Hi Fily: Florida is the major exporter of phosphorus to the world .. so go easy on the phosphorus. I would choose a LOW phosphorus fertilizer, or just fertilizer with organic nitrogen (blood meal, NPK 12-0-0) and sulfate of potash (very high in potassium NPK 0-0-50) .. and skip phosphorus altogether for Florida.

Also sand is low in calcium/magnesium, so dolomitic lime (has calcium & magnesium) along with acid NPK 4-3-6 is good. Alfalfa meal has decent calcium & magnesium so it's good for sandy soil, but best mixed in with another medium so it doesn't gunk up.

What rootstock are your Austin roses grafted on? If they are own-roots, then gypsum is a better choice than Espoma Garden Lime for dolomitic lime.

The acid mix NPK 4-3-6 is good, but a bit-low in nitrogen. Since you have sand, nitrogen leaches out the most (mobility of 10), then potassium (mobility of 3), and phosphorus doesn't get leached out, so you don't want to add more.

Your approach is great .. that's why I do here in my alkaline clay: Top with organic nitrogen (alfalfa hay), then a few red-lava-rocks. I like blood meal the most for organic nitrogen, it has iron for fast-green up.

Thank you so much for all that info. I have all own root. I haven't tried blood meal yet and I should have remembered it has iron in it! (Duh! ::Palm to forehead::) I didn't know what would be the best product to deliver iron so thanks for the tip! Do you know of a gypsum product that you would recommend?

As for own root roses in FL- I've read a bit of what I could find about the dreaded root knot nematodes that everyone gets hyped up about. Everyone is all- 'your roses will die if not on Fortunia!' I'm not trying to be a naysayer but I wanted to do some of my own research... And I've either read or heard from others that they hate organic matter, concrete, pine mulch (pine acid from decomposition), alfalfa at a certain dosage, supposedly only live in the top soil, but can travel 3ft in a year...I chose own root bc I like the idea of a plant growing into its own and getting better with age. I just don't want to deal with the chance of grafting diseases, suckers, certain graft roots not delivering the right nutrients for the rose grown which then leads to blackspot, etc. Am I being ignorant/foolish for pursuing own root roses in FL??

Hi fily: Own-root is fantastic in pots. I would plant own-roots in pots first so they can be in partial shade when roots are wimpy & too young. Austin-roses are bred in a foggy & rainy climate so best in partial shade FIRST to develop thick-woody roots.

What are your own-root Austin roses? Thanks.

For gypsum I buy the cheapest one possible like from a feed-store at $11 for a huge bag. Gypsum (calcium sulfate) is useful to mix into potting soil since it neutralizes the alkalinity of tap-water, plus own-roots are like alfalfa-sprouts at first, but with gypsum it becomes thicker & more woody. I researched on growing the most solid roots to survive my brutal cold-winter, and both gypsum and potassium (sulfate of potash) are essential for thick & strong roots, and that's a weapon against nematodes as well.

The best pic of rose-garden I saw in Florida was in pots !! Own-root roses do better in pots 1st since they are water-hogs. And if a rose is too big for a pot, then it's big enough for the ground. I bought 14 own-root roses from Roses Unlimited, they are in pots & partial shade with less than 4 hours of morning sun to develop strong roots first, before I plant in the ground to survive my -20 below zero.

Austin Catalog listed the roses that do well in coastal (sandy location): Hyde Hall, Queen of Sweden, Wild Eric, and Austin that has Rugosa genetics such as The Dark Lady. Heritage does well for Sam's loamy soil.

A few Austin climbers with aggressive roots can handle sandy & hot climate, but most Austins are best in pots, in partial shade. Khalid grows roses in pots, in a climate where it gets above 110 F. Some info. on growing roses in pots:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3831178/share-tips-on-success-with-roses-in-containers?n=17

Below is a pic. of a rose budded on fortuniana rootstock, which is most appropriate for sandy & hot climate. But I had seen own-root just as thick & fibrous if it's an Austin climber, given enough calcium & potassium for solid root-growth.

Hi filly. Great to have another organic rose grower who believes in being organic. I absolutely agree with Straw on too much phosphorus and your idea of using coffee grounds, egg shells, banana peels etc it great. Do you compost them and use that compost or you directly add them to the soil?

