Best Mix of Compost and Fertilizer for Roses

11 months ago

last modified: 11 months ago

I have nursed a dying rose garden back to health over the last two years by top-covering the soil with compost. There have been steady and progressive improvements in leaf density and blossoms. I want to refresh the compost, and while I am at it I can fertilize the roses. Questions:

#1: What are the minimum fertilizers I should add to a mix? I am thinking of using 1/2 Rose Tone and 1/2 Alfalfa pellets crushed to a powder, just to boost the nitrogen. Basically my thinking is that almost any commercial rose fertilizer is fine, and I am just boosting the nitrogen by adding alfalfa, which roses appear to just love. I am taking the time to crush the alfalfa pellets to powder, because when I have tried to add pellets they harden and take years to fully dissolve.

#2: If I want to just mix the fertilizer and the compost together in a wheelbarrow and then apply the mixture as the new topsoil, what ratios of compost and fertilizer should I be mixing? I was thinking maybe 10% fertilizer, so for example:

18 scoops of compost (90% of the mix)

1 scoop of Rose Tone (5% of the mix)

1 scoop of alfalfa (5% of the mix)

What would be better ratios to use?

Comments (5)

annpat
11 months ago
last modified: 11 months ago
What you call "top-covering" is really 'mulching'. And the application of fertilizer and compost is what I would call side-dressing or, I guess, mulching and fertilizing concurrently. I'd follow the directions on the Rose Tone and the alfalfa, and apply the compost mulch whenever the mulch looks thin, or is thin enough to permit light through to germinate weed seeds. I patrol, and apply my mulches year round as materials, and bare earth, present themselves.

Isn't the Rose Tone a complete fertilizer? It already contains alfalfa meal.
westes Zone 9b California SF Bay thanked annpat
westes Zone 9b California SF Bay
Original Author
11 months ago
@annpat Rose Tone is definitely a complete fertilizer. But I have seen the roses respond vigorously to additional nitrogen. It might be I am not dosing Rose Tone sufficiently and it is getting used up quickly, or maybe it releases over too long a period of time. I am open to trying different approaches.

