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ROSES - Spring/Summer Season 2021

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  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited May 2021
    @celcius_kkw so very sorry to hear about the destruction. All that work! I hope your Etoile and Claire Austin will recover. Must be gutting.
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    @Nollie
    ..I've just been looking at Gap, .. very nice, I just put one in a basket, so I'm thinking on that.. I could do with another obelisk at some point..

    No idea about the i.d. of the pink rose.. not enough to go on there, need to see a full bush shot with wide open blooms on roses..

    @celcius_kkw
    ...oh gosh that's a right bummer Adrian.. so sorry.. I wonder what you can do for the future.. I do use fleece sometimes but that can be a nuisance and cause more problems with catching on the stems..

    @Athelas
    ... oh dear, something gone quite wrong ... I would suggest it's due to the bark mulch... if anybody is reading this, I do advise never to use bark chippings to mulch your roses... I've lost a whole seasons growth before using that wretched stuff... always use cheap multi purpose compost for mulching...    bark depletes the nitrogen and potassium from the soil.. the first picture is nitrogen loss and 2nd I would say is potassium deficiency..  

    I would scrape back the bark mulch, remove as much as possible,... feed with a sprinkling of balanced fertilizer, sufficient in nitrogen.. a simple Growmore 7-7-7 or similar... water in, and mulch with compost...    remove any affected foliage and prune back to healthy stems... knowing Wollerton Old Hall, it'll soon recover...  one of the most vigorous, quickest growers I've ever had..

    If anyone has had success using bark mulch.. consider yourself very lucky.. 
    East Anglia, England
  • edhelkaedhelka Posts: 2,351
    @Athelas I am with Nollie on this. It can be deficiency or toxicity - and these are actually related things. Too much of one nutrient (overfeeding) can block uptake of a different nutrient. And because you can't easily tell which it is and the compost/mulch contamination is also a possibility, watering it a lot to flush away all salts, excess nutrients and toxins is a good idea. And then you can feed a balanced fertilizer.
    The bark mulch thing is controversial. The fact that decomposing wood needs nitrogen to start the decomposing process is a scientific fact. Later, this process balances itself out, and eventually, it gives back more than it takes from the soil. But the RHS stand on this is that the nitrogen depleting effect of the bark mulch is negligible, although some of their sites contradict this and recommend waiting a couple of months if the mulch is freshly chipped/shredded.
    As most people here know, I use it (third year now). In the first year, I used a layer of manure under the mulch to combat any nitrogen-robbing effect. I add some new bark mulch every year on top of the previous layer. And I still supplement nitrogen because with my sandy soil and rainy weather, it disappears quickly. I would say my roses love it and I couldn't keep some beds weed-free without it. I also have beds without it, which are either mulched with a little bit of old compost mixed with manure or not at all, so I can compare - I would say the biggest factor for me is the amount of sun, then the general soil quality and the competition from other plants. Bark mulch or not doesn't make too much difference in my garden.
  • OliyaOliya Posts: 228
    @Marlorena thank you so much for sharing information about the mulch! I never new that!
    A friend of mine was telling me about his rose suddenly died one year and he’s always using bark mulch... I wonder if that’s what’s killed his rose.
    I’m so glad now I couldn’t get hold of bark mulch and ended up mulching with multipurpose compost!
  • AthelasAthelas Posts: 946
    edited May 2021
    Thanks @celcius_kkw, @Nollie, @Marlorena, @edhelka and @Oliya for responding.

    The bark mulch is only one layer of large old bark pieces (from a few years ago, not topped up) I arrange in a sort of loose jigsaw pattern to keep the underlayer of thick compost manure from drying, so that should be easy to pull back — after the hail! Hopefully the rain will contribute to further washing away of any toxicity in the soil/mulch.

    This is my first year actually using fertiliser on anything (Empathy for roses and Empathy for ericaceous plants) so I’ve been weighing the amounts on a digital scale like a crazy person :p Will get to the GC for the balanced fertiliser.

    Seeing everyone’s roses is wonderful, I will console myself looking through your photos...
    Cambridgeshire, UK
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    ..^ pretty picture, nice foliage on your roses... I grow Lychnis, lots of it as it seeds about, and I just like it with roses, such a cheerful plant...  and I like anything that's simple..

    @Athelas
    ..hope your rose improves for you in double quick time...  we can only guess at the problems, I don't think anybody here is a plant pathologist and to be honest, sometimes questions get asked that require more specialist knowledge that is perhaps beyond the scope of this thread...  we can only speak from our own experiences, or what we learn or see elsewhere,..  I think that's all we can do really..

    Old Wollerton will soon recover.. mine grew 8 feet in the first year, but others report slower progress.. 
    East Anglia, England
  • OmoriOmori Posts: 1,674
    Very exciting Marlorena, I have sowed some Buff Beauty x seeds but I don't know if they'll germinate. 
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