How interesting! They all look great. I use fish emulsion every once in awhile. I will have to pay attention to the bloom colors this summer. My Munstead Wood also often turns magenta in extreme heat. Yesterday was in the low 90's F. MW blooms are still pretty purple red so far.

I suppose, in general, the healthier the plants are, the more they can brush off stressors and the truer they would stay to their original flower colors. Heat is a stressor.

So beautiful , Nollie!! That would be great to know. I’ve been wishing that I knew what to give my roses to deepen the color. Maybe fish emulsion is the ticket. I do use it some but hadn’t noticed the possible correlation.

I did notice more color in roses in Alaska when I fertilized, and I did use fish fertilizer. I subsequently read that this does not happen, but in my garden there I saw it with my own eyes.

If you've grown the HT Double Delight, you may have noticed that it's very different in the pictures from a west coast nursery and from rose shows in the east. For DD, the difference seems to be how slowly the bloom opens. With cooler, cloudier, northern west coast weather, the blooms are much, much darker. The deep color goes down the petals as they slowly open.

In my warmer, faster opening garden, there's a limited reddish color on the edge of the petals but they open fast and I'd always see the creamy white inner petals fully exposed.

Interesting, thanks for all your responses. Although it’s more evident in the purples, the pinks and reds also seem to be more vibrant, so in general affecting the anthocyanins more? There is no colour intensifying in the yellow/orange roses and they have had exactly the same.

I swear Gertrude Jekyll is definitely more vibrant than usual as well:

Perhaps it IS simply down to more nutrients and not the fish food (Fish Bizz, NPK 5-1-4) specifically. They always get a granular fertiliser feed in Spring which has an excellent balance of macro and a long list of micro nutrients, plus alfalfa so shouldn’t really be lacking anything.

Whatever it is, it’s working, so I will keep slapping on the fish!!

The colors of my roses are plenty deep, including purples and dark reds. I don't plan to use stinky fish emulsion. My roses are spoiled enough. Diane

I'm sure Dr. Manners is right that my thin, poor Alaskan "soil" was lacking something basic that the ff supplied.

Wow! Your roses look great! Whatever the reason... :-)

Stillann,

Double Delight seems like an entirely different rose on the West coast. The stems are long and strong, the stems are thick and healthy, and yes the blooms have richer color. Wherever it is grown, DD will produce a bunch of wonderful flowers with amazing fragrance, but he’s just so much happier out West.

Diane,

Stinky for you, but probably smells better than roses to your cats.

I had to stop using fish emulsion because one of our dogs went nuts for it. She was eating the stuff right off the dirt. Lots of vitamin E for Daisy, but nothing for the roses.

It’s funny how dogs go mad for some stuff and not others, mine ignore the fish emulsion (I don’t find it stinky) but one snaffles up the alfalfa pellets. I have to spread them and immediately mulch on top to hide them, preferably when she is locked in the house!

We get racoons and possums digging in the roses and pots when I use fish emulsion. I dont use it that often due to the digging. Pots are worse because the raccoons will dig to China looking for the wretched fish and pull roses completely out of the pots. I have a 5 gal bucket of alfalfa cube tea brewing right now. I'm sure they are gonna go nuts over that too. I kinda forgot about it for awhile and now I'm afraid to take off the lid 🤢🤮

Ewww. Sultry. I'd never put up with that, and I'm so glad I don't have raccoons and possums around here. Deer and voles are bad enough.

Ben, kitties have better manners than to eat fish fertilizer. We have only one kitty allowed outside, and he likes mainly processed kitty food and raw shrimp. Very upscale kitty, except for the vole and mice heads he likes as an hors d'oeuvres. Diane

My cats love fish fertilizer, Diane. Even my most sophisticated, up-scale kitties.

My experience with fish fert was like that of sultry-it attracted badgers to my garden who were incredibly destructive and very, very difficult to evict. I had to spend two years putting up and anti-badger wire "skirt" around the whole fenced perimeter of my garden. Never, ever again!

Fortunately, I think the dogs keep away the wildlife. We have badgers, foxes, deer and wild boar sneaking under or over the fence at the top of our wooded, steep plot but they‘ve never come down to the lower garden terrace - so far.

Once diluted in the watering can, the Dutch brand I use, Bart, Bio-Bizz Fish Mix (I just call it Fish Bizz) via Am*zon, is virtually odourless. Even the concentrate is not really smelly, but I totally understand your caution, post badger-gate!

Eek! Badgers are mean!

Nollie, badgers have an incredibly good sense of smell; I think they're like dogs,being able to pick up odours that humans can't. So now I avoid animal-based fertilizers: no fish emulsion, no blood/bone meal, etc. I can't risk it.