First feeding of the year

[dmoore2145]

I just pruned my 18 hybrid tea roses in zone 6A, NW NJ yesterday. They are just starting to produce leaves. What do you feed them at this time of year? A liquid, granular, high nitrogen, fast acting, etc.

 

[Sean Regan]

We feed ours a soluble feed. I don't like granualar "anything." With a liquid you have more control.

 

[dmoore2145]

Like Miracle gro for roses?

 

[Sheal]

Welcome dmoore. I'm assuming your roses are planted in the ground. If you can get hold of rotted horse manure your roses will love that to start the growing season now they are leafing up. There's no need to dig it in just lay it around the base of the roses and worms will take it down. I can no longer lift the weight so I use chicken manure pellets instead. I feed my roses three times a year, the pellets to start and from then on granular blood, fish and bone in May, then again in late July. That is the last feed of the season as they need to settle down for dormancy during autumn and winter. I don't use liquid feeds as it gets washed straight through the soil by rain. There is no need to use specific rose food which tends to work out more expensive.

 

[Sean Regan]

Welcome dmoore. I'm assuming your roses are planted in the ground. If you can get hold of rotted horse manure your roses will love that to start the growing season now they are leafing up. There's no need to dig it in just lay it around the base of the roses and worms will take it down. I can no longer lift the weight so I use chicken manure pellets instead. I feed my roses three times a year, the pellets to start and from then on granular blood, fish and bone in May, then again in late July. That is the last feed of the season as they need to settle down for dormancy during autumn and winter. I don't use liquid feeds as it gets washed straight through the soil by rain. There is no need to use specific rose food which tends to work out more expensive.

I can remember in the early fifties, as a child, visiting Hampton Court Palace, which was not that far away from where we lived in South London. We used to go every summer. In one part they had several formal beds of roses, probably about ten feet by thirty. Being a child I was impressed by the sight of horse manure completely covering these beds which had been arranged in tightly packed straight lines.

 

[dmoore2145]

Thanks, Sean