I forget to add my appreciation to Roseseek (Kim's) many good ideas: 1) Top-dress as nature intends with leaves & manure.

2) Lemon fragrance in roses as more refreshning than myrrh. Kim is right, I like Christopher Marlow's light tea & lemon fragrance better than Mary Magdalene's intoxicating tea & myhrr fragrance. So does my 8-years old daughter.

I love hearing about your experiments!

I hate bark mulch! It's expensive, it's a pain to walk around on (and don't even think about kneeling on it!) to prune or weed (and you do still get weeds!)and the darn stuff floats away in the rain! I watched nearly half of it float down the gutter after the first hard rain the only time I tried it. What a waste!

Leaf mulch works great. BUT you HAVE to mulch it into smaller pieces or it MATS like CRAZY! The smaller pieces break down quick and in the spring when I go to take it off it's filled with worms at the bottom layer so I just turn it into the soil to feed it.

Never EVER use oil in your spray! No matter the recipe or the temps or what ever it will burn the leaves if there is any sunshine at all. I substitute dish soap for the oil and it seems to work just as well as a spreader/sticker and sufficant and hasn't fried my leaves.

Remember sometimes to just stop and sit and ENJOY your roses and garden. I've had to learn to do that. I get out there, get going, and one thing leads to another and before you know it I've spent the whole day and never once stopped and smelled the roses. Now I deliberately take a break and sit and look at the garden or bend down to smell a lovely bloom. It makes it all more worth it!

Good morning Strawberryhill and Seil! Interesting ideas and I, too, enjoy hearing the experimentation and observations! Thank you!

I've been fortunate to grow roses right on the water at the beach; inland, mid desert and in a transition zone with elements of both. IF you live in SoCal in the "perma fog", oils can safely be used during the nine to ten months of "normal temps", up to six to eight weeks before the heat hits. The two to three months of "heat" where it begins to approximate inland weather, or if you live higher up the mountains where it IS inland valley heat, oils are NOT useable. It doesn't matter what advice is given, oils do not "rinse off". The phytotoxic effects are NOT negated by using them earlier or later in the day, nor on cooler, foggier days. If the oil rinsed off the leaves, it wouldn't do what you wanted it to. Enough remains on rose foliage after one application to fry the life out of them up to six weeks after application. If you use it with no burning, then you either, A. didn't put enough on them to be effective; or B. haven't experienced the intensity/duration of direct sunlight and heat necessary to burn the foliage. If you put it on per label directions and you have water stress or our traditional sun levels, it WILL burn the leaves, they will yellow and they will fall. That can go for Insecticidal soap here, too. It is "potassium salts of fatty acids", hence lard. Lard is fat which is an oil that is solid at room temperatures.

It's interesting to me to read that the sun in zone 5a is enough to fry leaves with oils. Thank you! I had no idea as I've never lived in a zone 5 anything.

Dr. J.H. Nicholas admonished nearly 75 years ago "don't bury garbage" when planting roses. Amen! Too green material, underground with any moisture and lack of sufficient oxygen creates hydrogen sulfide. Remember the stench from pots which stopped draining and soured? Yep! Organics are wonderful...IF there is appropriate oxygen, heat and moisture for Nature to digest them instead of rotting them. Landfills are full of rotting organics. You want digesting organics. Think cooking compost pile instead of soured. Huge difference in product and performance results!

I have to use organics sparingly here as anything alfalfa brings every squirrel, rabbit and rat for miles as they LOVE the stuff! Blood/bone/horn/hoof meal makes the dogs go NUTS as to them, it's FOOD. Coyotes and raccoons adore the stuff, too. For me, where I garden, manure is the better choice as the other critters ignore it and usually only attracts birds and moles to get the grubs and worms. A heck of a lot cheaper, too!

I also fully agree with the unsuitability of wood chips, bark chunks, etc. for mulch. Nothing, IMHO, can compare HERE with a good, deep horse manure mulch with sufficient water, applied to the surface of the soil and kept around the plant drip zone and between plants. I don't put it inside the drip zone here because I don't want to bury the crown/union of the roses as that is not beneficial in my climate. The majority of the feeder roots are in the drip zone and outside it and weeds generally don't germinate inside the canopy here as there is insufficient light and water.

