In Full bloom: Extend your roses into summer

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In Full bloom

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Summer is usually a down-time for roses, but with a little help, you can help extend the seasonal show. Give them a light prune and feed in late January and this will set them up for a fantastic autumn flush.

Words: Sandra Ross

INTRO

Roses are one of the most rewarding flowers to grow, especially if you choose varieties that suit your climate. The secret to success is an organic monthly preventative spray with seaweed, nutrient and anti-fungus to build inner strength in your roses. This makes them inherently strong and means they won’t easily succumb to pests and diseases. Here’s how to care for your roses and to encourage more blooms.

Feed your roses

It’s good to feed your garden organically with few or no chemicals. This means the soil flora, the micro-organisms that work so hard underground to make your plants grow, are not damaged. For this reason, I use Neutrog’s Sudden Impact for Roses. This pelletised chicken manure contains seaweed and potash. Just a measure-full every six weeks from August to May, will provide adequate nutrient for good flowering. Flemington Racecourse grow world famous roses for the Melbourne Cup – they use liquid Charlie Carp Premium Organic Fertiliser and Sudden Impact for Roses.

Water your roses

In hot weather, it’s good to deep water your roses every week with seaweed solution in a watering can. A small bush rose needs one watering can and a large climbing rose needs two. Don’t water the foliage as this can encourage fungus disease. I also use seaweed fortnightly when watering as this can help improve drought tolerance and help with recovery from high temperatures and moisture stress. I switch between Amgrow’s Harvest and Maxicrop Seaweed.

Second flush

To extend flowering well into autumn, remove spent blooms and feed well with an organic fertiliser in late January. Regularly check the health and vigour of your rose. Is the foliage looking good? Is there aphids, thrips, powdery mildew or black spot? Act promptly and accordingly to treat the issue.

 

 

Rose maintenance spray

Mix up the following ingredients in your sprayer and apply once a month to keep roses healthy. Full credit here to Diana Sargent for this recipe in her excellent book ‘All About Roses’ published by New Holland.

Ingredients:

85g Eco fungicide powder (quarter cup)

60mls Eco oil (quarter cup)

5mls seaweed powder (1 teasp)

20ml Eco Neem

50ml Eco Aminogro

Sandra’s favourites

Clair Matin

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The rose, Clair Matin, was bred in France in 1960 by Marie Louise Meilland, the wife of the world-renowned rose breeder Francis Meilland. This is an outstanding repeat blooming rose. It produces large trusses of exquisite semi-double blooms of clear, soft pink with deeper highlights with a large boss of beautiful golden stamens at the centre. Delightfully fragrant and one of the most free-flowering of all roses. I grow three plants of this rose on a 2.5m pillar frame and prune them back hard each winter. As a repeat bloomer, this rose will give you its best performance, provided it receives full sun (6-8 hours) for most of the day. I think it’s my absolute favourite rose (and that’s a big call)!

Safrano

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This Tea from 1839 has double well scented buff coloured flowers with long-pointed buds. Safrano grows as a loose open shrub about 1.5m tall and wide. Popular in the 19th century and used in the breeding of new varieties. In a mild climate it flowers almost continuously.

Sombreuil

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Beautifully quartered, spicily scented and vigorous, this creamy-white Tea rose, ‘Sombreuil’, is blushed with the palest pink. It was bred in France 1850 and repeat flowers well through the spring season. This mannerly climber is ideally suited for use as a pillar rose, or trained on a low wall, fence or trellis. It’s also perfect to train on wires across a wall.

 

 

Monsieur Tillier

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Another famous old Tea rose with multi-petalled, old fashioned blooms in burnished pink edged with soft violet red outer petals and vibrant carmine buds. Bred by Alexandre Bernaix in France in 1891, it grows into a large shrub 2m tall and 2m wide. Easy to grow in a warm climate (as with most Tea roses) and ft flowers prolifically all spring, autumn and winter with a rest in summer.

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Where to buy

Green E Roses, 02 97653 1745www.greeneroses.com.au

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Easy spraying

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