Yes, we add mushroom compost once or twice per year.

Nancy my friend
Unless you add some kind of binder,such as clay,your new soil will wash right out of the sand,leaving the peat.That will help with water retention but not nutrients.
If you are serious about turning Florida into Iowa or even Ga. you might want to add some of that stuff[can't think of the name]that acts as a binder.
Or I could be wrong.

I put a border around my original bed and filled it with 5-6" of soil. I did this because my first plantings were not deep. The roses I have checked went own root. I continually add mulch, leaves and soil as available. All the roses in this bed are very healthy.

I have a clay soil here...I don't know how to deal with sand but my winter project this year will be to add a layer of composted cow manure to all my rose beds. And then covering it all with a fresh layer of mulch. When I went to the workshop at Ashdown this fall it was mentioned that this was a good thing to do.

Carole

If it has a border, its just a pot on a larger scale, so soil replacement makes sense to me.

I edged my beds with those stone things you get at big box stores. Once a year or so, I turn in the mulch that's there, then lay down newspapers to help with the Bermuda grass, then dump a boatload of bought mushroom and cow compost on top of the papers. Then fresh mulch.

This is the general plan, though as the garden expands, I have a feeling this will be done in many stages instead of one foul swoop.

Elaine

I was too young to think about gardening in FL when I lived in the sandy barrens in the late 40's, but I imagine you have earthworms there.

I would feed the earthworms, but check with the folks in soils forum for a better answer.

My earthworms are sitting around looking at eachother wondering what is going on. I am waiting for frost, which is just around the corner and I then can do my clean up and start tipping and the other insane stuff I try and do for the winter.

I add compost over the entire bed, then mulch. I'm still building up the beds here. It always amazes me what a layer of compost will do for the roses and other plants. Especially if you add a little rain :-)

I meant to add that when the soil is active, it breaksdown the the mulch quite rapidly - which also adds nutrients. I use the compost to sort of balance that process.

I highly recommend adding organics to your type of soil and I'd do it once per year. I have lots of information on this topic at my website as well if you'd like to learn more. There is also a video segment that I produced called "Organics and Soil Aeration" thaty you may be interested in seeing.

Here is a link that might be useful: LearnToGarden Web Site

Yes, when I had a great supply of cotton gin trash/burr all beds got a good inch of top dressing. Sometimes I add topsoil or compost if I can find good one. Otherwise I let the mulch break down. I would never use peat; I had very bad experience with peat at the very beginning of gardening here and trying to make the native soil in my yard hospitable to any plant not only to roses.

Hey Nancy I have done it before about once a year, I add new soil to my rose beds, like last year around December I added new soil Miracle Gro for Roses, and plenty of organic fertilizer and I mean PLENTY!! I might have added too much but it was worth it, some does wash off like the tiny barks the soil comes with, but that just happens during heavy rain

The other night I was reading this thread, and Pete41's comment about soil binders sent me Googling. I came across a site connected to Washington State Univ - Linda Chalker-Scott, Ph.D., Extension Horticulturist and Associate Professor who had a column about Myths. She stated that she LOVES wood chips. She lays them on and they turn to black dirt, er, soil. At first I didn't know what she meant by wood chips, but then I realized it was the obvious - chips of wood. And I remembered we had a diseased (dead) oak tree taken down last year and had the stump ground down which left a pile of wood chips. At first I was afraid of using it for fear of spreading this fungus, but then I decided to use it away from other oak trees. And voila! A month or so later the chips were gone and black soil was in their place. She uses wood chips as topdressing instead of bark chips. She says they "provide a slow release of nutrients to the soil, assisting not only plants but beneficial microbes and detritivores as well. Wood chips are also instrumental in relieving soil compaction and improving soil health."

I think I will be looking for a source for wood chips soon.
Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: Horticultural Myths

Yes, that's what I meant by the mulch breaking down. One can use so colled soil conditioner that is also grind pink bark but maybe hardwood shavings are even better.

Sherry do you have any sawmills down your way? I just go to our local one and they have a pile of chips that fall out of or overflow the rail cars that they load up. They just push these to the side and anyone is welcome to take some away. For free. Its worth looking into if you have such an industry near you.

gilli2007, we do have one nearby, and I will give them a call.
Thanks for the good idea.
Sherry

The other issue Linda Chalker-Smith addresses on her Myth site is that regarding adding organic matter. Good quality soil is ~5-10% organic material. It is possible to overdose, and wind up with soil that has too many nutrients, depending on what's added. Yet what's the first piece of advice we hear: add lots of organic matter when preparing a planting bed (I still add way to much using her guidelines!). Wood chips are available from tree specialists. I used to get them from one guy for free until he figured out it was worth something. Still a great deal.

And it seems to me soil of some sort should be added to replace the organic matter that gets used up or you'll have a sunken bed in a few years. I think some have mentioned that happened to them with peat moss. I like the idea that the wood chips somehow relieve compaction. And maybe if the earthworms work real hard we CAN have Iowa soil in Florida.
Sherry

I understand what she says about "overdosing" soil with organic material/nutrients, but if you have 50+ productive roses plus perenniels and annuals in a bed, you use up the nutrients pretty dang fast.

She references trees and shrubs - both will have a sort of steady growing habit. Roses, on the other hand, will continue to grow canes and bloom as long as there is sun, water, nutrients and appropriate temperatures. Roses are the only shrub that will bloom from spring to frost - they have a much higher nutrient requirement than a once blooming or non-blooming shrub. This is very simple to demonstrate - just take a look at the roses in gardens where people treat them like regular shrubs and what you see is roses with minimal growth and very little bloom.

On top of that many of us add companion plants which also require nutrients to grow and bloom throughout the season. Linda Chalker-Smith references "agricultural" versus home/stagnant environments. If you have big rose beds with companion plants you have an "agricultural" environment. My DH makes jokes about "rose farming", but to a certain extent he is right. I am rose farming and when I manage my rosebeds in what Linda Chalker-Smith refers to as "agricultural" manner I get the rose production to show for it. Which, of course, is EXACTLY what I want.

Part of what I love about gardening is the whole management of the environment. I pay attention to the plants, they tell me what they need and I provide for those needs, the plants reward me with their beauty.

I appreciate all of the comments. Just a note on what Jody just said. Here in South Florida we have not only sand that needs additives just to hold any moisture but also we have our roses growing and blooming 12 months of the year, no break. I had a soil test done and it showed that it was too alkaline, that is why I added the peat moss. I used to use peat moss to top dress every bed for years and my plants were happy. I only stopped because it blew in the pool and made a mess.

Sherry, your comment about sunken beds, where does it go? I was thinking about this when I was adding the soil. I have added so much to this soil over the years, yet it stays the same level with a fence on three sides, the house on the other and the pool is on the outside of the bed.
Nancy

"where does it go?"

Nancy, all I know is that 'they' say it passes through so I guess it goes down until it hits bottom or the acquifer. It amazes me but I guess that's what porous means. Cottonseed meal will acidify the soil, too.

Jody, I think you're so right. Since 2007 was my first year growing roses, I'm still learning how to listen to them. I grow mostly OGRs, and I read that Chinas in particular "thrive on neglect". Well, I think I took that too literally. I fed them only twice (if you count at planting) before September and they looked a little piqued (not well). It dawned on me maybe I wasn't giving them what they needed. Then I had to start rethinking everything, remembering that these heavy bloomers are heavy feeders. My poor roses have a deaf (and dumb) Mommy. And sometimes I wonder if I'm overdosing them with food. Aw, what's a mother to do?

Sherry