I'm enjoying learning your results with the banana peels, corn meal, etc. Those go in the green barrel here because it is all FOOD to vermin I wish not to provide too much attraction for in these parts. They do a good enough job helping themselves to my efforts without extra encouragement, but your observations and results are fascinating! Thanks!

I would add to your list not being so afraid to get the foliage wet. Nature bathes the plants with rain, we can, too. Your special conditions, disease pressure, spray schedule will all require tweaking to make the best use of a good bath. Clean foliage is a lot healthier than dirty, dusty leaves with chemical build-up. Give the plants a good hosing, tops, bottoms and insides to help dislodge mites, aphids, scale nymphs and a host of other critters. I regularly blast out the walled climbers to get rid of litter build-up and prevent spider mites which adore the dry, hot, debris filled spaces inside and against the wall. The plants obviously like it based on their responses and there aren't all the spider webs which proliferate from week to week.

Plants absorb water through the leaves, also, and a good bath re hydrates them very well and will cool them off. Fertilizing and spraying (if that's part of what's needed where you are) after a good bath can result in much better results. I like waiting until the clean up and mulch are accomplished then bathing them well so I can then just sit back and let them do what they are programmed to do. Adjust to fit the special requirements of your climate, gardening style and other issues specific to your situation.

Thanks, Strawberryhill! Much appreciated, but we all give some dang good advice to each other and share observations and experiences, good and bad, and that's beneficial for everyone. To me, citrus scents are much more refreshing than heavier ones. If you want the most concentrated myrrh scent I've ever found, grow Cressida. Marvelous bloom on a pretty terrible plant (here). Much disease, floppy, rangy, horribly prickly. Cut a flower bud as it's just beginning to open, then pry the petals apart and sniff. Wow! Strong, pungent, intensely bitter, lingering long in the back of your throat. Concentrated, licorice extract so powerful it will gag you. Highly concentrated as oils because I've gotten it on my mustache when smelling it and had to wash my face to get rid of the residual stench. Once opened, it is a powerful, sweeter licorice, but until oxidized a bit, it is over powering! Give me a lemon any day! Kim

1) The best Idea I have found re growing roses is to FIND OUT WHAT WORKS IN YOUR AREA! Roses are all completely different, as are local conditions. This is what makes generic advice useless - some good ideas in one area are killers in another.

2) Another related good idea is to pay attention to what works, and what does not work, in your specific garden. Do more of the first, and stop doing the latter!

3) The worst idea is to just take generic "rose advice" and try to apply it locally.

4) A similar bad idea is to think that you have to follow a complicated list of instructions of what you "must do" with/to your roses - just because the ARS or your local society says so. Roses are plants - they are very flexible and adaptable - they do not know about the elaborate inflexible pruning instructions, for instance, that some folks are still advocating, Relax and enjoy your garden!

These ideas may sound simplistic, but after growing roses for 22 years I have found that these ideas work every single time - no exceptions.

Jackie

Realize that there is no one correct way to do anything in your rose garden.

There are many correct ways to do things in your rose garden.

Happy gardening--remember to ENJOY it!

Kate

I enjoy hearing from both Seil and Roseseek - thanks.

Thank you, jacqueline and dublinbay, for reminding me that the good ideas are the ones that apply to my area only, rather than just any crazy idea floating around on the internet.

Mushroom compost is another BAD idea for my alkaline clay soil. I didn't check the gardenweb before buying that $6 alkaline bag and wasted time replacing my soil (Michaelg already gave that info. a few years ago).

Thanks, Seil, for that info. about oil in spray. I don't plan to spray this year - I like my roses naked Ha! Ha!

I really like the idea about putting alfalfa into the planting hole. Unfortunately it's a little late for me since most of my roses are planted. I do use alfalfa meal with very good results around my plants. In order to avoid as much as possible the meal sticking together I water it in with a strong spray of water and continue to water that way so that the alfalfa gets distributed around more each time. Of course if you don't hand water that won't work. (I know, hand watering is the work of the devil. I agree, and still do it. For one thing, it allows me to spray the whole plant, which in my dry climate seems to benefit the plants.)