We have a very comprehensive thread on making a rose specific compost from home waste plus a thread on feeding our roses with compost tea. You may find them interesting. Here is the link....

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3528532/npk-and-ph-of-organic-matters?n=138

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3959714/homemade-rose-compost-and-compost-tea?n=73

best regards

Hi Filly, I'm in North Central Florida, nearly all the roses 100+ in my garden are own root. You're right about fighting root knot nematodes with organic matter and mulches. There's Dudley Farm State park down the road from me and some of the roses at the old homestead are over 100 years old and they're on their own roots. Sounds like you are on the right track with your Rose growing.

The Austins that I have had success with here are Lilian Austin and Heritage. I have Bow Bells, it grows ok but the leaves have too many spots. I just bought Grahm Thomas which is supposed to do well here.

I have not had success with any Rugosas except for Baysies Purple. Our climate is similar to the climate where Antique Rose Emporium is located, so what does well there usually does well here.

Some of my favorite roses for Florida are Mrs.BR Cant , Belinda's Dream and Louis Philippe. I like some of Griffith Buck's like Polonaise ,. Honey Sweet and Quietness.

I think the most important mindset to growing roses organically in Florida is to not to let a little leaf spot bother you. All plants in Fl, except the artificial kind, get some leaf spot including azeleas, camellias, lantana and even native plants. People who would never think to spray lantana will panic at the least little spot on a roses leaf. They worry if they don't take immediate action, then the dieases will spread through out the Rose garden.

I don't spray at all, organic or otherwise. I don't remove diseased leaves, I don't rake up diseased leaves. If a rose variety can't thrive in my garden, it doesn't stay.

My own roots go directly in the ground unless it is late fall/winter then I would not plant very small roses. I have drip irrigation which, in the summer, runs every morning, if we do not have rain. I have very deep sandy soil. If it's very hot with no rain, I will hand water the new roses every afternoon for a couple of weeks.

Our winters can be very hard on some rose varieties. We have trouble with "die back" in the spring on some varieties. As with so many perennials in Fl, it's not our summers that kill rose plants but the winters. I thinks it's our alternating hot and cold temps that never allow for full dormancy that do the most damage. Usually the best rose bushes are the ones that don't go dormant at all.

Below are some phone photos from this week.

Prosperity, very easy, clean and can handle some shade

A Buck's Rose called Aunt Honey. Similar to Carefree Beauty, but has much cleaner foliage in FL.

Lafter, a very tall bush, very disease resistant

Another Buck's, very short, American Legacy

And yet another Buck's Rose Honey Sweet. This one gets more leaf spot than I normally would accept but the color and bloom frequency make it worth growing.

Val: Absolutely gorgeous roses !! I like your Buck's American Legacy. RU had Lafter on sale for $10, but I didn't get it .. how thorny and tall is Lafter?

Prosperity is very pretty .. I'm interested in hybrid musk like that since they can take shade & loamy & dry soil. Honey Sweet has a very nice color.

Val and FILY: How cold do your winter get? In my zone 5a winter it's wet-cold that really kill roses. We had cold rain in late Dec. that leaked through my roof, and killed a bunch of roses. A few University Extensions stated that dry-cold is more tolerable than soaking wet-cold for plants. I agree, I would rather have dry & cold socks, than wet & cold socks on my feet.

Straw- the Austins I grow own root are:

James Galway- growing into a pillar, love this rose!,

heritage- planted 3 in a triangle and its growing in strong despite 4-6 hrs of sun,

ingenious mr Fairchild- no disease in full, all day sun, does well without a lot of watering,

golden celebration- in about 6-7 hrs of sun growing slowly but tall and spindly. I hope he grows thick canes like JG,

Lichfield Angel- cane snapped off at base of main cane and left an ugly/worrisome gauge so I pruned to leave 3 inches above ground and I'm trying to stimulate basals since it looks really weird now,

Molineux- fast grower into a rounded shrub and loves to put out lots of buds and bloom in flushes. Seems like this one would be hard to kill and would thrive on neglect,

Teasing Georgia- even though this new plant is so small, it's putting out as many blooms as it can that it weighs down the canes. I hope this puts out some thick canes next spring.

