead of staying up half the night talking to Ray the Rose on the phone. Get him out there in the morning to prune the trees and let a bit more light into your garden.  Remember when he was younger and full of sap himself he would have trimmed those trees back long before now.  If I were you I would threaten to go on strike because he’s pretty hopeless cooking dinner, which should get him out there trimming the trees back.  Put you foot down.

 

Dear Dr Rose

What are the best roses to buy for lasting, I like lavender colours but they don’t last very long.

 

Cuthbert from Hirwaun

 

Sorry Cuthbert but you are a bit dim witted.  If you know they don’t last then why do you buy them? Why are you wasting Dr Rose’s time with a question like that.

 

Dr Rose.

My rose garden hasn’t had lime applied to the soil for years.  Can I put some on when I mulch them with horse manure? 

 

Isaac from Cardiff.

 

Thank you for asking a sensible question Isaac, We’ve had some stupid questions lately, I thought intelligent people grew roses.

There are two issues here Isaac.  First of all does your soil need liming, you really need a pH test to determine what pH you soil is. Then you can decide if you need lime, and how much you need.  I know from my own experience of testing many soil samples from the north Cardiff area that generally speaking the soil is generally around neutral (pH 7) If yours is similar you will not need lime because roses grow best between pH 6 to 7.

The other issue, when to apply lime.  Generally not at the same time as manure because it has an adverse affect on the manure so if you mulch with manure in the spring then apply the lime in late autumn or winter.  At least a month before the mulch goes on.  Parts of Cardiff have very heavy clay in which case you would need to apply (to raise the pH by 1) 408 grams per square metre calcium carbonate (ground limestone) (12 oz per square yard.) You can reduce that to 272 grams on a medium loam and only 136 grams on light soil.

 

Hi Dr Rose

I am a newcomer to the valleys and to Wales.  I have heard it’s a bad place for black-spot is this true.

 

Shirley from Tylorstown (formally from Cambridgeshire)

 

Shirley

I’m afraid so, it’s the rain; it creates the conditions where black-spot will flourish.  Totally different from Cambridgeshire where you would be lucky to exceed 25 inches of rain a year.  In your new location you will be around 90 inches I suspect.  You can spray with Systhane every 2 to 3 weeks, which will help.  If you have only just moved and haven’t purchased new roses yet, then chose your varieties wisely.  There is a B.A.R.B. rose trial at

 

 

Pencoed College, it has been running since the late 1980’s.  Mike Thompson spends a lot of time down there judging the roses; when he should be pruning his trees and clipping his hedges.  He knows all the black-spot resistant varieties.  He’s got a memory like an elephant, I’m sure he could reel you off a couple of dozen varieties that are pretty black-spot resistant.  Some would say he spends far too much time down at Pencoed hence he hasn’t got round to trimming his trees which has made his garden very shady.  Watch that doesn’t happen to you because it will make the black-spot problem even worse because the foliage will take even longer to dry out.  It’s a good job old Mike doesn’t know the identity of Dr Rose because he might get angry with me if he did.

 

Hello Dr Rose

I have just moved here from the north of England, where we suffer badly with the pollen beetle.  Will it be as bad in Wales?

 

Regards, Gary from Barry

 

Gary

What is it with rose growers, why do you all like Wales so much? 

 

To answer your question, no the pollen beetle should not be as bad, although you might get a few more in Barry that up in the Rhondda Valley’s because there is some oilseed rape grown in the Vale of Glamorgan..  There are 36 species of Pollen Beetle in Britain.  The most common are Meligethes aeneus and M viridescens which both breed in brassica flower heads, hence the rise in numbers of pollen beetles since the upsurge in oilseed rape acreage in the UK.  The area where this is grown is by far the worse for large pollen beetle populations.  In these areas it is futile to spray with insecticide because the beetles will soon re-colonise your growing area.  One’s heart must go out to people in these areas who want to show their roses at flower shows because the damage they do to blooms will make them uncompetitive to say the least.  One would need to erect a tent with environmental mesh as the buds begin to swell. This is indeed a lot of work, but these little blighters are very destructive.