To feed or not to feed???

Unfortunately, February was a very chaotic month for me and mine and I forgot to feed my roses!!  (I know - naughty, smack legs!!!)  Now, it is too late to feed them now or shall I leave them until Spring?  That seems a LONG way off!!!  

feed....feed..... you can every six weeks

SueH We are in UK. If I am not wrong your February time is our Autumn September/October time.

We have chalky soil.  Our roses get fed  two to three times a year. We spray them against diseases when and if they need help recovering.  Especially in our September time (equal to your February time) depending on the look of the plant we put some blood-fish and bone mix on the ground around the base of the plant and then water throughly to make sure any mix that got onto the plant washed away and then leave it to do its own thing for winter. From experience plants - and not just the roses - fed this way carry on flowering during winter and are better at coping with the heavy frosts in March/April time. This works for us even for the iffy difficult to grow conifers in our part of the world recover from the heavy frosts.

We find using Blood-fish-bone mix helps keep the cost of feeding the roses down as well.

Sue, plants in general, do things in cycles, (we are talking plants that go to sleep over Winter) here when Autumn comes, they draw down things to the roots from the leaves and store for the oncoming Spring, This can be done by feeding the leaves now or feeding the roots later in Autumn, which will be held in the soil till Spring and then the reverse happens, the roots take it up and then is transferred to the leaves.

Thanks so much all of you. If I folar feed now with Powerfeed and then feed with say, Sudden Impact for Roses, this should be ok?! I put blood and bone around in Spring (?)

SueH wrote:Thanks so much all of you.  If I folar feed now with Powerfeed and then feed with say, Sudden Impact for Roses, this should be ok?! I put blood and bone around in Spring (?)

I think so. Below some pics of the roses twice with rose food and blood-bone meal in Autumn/winter:

three years old Rose Silver Anniversary

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two years old Rose Easy Does It
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And when it was really pipping hot 28 degree Celcius the same Easy Does It:

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Monica Bellucci

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Red Romance
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Drama Queen

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And I do not know the name of this rose but every summer it is smoothered with flowers:

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I can go on and on... I just hope the pics would be encouragement.  

 A little bit TLC and lots of Love does it (..well I speak to them too.. at least I say ...hellooo you little quties...)

Thank you Alya.  your roses do look good.  I especially like Monica Bellucci.  Will see if I can buy it here.  I expect some kind person will be able to advise!  

PS.  I talk to mine too!!

Sue, here are the people which are the agents for the rose,
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Thanks David. couldn't find it so sent them an email. I haven't heard of these people. Have you dealt with them?

Just had a return email from them (above crew), and they don't stock this rose.

While we are onto feeding......does anybody use "Teas"........
This is my small setup..... the container holds 200lts....

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John, nice setup, how is it used ?, is it direct to the water system ?

Sue that is a shame, it is a lovely rose, they didn't say if they would be getting it did they by chance.

The Lazy Rosarian wrote:Sue that is a shame, it is a lovely rose, they didn't say if they would be getting it did they by chance.

No David, I didn't think to ask.  I'll send another email!

Dave, I just use a two plastic bucket method.....feed each plant 4ltrs of Tea at a time.....

Ummm..... John, what exactly is this or it is obvious?!  Tea!  If so, what sort, what do you put it on, do you dilute it, etc, etc! Dumb! .... I know!

Hi Sue....."Tea" is a fertilizer solution and can be made for any sort of plant solution......

This 200ltr solution is made up of....
water
seaweed solution
fish solution
worm juice
and anything else soluble that I think the soil is missing......

The beauty with "Teas" is that you can add or subtract anything as you feel needed. They are also cheap to make. To show you how cheap it can be.....you buy a $6 bag of cow poo from Bunnings and place that in a hessian bag. Tie a string around the top to contain the item inside and put it in the container for three days. Each day you go and jiggle the hessian bag like a tea bag. After 3 days your brew is ready......use it and refill the container and place the bag back in for a second go.....once you finish that brew , you can use the cow poo on the garden.....now that is cheap...

I thought you might have fertigation set up with a venturi ?

Thanks John. Wow, that is cheap! Do you use it neat? I'd better be off to Bunnings then!

PS. Have NO idea what David is talking about! LOL

@ David......I was going to set it up that way Dave and the cost factor was about $700 for injection system.....with venture, you can't fully control the delivery of the Tea.....the other factors that come into play is the fact of the impurities in the Tea for the injection system and blockages that could occur....

@ Sue........ I have used neat many times but it is just as easy to place additives in to suit the soil conditions..... also there is a way to supercharge the quality of the brew but it incurs extra money......

Right, I think I understand that one!! Anything to improve the soil is good in my book! Thank you once again.
Would it be ok to do this in an old worm farm box? It's got a tap on it, so that's a plus for me. I'm not handy enough to convert a barrel/drum!

It would be ok , Sue.....but you will be making small batches at a time if you don't mind that, you will have an ongoing tea making job and your plants will love you for your kind consideration.....



when making Teas, one needs to remember that you won't see instantaneous results...but in the long term you will see....

That's fine John!  Garden isn't a hobby for impatient people! (IMO!)  I'm always brewing tea for two legged "plants", so a few more wont matter!