@Sarinka I can't help with a white rose but excluding purple and yellow I offer up pink. For my 2m obelisk I chose Strawberry Hill. It is in its first year with me, having been a potted purchase in Spring, it is still totally healthy, no trace of BS or anything, and while it was slow to get going it has had flowers at all times since mid summer. Pretty with a good fragrance.
I nipped out before it got dark and found Arthur de Sansal had flowered
I am a fan of home made compost. For dry brown I sometimes weed and leave them out for a few days/weed and they crisp up nicely. Or use shredded paper. I also feed my compost with a layer from the rhubarb plant. I used a soil conditioner from the garden centre last year as a mulch. But usually any compost is good.
With feeding, I tried it too this year, but only did it about once a month/maybe fortnight if they were lucky. After speaking to a friend I had a go at mostly seaweed or a bit of Liquid rose feed, dependent on my mood. I did give them blood, fish and bone last and it did them no hard harm. There was a lot less black spot. I wondered if it was simply a better year for black spot?
Or if I was a bit more careful not to wet the leaves? I also opened up the area around them so there was a bit more airflow.
I really liked Litchfield Angel and Paul Neyron, when I saw them in other gardens, so am waiting to start making a space for them. From following this thread I have got better and treating the roses a bit more gently and they are responding.
Thanks @sarinka and @Omori feeling much better today and far less tender.
Great to hear from everyone as to what you're using for mulch and what new things you are trying. I have a compost bin but I tend to fill it for a while and then forget about it. It's full at the moment and has been sitting like that for a couple of years. It also has a lot of chicken poop in it. We grew some shrubs around it to hide it which does a great job but makes it more difficult to access. I'll have to go out and open the bottom hatch to see if it's any good.
‘I've never used it and worry about it being too stinky (is it?)’ @edhelka, organic pelleted chicken manure is odourless, except to dogs. I can’t use it except in planting holes as my girl just snuffles it up even if I fork it in and mulch over the top 🙄
In an attempt to improve the overall performance and bloom count of my roses, next year I’m ditching the DA rose food, which I think takes too long to break down in my low on organic activity soil, to a new regime... A) MiracleGro slow release granules for pots. An alfalfa tea recipe with added fish emulsion/magnesium salts/chelated iron/seaweed for in-ground roses. Plus a sprinkling of sulfate of potash at the start of bloom cycles. The latter works out far cheaper than tomato feed and the new regime also works out slightly cheaper overall, if more of a faff. I’m hoping the dog doesn’t like the whiff of it as much as the chicken poop!
I am considering mulching with pine chippings and will continue the teabag thing to help ameliorate my hard water.
All my homemade compost goes on the raised veg beds as it never gets hot enough to kill the weed seeds, so I like to confine it to one manageable area. My oak leaf mould takes 2 years to more or less rot down and after I extract the inevitable oak seedlings growing in it, I use that as a mulch mainly on the raspberry beds, where it adds woodland matter but no real nutrition - they don’t need any more encouragement!
PS - no idea where the smiley with shades came from, it wasn’t in the text I typed!!
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
@sarinka If you like the look of Boule de Neige and want white for an obelisk, get it.
Thanks for the decisive post @edhelka and oh my, that Boule de Neige is delicious, @Omori. Mouth-watering. I have just ordered one from Trevor White.
(Now just hoping my husband is at work or otherwise out this autumn when the eight roses, three dicentras, one geranium and anything else I have forgotten I ordered arrive. Lovely man, but he's definitely starting to suspect I have a secret crack habit.)
@sarinka, good luck with choosing and all new plants. I too need to keep my rose addiction secret. I have ordered only bare roots so DH wont know how many are coming and i will pot most of them in pots used by dahlias and vegetables. So hopefully all non noticeable until they flower
@nollie Re: the sunglasses I thought you were just feeling extra pleased with yourself about the miracle gro 😆 Good luck with your regime, it will be interesting to see how we all get on!
I can’t use anything stinky either. I tried Vitax Q4 and learned quickly that it was like dog ambrosia.
We all have our work cut out for us from the sounds of it! I’ve lost count but I think I have around 10 roses and a tree to sort out when it all arrives 😬 Well, that’s a problem for future me to deal with 🙃
@sarinka Ty! Hope your Boule de Neige gives you lots of pleasure, I believe @katsa has this one as well.
@Tack, meant to say, your Arthur de Sansal is gorgeous! I very nearly placed an order for it with Rosen-Stange.de along with Excellenz von Shubert (the one I really want), but couldn’t make my mind up over the third one - three being essential to justify postage charges of course. My Rose de Rescht has now got a bit of damask crud, but if it doesn’t get much worse than this by end of season, I can live with that.
The last of the Austins...
The Prince looking dark and moody, so difficult to get in focus:
Lady Emma Hamilton:
Golden Celebration:
Harlow Carr, looking very frilly:
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Posts
With feeding, I tried it too this year, but only did it about once a month/maybe fortnight if they were lucky. After speaking to a friend I had a go at mostly seaweed or a bit of Liquid rose feed, dependent on my mood. I did give them blood, fish and bone last and it did them no hard harm. There was a lot less black spot. I wondered if it was simply a better year for black spot?
Or if I was a bit more careful not to wet the leaves? I also opened up the area around them so there was a bit more airflow.
Great to hear from everyone as to what you're using for mulch and what new things you are trying. I have a compost bin but I tend to fill it for a while and then forget about it. It's full at the moment and has been sitting like that for a couple of years. It also has a lot of chicken poop in it. We grew some shrubs around it to hide it which does a great job but makes it more difficult to access. I'll have to go out and open the bottom hatch to see if it's any good.
In an attempt to improve the overall performance and bloom count of my roses, next year I’m ditching the DA rose food, which I think takes too long to break down in my low on organic activity soil, to a new regime... A) MiracleGro slow release granules for pots.
I am considering mulching with pine chippings and will continue the teabag thing to help ameliorate my hard water.
All my homemade compost goes on the raised veg beds as it never gets hot enough to kill the weed seeds, so I like to confine it to one manageable area. My oak leaf mould takes 2 years to more or less rot down and after I extract the inevitable oak seedlings growing in it, I use that as a mulch mainly on the raspberry beds, where it adds woodland matter but no real nutrition - they don’t need any more encouragement!
PS - no idea where the smiley with shades came from, it wasn’t in the text I typed!!
(Now just hoping my husband is at work or otherwise out this autumn when the eight roses, three dicentras, one geranium and anything else I have forgotten I ordered arrive. Lovely man, but he's definitely starting to suspect I have a secret crack habit.)
@sarinka, good luck with choosing and all new plants. I too need to keep my rose addiction secret. I have ordered only bare roots so DH wont know how many are coming and i will pot most of them in pots used by dahlias and vegetables. So hopefully all non noticeable until they flower
@sarinka Ty! Hope your Boule de Neige gives you lots of pleasure, I believe @katsa has this one as well.
The last of the Austins...
The Prince looking dark and moody, so difficult to get in focus:
Lady Emma Hamilton:
Golden Celebration:
Harlow Carr, looking very frilly: