I have had my rose bushes for 3 years; planted in the same spot. The last two years, I've had big, beautiful blooms from spring until fall. This past winter, I did not get to prune my bushes back until late spring, and I had hardly no blooms and the ones I've got now are far and few between, and small. I have fertilized them with a slow release formula, and I water when I'm supposed to. I dead-head the few blooms I do get, but nothing seems to help. The leaves are healthy and green and I keep the insects off of them with a powder that I put only around the base. I have a variety of bushes, (I really don't remember what their names are.) Two bushes have turned out very small, like minatures with mauve blooms. Two bushes are cream, tipped in pink, two are red, and one is pink. I live in Texas, north of Houston; very hot here. Does anybody have any suggestions, or am I doomed until next season??
Thanks,
Kellie
Hi Kellie, Sounds like you are tending them with good TLC, but that late pruning seems to have set them back. Roses bloom on terminal growths – the tips of the newest canes. You chopped off the new spring growth that had all the resources ready to perform as before. Keep taking good care of them and I expect they will produce enough new growth to give you a bumper bloom in fall.
In my difficult soil, the rose bushes go nearly dormant when temps are around 100. During mid-summer in this No. Central Tex garden, their blooms are fewer and smaller. I began some bare-root ones in large pots this year and have been impressed their better performance in the ideal growing medium, compared to those in the heavy-dirt beds.
Gail and I are big on foliar feeding. I put products such as liquid seaweed, humate and fish emulsion in a no-clog hose-end sprayer (and a dollop of non-phosphate soap), hit the borders with it every 2 or 3 weeks. The light feeding gives plants more strength to tolerate stress and overcome setbacks. Homemade compost, animal waste compost and degrading mulch provide my beds with nitrogen. Plus, I have supplemented this clay-based earth with rock phosphate to improve bloom production. If your bushes haven’t pulled out of it by next spring, consider having the soil tested at a lab or thru your county extension agency to see what else might be going on. In the meantime, your good intentions and attention towards them is the best medicine.