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ROSES - Spring/Summer 2023...

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  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    Rather than a non-rose pic, I'll make a non-plant statement:

    Regarding music, my taste is more "cool" than "punk".
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    What is your expert Rosarian view on companion planting of Roses with Salvias, because of their Sulphur giving property, helping to prevent black spot?
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    @newbie77
    Lovely at its best isn't it... I used to have it for some 8 years in a pot then it suddenly died on me.. I used to get I think 3 flushes a season from it.. I found it to be hardy through my winters unprotected..
    East Anglia, England
  • newbie77newbie77 Posts: 1,838
    @punkdoc, my salvias didn't make any noticeable difference to blackspot. They did look good with roses as colour combination. 
    South West London
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Sorry, a bit late responding to some tags..

    Marlorena, yes I’m not so far ahead of the UK as I would normally be, some really cold spells set everything back a bit. Everything is racing away now though, but we’ve had really bad frosts as late as April 18th in the past. Four days to go..

    @cooldoc, €358.85 bill for cleaning the petrol out of the diesel tank! The culprit, OH, paid of course. At least I got my car cleaned for free 😆 

    @Mr. Vine Eye that’s inspired just using the vine eyes to tie in roses in narrow vertical spaces. You make me want to get a Malvern Hills, but don’t think my climate is right for it, sadly.

    I had an Albrighton Rambler once, but found it lacking in vigour. I bought it to scramble up a small tree but it was entirely the wrong choice. I was comparing it to Crimson Shower bought at the same time though, that fiercely romped away in year 1. 
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Someone (Alexander?) recently asked about using spent coffee grounds on roses and this was something I was looking into recently since I drink a lot of coffee.

    While loads of amateur blogs say yes it’s brilliant and really good for your roses - well, any organic matter you add to your soil is generally a good thing and the worms love it - but scientific studies carried out in the US were more cautious..

    The consensus (of the ones I read anyway) was that it’s fine in moderation early in the season because of the nitrogen content, but not to excess and not in repeated applications because you don’t want to upset your soil’s NPK balance. There is also a lot of residual caffeine in the grounds and this can be toxic at high levels. [I suspect by ‘excess’ and ‘high’ we’re talking a shedload from starbucks]. Dried grounds used as a thick mulch around roses can become hydrophobic and suppress soil oxygen levels. It does not acidify soil, as often claimed, nor does it repel pests.

    So the upshot seems to be that it’s no substitute for a balanced rose fertiliser with trace elements but a useful early nitrogen boost when used moderately and mixed in a little with the surrounding soil/mulch to prevent it becoming a water-repelling pan.

    Many seemed to agree that it’s far easier and more beneficial to your garden generally to just add spent grounds to your compost heap.
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
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