Ingrid

The very things which make the responses here so learned and correct, are what will make someone who has no idea what to do, crazy. Increasingly, people want recipes, instructions to follow with no foreknowledge necessary. Unfortunately, without a good rose mentor to get them past that condition, many will find it very difficult to obtain, observe and learn what has been said here. Watch what works, avoid what didn't. Learn from what the plant tells you it wants. They really DO "talk", you just "hear" it with your eyes.

Don't you love reading how something you've done worked, or didn't work, in other climates and situations? Understanding why it did what it did in other conditions so often deepens your understanding of why you experienced what you experienced. Fun! Thanks! Kim

1) Rose cone:
Cut the whole top off. it'll work fine that way. Water gets in and heat gets out. I did that and stuffed leaves inside the cone around the bush. Worked well. Another benefit, you can tie the canes and let them stick out the top. More green cane come spring.

2) Horsemanure in the bottom of the planting hole:
I do this all the time, Mix it well with the soil. I use a couple of shovel fulls. Excess mix is placed around the roots. Have never had a problem.
I do place a thin layer of soil over the manure mix and let the roots grow into it as opposed to letting the roots contact the manure directly.

3) Sulphate to lower soil pH.
Always get a soil test and request amendment info per 100 or 1000 square feet or they'll give it to you in acreage.
Never use amendments as a result of home test kits. Most are not accurate enough.
Any soil Ph change should be done slowly. Don't apply excess product in an attempt to change it quickly. Doing so will result in the product continuing to work long after you've reached the desired level. Apply product in fall so it can break down and work through the winter months and take advantge of fall and spring rains.

4. Alfalfa on top around the trunk.
   Always use meal, never pellets and scratch it well into the soil. If it crusts, you're using too much and not scratching it in enough. A little, often, is better than a lot all at once.

Bloodmeal gives rapid boost of nitrogen (except for the small risk of Mad-Cow disease).
Use bloodmeal from swine. Same benefits, no mad cow risk.
I get mine from a place that supplies swine feed products
They only supply swine bloodmeal.

5) Tree bark robs the soil of nitrogen as it breaks down.
Apply extra nitrogen fertilizer to avoid nitrogen loss from the soil. Some will leach down into the soil.

6) Planting without checking the drainage.
I realize this is a polyanna method, but check out your soil before you buy.
When I looked at this place that's the first thing I considered, drainage. Not always possible especially if the gardening bug bites after you move in. Raised beds are a great way to get good drainage, They need not be elaborate. A couple of landscape timbers high, filled with a sandy loam soil, will give you 8-10 inches of depth and excellent drainage. Remember, the feeder roots are mostly in the top 6-8 inches of soil. Deeper roots are mostly anchor roots. Or, simply dump a foot or so of good soil on top of your hard clay and plant in that. You'll have to keep pulling it back as rain erodes the soil. This works best as a small island containing a number of plants. a truckload of soil spread out to a foot in depth, then planted. You can always come back later with landscape timbers or blocks.

7) Shallow watering with a hose.
A five gallon bucket with a 16d nail hole in the bottom side, filled with water and placed next to the bush so the water runs out of the hole onto the base of the bush will water as it soaks into the soil. Five gallons once a week in heavy clay soil and 2-3 times weekly in sandy soil will be enough and it'll go deep.

8) Banana Smoothie for rose (blend bananas & molass in a mixer). I didn't try that, but I chopped up whole mushy bananas and threw it around Eglantyne. She hates it and leaves turned brown.
Again, scratch it in, don't leave it on the surface. Get a dibble or poke holes out a little with a spading fork and pour the smoothie into the holes. Make the roots grow out into it. Makes for a bigger, stronger root system and won't cause leaves to turn brown.
Fresh banana peels around rosebush
Any organic such as banana peels will break down faster and work better if mixed into the soil, not laid on top.

9) De-germed, white cornmeal from the grocery store. Eglantyne came in the mail badly blackspotted. I threw Walmart cornmeal around the bush. Edges of leaves turned black and got fried in the heat.
New bushes are stressed and may react badly to anything, like dry cornmeal, that can pull moisture from the leaves. Plant new roses and allow to acclimate some before applying all that stuff. Give them a few days.
I plant mine in pots and let them get some roots before planting in the ground. I never apply anything to them, but then I don't spray for blackspot either. I grow mostly disease resistant shrubs.