Crocus rose- looks like it wants to grow into a rounded shrub, mine isn't blooming a lot but it's new so I'm glad it's putting out symmetrical decently thick canes.

i have a band of Alnwick that I want to plant in the ground tomorrow... It's trying to grow a ton of canes but it's in that little pot. It wants out! I refuse to do a year in a pot before I plant so it will grow in the ground if it wants to stay in this garden.

I have on order from RU, carding mill and Evelyn. I'm so excited!

Val- nice to hear someone else grows own root Austins in this zone! Thank you for sharing your pics! They all look like they're doing well. This year I started no spray on all my flowing plants, and tried to feed them what they needed organic since I started reading up on gardening (instead of the hubby's purchase of miracle grow last year)... This year has been a million times better! I have not had any white fly on my gardenias, my roses have all kinds of bees and wasps around them and not spider mites like last year on all my flowering plants, and everything is looking So much healthier. I am a believer in the organic route from my success with little pest and no epidemic of BS, blight and powdery mildew.

the fussy camellia, had to be renovated this spring since the hubby didn't know what it was and cut it flat on top like a hedge and it looked terrible last year! It was Also inherited from the previous owners of the house with flower blight, powdery mildew and an infestation of bugs on the underside of the leaves so I spray with neem, hand pruned a bunch of thin branches from the middle for better air circulation and cut for shape. I need to feed better bc since then I sorta neglect it since I care the most about the plants that I chose but I think I have handled the pest problem, shape and Powdery mildew problem.

Straw- last year the winter was "mild" with only a few times in the 30's. The year before it was really cold, in the teens. It even sleeted/snowed up here! They had to close part of I-10 it was so bad! As you can imagine, no one knew how to drive on black ice here, and there was no snow/ice melting equipment here to handle it so everything v shut down. By the USDA guide it is only supposed to get as cold as between 10-20 degrees in winter... I didn't winter protect last year, but I do plan on putting a layer of some fall leaves under the weed barrier this fall to help protect at least a little bit.

Fily: That's funny what you wrote: "the fussy camellia, had to be renovated this spring since the hubby didn't know what it was and cut it flat on top like a hedge and it looked terrible last year!"

One year I bought $40 worth of wild-flowers seeds .. they sprouted and hubby thought they were weeds so he killed them all. Now I'm the one who killed roses on purpose .. I killed 2 Knock-outs this year, they are not as winter-hardy as Austin roses.

I agree with you about less pests with organics. My worst years of tomato-hookworms were with chemical fertilizer 10-10-10. After such, I quit chemicals altogether, and zero worms on my tomatoes for more than a decade. I have 30 tomato plants now, zero worms, fertilized with Tomato Tone & red-lava.

For roses, banana peels and molasses do attract rose-slugs, so I prefer minerals like red-lava-rock for potassium, and pea-gravel for calcium.

Roses that can survive my extreme cold zone 5a, like Buck or Austin roses, can also survive extreme hot-temp in Florida. Val's Buck roses look really good, same with Chicago Botanical Garden ... their best-looking roses are Buck "Distant Drums" and Buck "Hi Neighbor".

I have Golden Celebration since 2011 .. it grows thick canes if adequate nitrogen & potassium & calcium is given. Golden Celebration HATED high-phosphorus fertilizer, but did well with sulfate of potash & decent nitrogen. Climbers have a higher need for potassium, versus landscape roses (single-petal & cluster blooming) take phosphorus better.

Since phosphorus and potassium compete for the same absorption in plants. UP phosphorus will push DOWN potassium. Rose tissue analysis done by U. of CA showed equal nitrogen to potassium, 1/10 of phosphorus, 1/2 of calcium, and 1/10 of magnesium. Since Florida soil is naturally high in phosphorus, a lot more potassium is needed.

The rose park nearby uses high-phosphorus fertilizer, it works well with their landscape-roses which need more branching for cluster-bloom .. but doesn't work whatsoever with Austin roses. Their Austin roses are really stingy, like 5 blooms per HUGE bush (grafted on Dr. Huey).

Evelyn has glossy-foliage, which requires more alkalinity and calcium. Pea-gravel works really well with Evelyn. Thank you for that list of Austin roses that do well in sandy soil.

Val: Thank you for the fantastic info. you gave. That's a huge temp. change in Florida's winter, yes, it's hard on plants: "We also have extreme temperature fluctuations in the winter, 80F (27C) high one day and the next day a low of 15F (-9C)."

