Your Organic Rose Garden
| Organic Gardening |
It seems that everyone loves roses, and there are so many types of roses to love! Tea roses have a single type flower, while floribundas have a cluster of flowers. Shrub roses are big, strong plants with small, often single flowers followed by striking hips.
Both shrub and old fashioned roses can be grown in a mixed border, and treated as flowering shrubs. Ground-cover roses spread out and are good for covering banks or the front of borders. Be careful, as weeding between the prickly stems is difficult. Miniature roses are the smallest of the lot – they are real roses, only small-scale. These types are very hardy if given the right growing conditions.
Care and Maintenance of Your Roses
In the fall, prune back your roses – climbing roses can be pruned back earlier, in late summer after flowering has ended. In the spring, prune them slightly and fertilize with mulch. There is debate as to fall versus spring pruning - I prefer the fall, as it is part of my routine of preparing my garden for winter.
Organic plant food for your roses can include composted cow manure, bone meal, blood meal and potash. There are specially formulated organic rose fertilizers available with on potash for strong flowering and magnesium for good flower color. Do not let any fertilizer fall on the base of the plant, as this could cause scorching.
In early summer start spraying regularly against black spot and other rose diseases, using an organic herbicide– see a natural, homemade spray below. Continue spraying regularly until fall. Hoe shallowly every week to keep weeds down.
In midsummer give a second application of rose fertilizer and water it well if the soil is dry. Keep new roses well watered for their first summer.
Deadheading
No, we’re not at a Grateful Dead concert. Once flowers are finished, remove them immediately. The reason for deadheading is that if the flower is left on, they will form seeds, and the entire bush will virtually stop flowering.
Once the seed has formed, the plant’s job is to build and ripen it, not produce flowers. By deadheading your roses, they will then concentrate on producing more flowers!
Black Spot
Black spot is a rose grower’s nightmare. It only affects roses and the fungus loves moist conditions. It lives on other affected plants and spores are easily transmitted to other plants, especially when wet. They can survive on stems and leaves over winter.
Good air circulation around your plants will inhibit black spot on leaves, which is why it’s a good idea to plant them far apart. Try and water your plants in the morning, as this will give them a chance to dry during the day. Black spot easily appears if they are constantly wet in the evening and at night.
Remove all leaves infected with black spot. Never work on your roses when they are wet, as this helps spread the fungus. Clean your tools with bleach after working with affected roses, and promptly throw out all infected leaves in the garbage, not your compost.
The best defense against black spot is sulfur powder. It won’t kill it, but it will slow the growth of the disease.
Also, here is a good homemade spray for your roses with black spot:
- 2 tablespoons baking soda
- 1 gallon water
-
Optional: I teaspoon of vegetable oil ( helps to make the solution stick
Mix ingredients together and spray on problem areas. Repeat as necessary. If you are diligent with this spray you will find that your roses will benefit.
Article by Goorganicgardening.com, a resource site on how to organic garden. Our organic gardening book contains tips on flowerbeds and lawns, and contains more safe homemade herbicide and pesticide recipes.
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