After 10 hours of rain and humid & hot weather, I dusted roses' leaves with WHOLEGRAIN cornmeal from the feed store. Nothing bad happened - leaves look fine. I'll know if this experiment against blackspot work by the end of our wet season in October.
Anything works best when the plant is well hydrated prior to application.

10) Planting Austin roses in full sun. This is a bad idea, since my zone 5a intense sun is too hot compared to England's mild coastal weather.
I'm in zone 5a, NW Indiana, have the same sun intensity as you and don't have any problems planting Austins, or any other rose type, in full sun. Try temporarily providing filtered shade until the roots get established.

You're welcome!

I understand, Seil. More than 25 years ago, I would leave an overhead, oscillating sprinkler going over large areas of my Newhall garden, requesting the community gardening staff to turn them off when they left for the day, on triple digit days. The horse manure mulch disappeared quickly. The foliage was huge, plants even more so, and they flowered amazingly. Water was cheap and plentiful, so not an issue there and then.

There were no disease or insect issues. The plants were fully clothed in very dense, durable foliage and there was no such thing as sun scald nor Flat Headed Apple Borers which became great issues once that type of watering had to be discontinued due to availability and cost.

Black spot and mites were frequent issues with the own root plants we propagated as volunteers at The Huntington. I learned early when bringing home any new plant such as those to pull off all of the foliage before bringing it into the garden. I had an area in filtered sun under a tree where I kept a pile of horse manure. I'd clump the newly arrived own roots in their pots together, surround and fill between them with the manure, often inside them as mulch, then overhead water until new foliage began developing. No mites, no diseases and the plants exploded into growth quickly. A bit of hardening them off in larger cans and higher levels of heat and light and they were ready for planting once they'd filled the five gallon cans. Growing them up in larger cans also permitted me to move them around to see what position was best to their liking. It often made quite a difference.

At the beach, I had a number of customers who regularly used my "proprietary blend" of Ultra Fine and Miracle Grow sprayed every two weeks except between the middle of July through the middle of October. In the Perma Fog, it prevented disease, eliminated the constant aphids and saw flies and kept really terrible things there, like one lady's beloved and hated Paul Neyron, viable. He caught her heart in books and she was determined to grow him. He languished until I suggested the Ultra Fine and MG foliar application. She had severe bronchitis, but made sure she brought me a bouquet of beautiful Paul Neyron from her bush! Used during the heat, that mixture did burn, but when there weren't heat and light intensities to contend with, it worked wonders. NO way I could have ever used it in any garden at home! I tried it once, learned my lesson the hard way right there and then! Anything presented as being even slightly phytotoxic WILL burn here.

I am in total agreement with your walking the roses daily. I can't imagine having them unless I wanted to walk them every chance I got. Each has its own personality, likes, dislikes, needs and will quickly let you know if you don't provide them. It's the best way not only to head off problems early, but also to detect sports. They can happen so quickly right in front of you and seemingly behind your back. A big part of the serendipity for me! Kim

I've been using hardwood mulch in my gardens for 20+ years and my soil is like black gold. I buy it from the local sawmill and it not only keeps the weeds down but keeps in the moisture. I fertilize with RoseTone and the roses haven't complained yet...

An added bonus is the extra layer of protection it provides against the -20F temps we sometimes get here in Illinois in January. Since I don't winter protect at all, I can grow Hybrid Teas without worrying about winterkill.

Just one polite comment to avoid confusion. The yellow stuff you use to lower soil pH is called sulfur, not sulfate. Sulfate refers to a negative ion which is a part of many compounds of sulfur, some of which, like ammonium sulfate and ferrous sulfate, will also lower soil pH.

I second Karl's suggestion about adjusting soil pH: Your first step should be to accurately determine what your soil pH is before you begin to adjust it.

I'm with Terry--we have always used wood mulch and it's the mulch of choice everywhere I look. Winds are just too high here and everything else blows away or floats away during rainy season. I've not had any problems with the conditions it creates in the garden, only with the conditions it creates for the gardener. I do get the occasional piece stuck in my shoe, and I refuse to kneel or crawl around in it.

I like shredding leaves and using them late in fall, but with my allergies it's a horrible job. I gag, cough, sneeze, and wheeze with leaf bits flying about.

