@celcius_kkw Not me, Adrian, sorry.... I gave up on foliar feeds a long time ago having drawn the conclusion that they do next to nothing that way... it is said amongst the myth busters that the benefit from foliar feeding is when it rains, all that fertilizer that's been sprayed on the foliage washes off down into the soil below, where it actually gets to work feeding the rose... so you see a benefit, but not in the way you imagine it happened... ….not through the leaves anyway..
Choice is yours of course... lots of gimmicks out there.. beware...
Im really happy with my DA Boscobel, it has a few buds already. I only planted it last year and it has grown so much. I can’t wait to see it in flower.
Munsted Wood does have lovely colouring on its new growth. I’d never paid much attention to this part of keeping roses before but on my walks about the local area I’ve been spotting some really lovely looking roses. I’ll have to make sure I return later in the year to see what they are like in flower.
@Marlorena I agree, I bought Boscobel for her exceptional fragrance, one thing I did notice when I saw her at DA garden was that the older blooms ball in the rain and the fragrance quickly turns musty. But despite that the new blooms’ fragrance is truly out of this world, so much so that I could look past the issue above.
I bought a bottle of the rose tonic and found it accidentally today when I was going through my pile and used what’s left of it.. it was one of my impulsive buys from last year when I went crazy with fertilisers as some of you may remember.. the instruction says it could be used as foliar feed as well as soil drench so I just watered onto the foliage (strangely satisfying given I normally try so hard to AVOID the foliage) and around the compost.. a couple of prominent rose companies and societies seem to endorse it so I wondered if it’s out of corporate benefits or if it truly works..
@Mr. Vine Eye lovely bud there. I find my munstead wood really slow is growth compared to the other DAs somehow.. and very strangely I’m getting some buds forming already on the really short new growth.. is this normal?? I would have expected it to produce more foliage before setting bud..? I shall take a picture tomorrow and show you all.
Plants will absorb through stomata and cuticles on their foliage when temps are in excess of about 22C/72F... but this foliar feeding is something that has come across from agriculture to the home gardener... it is useful in open fields on nutrient deficient soils for intensive crop production, especially fruit plantations... and also in greenhouse growing as plants in greenhouses are more able to absorb nutrients from foliar spraying because they tend to have thinner more porous cuticles..
...for our roses the problem is, they need a higher level of nutrients than can be taken up by spraying the leaves... the only value for roses is in spraying with something that contains micronutrients like boron, magnesium, etc which the rose needs in small quantities..
..macronutrients like Potassium need to be supplied in larger amounts to be useful to roses, which is next to useless spraying on foliage as not enough can be taken up by the plant to warrant the cost and trouble, as opposed to feeding the roots...
...that's my understanding of it @Omori whilst not claiming to be an expert in this field, it's enough to make me doubt the efficacy of foliar feeding roses...
@celcius_kkw ..just saw your post above Adrian... hope it works for you, no harm in trying, just be careful it doesn't burn the foliage, I've heard that can happen...
...regarding the buds forming on small growth, yes this is quite normal... very small roses even those grown from cuttings that have barely rooted, will produce a bud and flower... ...in this way Carl at DA, their main hybridiser, is able to select about 6000 seedlings from around 120,000, because they will have produced a bloom and he can see which are worthy of further trialling... these will be very small plants.. ...all our David Austin roses we buy were likely bred by Carl Bennett, under the wing of the late Mr Austin, but this is Carl's day job...
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Not me, Adrian, sorry.... I gave up on foliar feeds a long time ago having drawn the conclusion that they do next to nothing that way... it is said amongst the myth busters that the benefit from foliar feeding is when it rains, all that fertilizer that's been sprayed on the foliage washes off down into the soil below, where it actually gets to work feeding the rose... so you see a benefit, but not in the way you imagine it happened...
….not through the leaves anyway..
Choice is yours of course... lots of gimmicks out there.. beware...
But really exciting stuff - first buds of the year spotted! Whoopee!
Malvern Hills has them developing all over.
Rhapsody in Blue:
And this one did come as come as a surprise - Vanessa Bell! Wasn’t expecting any of my new ones to be the first to start budding!
Seriously need some predators to start on these bugs!!
My sucker brush was really good though at brushing them off. I used it on all the roses, very satisfying watching the green rain!
Not to say it’s worth the extra cost.
@Mr. Vine Eye lovely bud there. I find my munstead wood really slow is growth compared to the other DAs somehow.. and very strangely I’m getting some buds forming already on the really short new growth.. is this normal?? I would have expected it to produce more foliage before setting bud..? I shall take a picture tomorrow and show you all.
..macronutrients like Potassium need to be supplied in larger amounts to be useful to roses, which is next to useless spraying on foliage as not enough can be taken up by the plant to warrant the cost and trouble, as opposed to feeding the roots...
...that's my understanding of it @Omori whilst not claiming to be an expert in this field, it's enough to make me doubt the efficacy of foliar feeding roses...
..just saw your post above Adrian... hope it works for you, no harm in trying, just be careful it doesn't burn the foliage, I've heard that can happen...
...regarding the buds forming on small growth, yes this is quite normal... very small roses even those grown from cuttings that have barely rooted, will produce a bud and flower...
...in this way Carl at DA, their main hybridiser, is able to select about 6000 seedlings from around 120,000, because they will have produced a bloom and he can see which are worthy of further trialling... these will be very small plants..
...all our David Austin roses we buy were likely bred by Carl Bennett, under the wing of the late Mr Austin, but this is Carl's day job...