Feed, water and keep the roses safe from disease and pests

Intro 

I do not claim to be an expert in growing roses.  
This blog has been created through my passion for gardening and wanting to share the experience with those like minded people that have found how relaxing and rewarding the art of gardening is.  
I will share with you how we look after the roses that we have purchased (they are happy and healthy and flowering profusely to this point so I feel I am on the right track).  
I will share what and how often we feed them, water them and how we keep them healthy and free from disease and pests.

We live in the Northern part of the East Coast of NSW, Australia, so normally weather conditions are dry winters and reasonably high rainfall in summer.  Early 2013 we thought the rain would never stop, however, stop it did at the end of May and we have hardly seen a drop since, a couple of light showers, so we are very dry here but fortunately do not have the fire problems that we have seen in the Newcastle and Blue Mountain regions.

Our hearts go out to those affected by those fires down south and our thanks to the heroes of the Fire Brigade, other services and volunteers that have selflessly been there.

What I feed our roses

Our roses are in large pots and will be for several months yet.  The roses were purchased in June 2013, it is now Oct and they are not likely to be put into the ground until June next year so I am really conscious of looking after them carefully to ensure they are in a healthy state when ready to go into the ground.  I feed them with a handful of organic pellets of chook manure and water it in well.  There are several different brands available.  I also use horse manure and when it is dry make a liquid and pour that on or use the liquid from the worm farm (more about that in a future post) Seasol is used on all our gardens so to sum it up

Feeding with one of the below:

Organic Pellets, liquid from horse manure, liquid from the worm farm or Seasol

How often I feed our roses

Every 2 weeks I give one of the above feeds

How often I water our roses

The watering will be different depending on the area you live in, soil conditions and temperature.  Due to our roses being in large pots and not in the ground that might hold water better (especially if you use mulch of some type) I am watering every 3 days giving a good soaking but not overdoing it.  Of course if we are lucky enough to get rain then it is 3 days after the rain that I will water.

What I do to control disease and pests in our roses

As I stated above I like to feed our roses every 2 weeks to keep them healthy, healthy plants are not easy prey for the diseases and pests but I also use a natural spray remedy I make up thanks to my sister who passed the info on to me that it has been successfully used in one of the large Australian Botanical Gardens, so I gave it a go and it works for me.  

3 parts water to 1 part Milk in a spray bottle and give the new young shoots a spray to protect from black spot as they are beginning to shoot and while they are young and growing.  I do this every 2 weeks or if it rains then after the rain.  Although it is primarily for the protection against black spot it does also seem to deter aphids.

There are many sprays that can be purchased for your roses, I have tried a couple but personally prefer the milk mix as it does not seem to be so severe on the leaves. Some people I know use white oil.

This information Below is from a fact sheet from the Royal Botanical Gardens

Rose Diseases 

Powdery mildew caused by fungus
Black spot caused by fungus
Stem canker
Viral diseases - most common are rose mosaic virus and rose wilt.
Botrytis blight caused by fungus
Other diseases are mildew and rust

Rose Pests

Red spider mite
Rose Aphid
Thrips
Caterpillars
White fly

The Royal Botanical Gardens Domain Site (see link below) is a good source on information on these diseases and pests.

http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/plant_info/pests_diseases/fact_sheets/pests_and_disease_of_roses

Hybrid Tea Rose Just Joey

Hybrid Tea Rose Perfume Delight

Beautiful bright pink and true to the name it is definitely a Perfume Delight

Hybrid Tea Rose Champagner

I just love this Hybrid Tea Champagner beautiful soft cream, a very slight pink shade can be seen in the cream.  Champagner is one of our rose flowers that seems to be  longer lasting than any other that we have at the moment.

Hybrid Tea Rose Blue Moon

Roses

Retirement at last and I fully intend to 'smell the roses'.  The planning of the rose garden started 18 long years ago when we built our house, it was just a rough idea my husband, Ken, had to terrace an area on the south side of the house and put in rows of roses.  Work and travel took priority for all those years and now I have reached retirement and he has 3 more months of work and then we will have the time to put plans into action for the rose garden.  In the mean time I have been working on other areas of the garden and establishing the vegetable garden and it is becoming quite productive.
We have bought Hybrid Tea Roses for the first level of the terrace and have them in large pots.  I will post pics of them in the next couple of days.  Happy Gardening