So your recommendation was to put down the fertilizer first, then mulch with plain compost on top of that?
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I know there are several out there growing roses in the/a gritty mix and do very well with it - perhaps they'll reply so you don't have to take a biased opinion. ;o) We know that roses don't especially like a high % of N in their diet, & most growers will purposely limit N to near actual deficiency levels. Though I don't agree there is ANY benefit in supplying high amounts of P in their (roses) nutritional program, I'd have to defer to any rosarian that is truly experienced in growing roses in containers. I can't imagine how a plant could ever actually USE more P than N w/o displaying severe N deficiency symptoms. If I was pursuing the fun of roses in containers, I would start out with any 1:1:1 fertilizer that had all the minors (or I would supply the minors with a supplement) and add enough 0-0-3 ProTeKt to bring the fertilizer formula up to somewhere near a 1:1:2 ratio. Al
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PM2, your garden is so neat and tidy and welcoming! Geez, everyone here is not only more organized on paper than I am, but neater and more organized in the garden! I keep telling myself that since I'm not selling at the market this year I'll have more time to focus on aesthetics. My veggies garden is also growing shadier by the year. Again, because of not selling this year, I should have some more sunny areas to give over to veggies, but I am a flower gardener at heart, so we'll see how that turns out! CMK, honestly, I never ever had a problem with vetch getting away from me. Yes, if I didn't turn it under by the right time, it did grow and really cover that particular bed, but it has never "taken over" the garden or even reseeded much. Every now and then I see a tiny vetch vine or seedling in a nearby bed, but a quick tug takes care of that - unless I want it in that bed and I leave it there on purpose. And that one vine never really does much, so its not really much help anyway. I've never added phosphorus, but I'm really bad at any kind of balancing - I keep meaning to get a soil test, but you can guess how that turned out! So I just keep adding my llama manure, compost, cover crops, and leaves. Campanula, sorry to hear about the horse manure problem. And I hear you and Cactus Joe about never seeming to make enough compost! I have been thinking of getting chickens, but one of my main concerns is that they will take away from the stuff now going into the compost bins, lol! Love the squirrel, PM2! Well, actually, I don't like squirrels (is there a gardener who really does?) but that photo is too funny. Looks like someone got caught with his hand (paw?) in the cookie jar, lol. Dee
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[I]Why do you think those plants need more of a faster acting "fertilizer"?[/I] It was suggested to me by a master rosarian that after the brutal winter we had here my roses would benefit by a "pick me up" this Spring. I have a small farm. I regularly do soil tests on both the gardens and the pastures. In 6 years they all have come back with the recommendation to only add nitrogen. They also always show high phosphorous. It doesn't seem to matter if the test is from the pastures or the compost amended gardens. Even though past tests have come back suggesting nitrogen, the only addition the gardens have gotten has been plenty of compost. Having rich clay soil the biggest benefit from the compost seems to be improved tilth and drainage. I've not been unhappy with the results, but I had already been thinking about experimenting with additional fertilizer this year when I got the suggestion last week from the rosarian. I don't have time to do more soil tests at the moment, but thought using the 6 years of compiled info might work. Seems to me lots of folks don't test, fertilize, and things work out ok... I asked this same question in the Roses forum but thought there might be some prevailing wisdom in this forum concerning the use of compost and how or if it might typically need anything to balance things.
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Marlene, ideally I fertilize my roses organically with an organic rose fertilizer (three times a year) and alfalfa meal (2 times a year), since my soil seems to be very poor in terms of nutrients and I have the impression that they leach out quickly, too. I have read, that it is recommended to remove the mulch and put it back after you have applied the fertilizer and scratched it into the soil, but I have never done that. It is just too much of an effort for me. I just scatter the fertilizer around the rose on top of the mulch, scratch it into the mulch, and water it in very well. It seems to work just fine for me. I definitively know what you are talking about regarding that it is sometimes a pain to scratch the fertilizer into the soil and crawl around underneath the rose, to get it close to the center of the root ball, even though I only scratch it into the mulch :-). For that reason I have fertilized some of my roses just once this year! After reading about other people experiences here, I may try to only water the fertilizer in and that's it. I assume, that it might take the fertilizer a little bit longer to act, but that is better than to fertilize my roses not often enough, because it's just too exhausting.
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annpat
11 months ago
It doesn't really matter. The Rose Tone probably gets watered in. Lots of us use compost as a renewable mulch. I like a compost mulch because mine is loaded with worms and worm poop---so slightly fertile---and I like its natural color. Your rose is responding well to the compost mulch you gave it, so I would always keep it mulched. Fertilizing should be done whenever, and however, it's recommended for roses. You can apply mulch at any time. I apply mine far more liberally than I see recommended here.
westes Zone 9b California SF Bay thanked annpat
subk3
11 months ago
last modified: 11 months ago
Another twist on the same theme is alfalfa tea with a dose of fish fertilizer added right before application.

I also top dress with manure compost . (Sometimes more manure and sometime more compost depending on how impatient I am for top dressing from the time I clean a stall!) And that is my favorite combination. I've regularly soil tested my farm and I consistently have "very high phosphorus" and "high potasium" and since those two don't move around or deplete very fast, I too am moslty interested in focusing on nigtrogen.

I have my tea/fish fertilizer recipe around here somewhere if you are interested...
westes Zone 9b California SF Bay thanked subk3
charles kidder
11 months ago
I would just use rose tone. If you apply a lot of N, you'll likely get a lot of leaf and cane growth, but fewer blooms. I use shredded hardwood mulch instead of compost because it holds moisture in better and prevents weeds from growing. It decays over time to add nutrients to the soil.
westes Zone 9b California SF Bay thanked charles kidder

Best Mix of Compost and Fertilizer for Roses

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annpat

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Best Mix of Compost and Fertilizer for Roses

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annpat

westes Zone 9b California SF BayOriginal Author

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annpat

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charles kidder

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westes Zone 9b California SF Bay
Original Author