Sound like beautiful rose weather.

Is rose tone's duration of action only 1 month in Fla. soil?

rifis , Yes in one month everything gets suck down by our fast draining sand and hot sun !

It depends on the type of roses. Basically, if they continue to push growth, they're not asleep. And in 9b, you don't really get cold enough that new growth will get damaged by the cold.

I think the reason for increased frequency of feeding in Florida is 1) sandy soil doesn't hold much, 2) lots of rain washes nutrients away, and 3) the warmer temperatures mean organics break down faster.

:-)

~Christopher

Very true !

I have hybrid teas .

Feed away!!! This is the time for growth. Chili Thrips are sleeping, blooms have time to get huge, and the rain takes a long enough break to give your leaves a chance to grow without BS. Feed them now, just remember to water them too.

In cold climates we stop feeding so the rose doesn't put out a large amount of new growth just before it freezes. We want the rose to conserve that energy in the canes to start out the next season. In your climate that shouldn't be a problem. I would think as long as the rose doesn't go dormant it still should be fertilized.

The blooming slowed down in hot summer months and the roses were either small or burnt .Does that mean the roses went dormant . ?

Although I call our summers the "South's Winter" our roses never really go dormant. The reason for the small blooms is more of a byproduct of excessively rapid growth. The burnt is probably Chili Thrips damage. We will experience the moderate temperatures that roses thrive on in the next few months, warm days cool nights. Now is the time to build up your roses so they weather the stress of our "Southern Winter". Are your roses on Fortuniana?

Exactly what Kubla says. Now's the time to really get your roses going. This is the best time of year for them here in SouthFl and chili thrips are finally at bay. You need to get them big and strong so they will survive next summer. My roses are all in bud and looking their best right now. I would certainly not stop feeding them. :)

kublakan

Yes all roses on Fortuniana . I s/p everything else because they just wont thrive .Do you feed in hot summer ?

When roses go dormant there is no growth. If your roses are putting out leaves and blooms, even though slowly and small ones, it is not completely dormant. They may slow to a crawl in your hot summers but they are not really dormant.

My advice for your question about feeding in the summer comes from Geoff Coolidge (sp?) from Cool Roses. His advice is to try to not feed roses during the summer months and only cut back dead wood as needed. Thanks to Chili Thrips, the summer goal of the modern rosarian in Florida is to preserve what you have grown during the winter and spring months and keep the rose from developing new growth. I stop feeding my roses around mid June and don't start up again until September.

Wow - talk about 'turning on its head"!

Another reason to not feed in the summer is because that is our rainy season. Most of our formerly crystal clear Florida springs are now overgrown with too much algae. What I have read in our award winning newspaper is that the overgrowth is due to massive fertilization.... agriculture, suburban-ism... during rainy season. Many counties have actually prohibited the use of nitrogen fertilizers during those months. Golf courses are one exception in many places. (grrrr)

It freezes here but usually a few nights here and there in the low 30's and sometimes mid 20'sF. Then during the day it bounces back up to 60's and 70'sF. I'm still kinda confused on whether I should still fertilize in the winter here. I didn't last winter. I just kept everything watered and they bloomed but last winter was really mild. We had a few freezes and I just threw sheets over stuff. A few nights it was 26F and many of my roses are in pots and they still were ok with just sheets over them. No leaves lost or froze at all. About March I throw vermicompost that I do under our rabbit hutches on all the roses and that really wakes them up and gets them putting on a lot of new growth.

I wonder if the fertilizer runoff issue would be applicable to dry organics like the various Tones by Espoma. Those fertilizers need to break down before their nutrients become water-soluble, and they do so at slow-and-steady rates.

:-)

~Christopher

Aqua eyes

I only use the tones or Dr.Earth or organic amendments like alfalfa and manure . shouldn't be a runoff problem because nitrogen is low anyway in them .

Sultry

It is good to know that a few frozen nights will not affect the roses .

I also wonder about timing organic fertilizers and manure and epsom salts and alfalfa. Here we are fading in Dec and starting Spring maybe Feb. Our winter is rainy. Will all the goodies just wash through too far ahead of Spring if I started to put them on now? The ground doesn't freeze but the roses stall out in growth in winter. Would later application be better, more like January and February? I have fertilized less often here than sandy Florida, so optimizing to early Spring late winter might save me wasting effort.