And yes, the sun in zone 5 is quite intense. Seems like we typically get the extremes of everything here. Wind, rain, sun, hot, cold.....it's a cornucopia of challenges. Maybe that's why I enjoy this hobby so much!

Thanks, Mike Rivers, for correcting: should be sulphur, rather than sulphate (I realized that afterwards, but forgot to correct).

Flaurabunda: I have bad hayfever too, it's like an explosion of hot pepper in my head. Although I like roses, I can't wait until the first frost so my hayfever would go away.

The research on L. Casei bacteria for hayfever started in Japan, then DanActive yogurt drink was shown to reduce sick days in a daycare center. There's another beneficial strain of bacteria in Enliven yogurt, it was my salvation until Walmart discontinued.

I grew up in Michigan (near Grand Rapids), and the sun there is NO where as intense as the Chicago area. Michigan has more snow than us, but Illinois beat MI in rain for spring and fall.

Most of all, many thanks to Karl from Indiana. You help not just me, but many future rose-growers. Thank you for the tip on rose cone - my neighbor cuts her rose cone into half (vertically) and tie the halves around her tree-rose.

The swine blood meal is an excellent idea, thanks. I use blood meal to get rid of annoying nitrogen-fixation weeds around trees. You are right about raised bed, The American Rose Society recommends at least 4" of raised bed for better drainage.

I made that mistake of adding sulphur 12 years ago as a garden-newbie, after a soil test. HomeDepo doesn't stock pH tests until the spring.

A University Extension recommends mixing ammonium sulphate or ammonium nitrate to horse manure to correct the nitrogen deficiency due to the break down of the mixed in hay, straw, and bark. I might mix alfala meal with my horse manure, before mulching my roses (that's another experiment on my list).

I was impressed with on-line picture of a bushy, 100% clean Rio Samba rose growing next to a corn plant, right after frost. Whenever I picked corn in Michigan, I got showered by corn pollens, and had the worse hayfever.

Dusting WHOLEGRAIN cornmeal on rose leaves right after a rainfall works well - the dust stay there for good, very much like the white spray-chemical-residue I saw at the Rose park. Let's see if this experiment against blackspot work by the end of October.

I forget to include the link about adding nitrogen to horsemanure: http://ohioline.osu.edu/agf-fact/0212.html

Flaura: Yup, Illinois is extreme in everything: wind, scorching sun, rain, and cold (makes growing rose a challenge). I like my summer and winter better in Michigan.

I used to live in Connecticut (near Hartford) and the sun there is much milder than IL.

The Elizabeth Rose Park in CT is stunning. CT has milder summer and winter. I used to live in California (San Jose) and the roses there look great. Both CT and Northern CA are ideal for growing roses.

I'm not talking about do it yourself soil tests. The proper one to get is a professional one. Normally, your county extension agent will be able to supply the name and other information of these places. They may even have the bags available to put the sample(s) in to send off.

Good ideas in my humble garden:

Alfalfa tea will always perk things up and encourage rebloom.
Deadheading is a must for me as I hate to look at dead blooms and I want alot of bloom over a long season.
Redwood bark is a necessity for potted roses to keep the soil from drying out. I also use it around in-ground roses. I tried shredded cedar, which looked better, and had horrible luck as the daylilies hated it.
Learn which roses like heavy winter pruning and which don't--from your own experience.
In my yard/climate, own-roots take much longer to become full-sized. Patience pays off.
Learned this year after growing roses for many years and spraying for aphids in spring (somethings you must learn by yourself): If you don't spray, the ladybugs will take over and do their job. You just need to be patient. . . keep saying that!

Kathy

What an interesting post. I have belonged to the rose society for many years and have to admit I never did anything that they totally approved of. I am not a sprayer and do not expect my roses to be perfect. If I have any hybrid tea roses, they are replaced with shrub roses when they kick the bucket--although I have to admit that there are no more beautiful buds than on hybrid teas. We are not so lucky with our weather though, so you have to shake it off and go forward. Also, the Good Lord does not consult us before he sends rain, and that certainly is from above. I really appreciate hearing that others have bad allergies. My summer has been miserable and I am not sure what the culprit is. Thanks everybody for your imput. Barb