The best looking pic. I had seen is Graham Thomas at Columbus Ohio rose park with sandy soil (fixed with peat-moss & tons of fertilizer). Graham Thomas is stingy on clay-folks.

As own-root Golden Celebration needs more water than average, best in partial shade & soaking wet clay. G. Cel. was stingy when it was dry & hot, so I moved to 4 hours of weak morning sun, soaking wet clay plus sulfate of potash and it's a continuous bloomer now.

In my heavy clay, blackspot is a problem during wet & rainy & humid. Mildew is rare, happened ONCE when I used chemical fertilizer high in salt. Rust is rare, happened TWICE when I used salty horse manure, plus salty & acidic cocoa mulch, plus acidic gypsum.

Rose are all different from each other, will post a pic. in my "experiments in fungal diseases" as proof.

Thanks Straw. Will take a look at "experiments in fungal diseases" post.

Fily: A question regarding to what you wrote: "I am thinking of mulching twice a year with my homemade compost and oak leaves underneath the weed barrier/lava rocks." I hope weed-barrier doesn't mean landscape fabric. Such weed-barrier blocks out rain water and hurt roses (higher demand for water than other plants).

My best result is a few pieces (no more than 4) of red-lava-rock FIRST, then pile up acidic leaves & organics on top. When the leaves decay it releases acid (along with acidic rain) to break down the red-lava-rock (pH 8.2).

Plants like neutral pH best. Rain is acidic at pH 5.6, same with decaying alfalfa (pH 5.8), pine bark is too acidic at pH 4, and drops even lower if soaked in rain .. so the red-lava-rocks under a layer of acidity helps to buffer and make it "neutral & safe & plus slow-released nutrients" to roots below.

Here's a pic. of my experiment, taken this morning July 10. CAUTION ON GYPSUM: works great for my alkaline clay with pH near 8 ... alkaline clay buffers the acidity of gypsum well, but gypsum was harmful to Jess' acidic-red-clay, and it will be harmful to sandy soil plus acidic rain. Sandy soil doesn't have "buffer, or neutralizing" ability against acid like my alkaline clay.

Dolomitic lime raises the pH too fast for Austin roses (prefer slightly acidic). The safest would be red-lava (pH 8.2) for potassium, and pea-gravel which raises the pH much slower, plus supply calcium/magnesium lacking in sandy soil.

If tiny pea-gravel is not available, Azomite dust is 2nd best at VERY SMALL amount .. it's sold cheap on Amazon $10 for 5 lbs (supply potassium, calcium, plus a bit of salt). Sandy soil leaches out salt easily, so the 0.1% salt in Azomite is no problems. Re-post today's info. (July 10) in my "experiments in fungal disease" thread:

Vase 1 has pea-gravel, leaves are firm & perky after 24-hours in acidic rain-water. Both blooms are perky. Pea-gravel is slow-released, so it neutralizes the pH slowly, yet supply needed minerals (calcium & copper) to keep leaves firm. Zinc, copper, and calcium are anti-fungal agents.

Vase 2 has dolomitic lime (pH near 9) .. that dissolved too fast and made the solution too alkaline. Pink Peace (French Meilland) rose likes alkalinity, bloom looks good & more petals thanks to slower opening. But Mary Magdalene, an Austin rose, can't handle such alkalinity and wilted immediately.

Vase 3 has gypsum (acidic with 17% sulfur) ... that dissolved immediately and brought the solution from pH 5.6 (rain-water) to very acidic below pH 5, which resulted in WILTING of Pink Peace, but Austin rose Mary Mag don't mind, bloom still perky. But leaves of both become limp & wilt in this acidic solution.

I will keep them soaking until day 3 & day 4. Normally Pink Peace break out in blackspot if soaked in rain-water for more than one day. All leaves are clean, but I don't like how limp & wilted leaves are in the too-alkaline and too-acidic solution.

Vase 2 has dolomitic lime, but calcium is NOT available due to tied-up with magnesium at high pH. Vase 3 has readily available calcium (gypsum), but the 17%sulfur component of gypsum is too acidic. Below is pic. of pea-gravel:

Valrose: Your roses are fantastic. Really like Prosperity, Lafter and Honey Sweet. Thanks for sharing these photos.

best regards