Natural Rose Care Basics

If you have frogs hopping around your roses, you are probably watering too much! Roses do not like overhead watering. Always provide either a soaker hose or a drip system for them. Regular watering is important. Avoid over watering. Slow deep watering is the best. Use a 2 gallon per hour drip head, one on either side at apprx 6 inches out. A soaker hose will work fine for this purpose as long as it doesn't spray water onto the leaves. A soaker hose can be buried or mulched over to prevent this. Dig a well around the rose to hold in the water and the compost and mulch. Mulch should be 2-3 inches deep.

Get good at making compost. Experience is the best teacher here. The better your compost, the better it will be for your plants and the more effective the organic system will be. Remember, proper nutrition is the cornerstone of the organic system and compost is its main building block. Roses love compost so feed it a cup of good rich compost once each month.

Avoid using high nitrogen fertilizers. Nitrogen is naturally provided in the organic system and is never lacking. In the organic system, nitrogen is easily available and only used when needed and in small amounts, for longer lasting results. Some natural sources of nitrogen are animal manures such as horse, cattle, llama, rabbit, earthworm casting, chicken etc.; they also provide natural bacteria, enzymes, and trace minerals.

Organic Fertilizers

Chemical fertilizers lack bacteria and enzymes essential for soil life and for nutritional exchanges necessary between plant and soil. Compost is the finest organic fertilizer you can use on your roses. However, you will need to add a good organic fertilizer, approx 1 cup per month per plant. The Organic fertilizer should be a 5-10-10 with Nitrogen no higher then 7. There are many good organic fertilizers on the market today. Read the ingredients. Avoid urea based fertilizers. Find two or more different organic fertilizers and switch between them. Or you can make your own fertilizer.

1 lb New Jersey Greensand 2 lbs Rock Dust 2 lbs Alfalfa meal 2 lbs Fish meal 2 lbs Seaweed powder, 2 lbs Earthworm Castings « lb Epson Salt 1 lb Chelated Iron Mix together, use at 1 cup per plant per month. Water well. See also organic fertilizer chapter for another version of rose fertilizer.

Minerals

Minerals in a fine form such as rock dust, granite dust, decomposed gravel, greensand, soft rock phosphate. Minerals from the ocean such as kelp meal, fish meal, seaweed powder, crushed oyster shells. Minerals from the animal kingdom such as bone meal, feather meal, minerals from animal manure.

Rock dust will help to increase the energy level of the soil and in turn will quickly raise the roses' and the soil's energy levels. This is primarily due to its high calcium levels as well as high iron, and its large selection of trace minerals, which are made immediately available to the soil and plants. To avoid the dust, rock dust can be made into a milk like liquid and sprayed on the leaves. Use only 1 tablespoonful of rock dust and 1 tablespoon of Diatomaceous Earth (garden grade only) per gallon of distilled or solarized water (Stir in a clockwise direction for 1 min then stir quickly in the opposite direction for an additional min.) Allow to settle for 5 mins. Add 10 drops Superseaweed™ or any concentrated liquid seaweed or natural fish emulsion. Strain into sprayer. Spray once per month, or daily, as long as pest infestation occurs.

BRIX.

This page was last update on: Feb 10.2013