Problems With My Roses
silverbeetle
Posts: 2
in Plants
I am a new gardener and have built up a collection of David Austin roses. They were looking lush and green and were covered in buds until we had the stormy weather a few weeks ago. Now they are a disaster - leaves turning an orange colour, yellow leaves, blackspot covering the leaves, buds dying and going really powdery, any buds which do bloom are really small.
I have cut off the affected leaves and the powdery buds. Now the bushes look scalped.
How can I help these roses and bring them back to their former glory? I am so upset about this and would really appreciate any advice. I need any solutions to be pet friendly as I have a dog.
Many thanks
0
Posts
Are your roses quite young? You have done the right thing by cutting off the affected leaves. Make sure any further leaves that drop into the soil is swiftly removed. At this time of year, all roses grow fast, and it seems that your first flush of blooms and leaves are very lush. Any extremes like storms, high winds can devastate them suddenly.
I would scrape of the top layer of soil and put down new compost/soil. It's harsh but cut the stems down a bit, but they will recover and will hopefully produce a new and better display later in the summer. Sometimes, you can plan everything, but unfortunately, extreme weather like huge rain fall followed by dry spells are enough to spoil the leaves and bud development.
Last edited: 17 June 2017 15:57:15
Thank you for the advice, much appreciated. My roses are all young - mostly bought last year, a few as bare root plants and a few as potted plants. I have fed them with tomato feed and am keeping them watered during this hot weather.
I have a few more questions:
Is the tomato feed the best feed for my roses? I have some seaweed fertiliser but I wasn't sure if the roses would like it.
How often should I feed them? My roses are all planted in containers with John Innes no 3 compost.
Many thanks for the advice
Keep taking the spent flowers of makes room for new flowers as its lets air in and takes away the damp old petals , give the a good dose of rose food I use the granules around the base and gentle hoe it in and then give them a good watering , later on keep giving them the sea weed mixture its a all rounder food and they will bounce back .
If your roses are so young, it's very likely you had a lot of fresh shoots that could not cope with high winds and heavy rain. In the first few years, concentrate on giving it a more balanced surrounding. These feeds you mention tend to help put out a lot of growth and this helps with flower production, but this can cause other problems like over lush growth and too many buds that may not be supported well with a very long arching bendy branch.
I recommend manure, plenty of good rich soil in spring time. For me, this would be compost. On established bushes, seaweed feed later on would be enough. I have never grown roses in containers, but I imagine the pot has to be very deep and the John Innes No 3 makes sense. Mulch at the base and make sure the plant is planted deep enough to cover the bud union.
Always check what type of habit the rose prefers. Giving your rose the right conditions is more important than feeding it. Planting lots of roses together can sometimes cause more issues, since transfer of diseases can be accelerated. Mid June is still a very early time for some roses, if you cut them down a bit and remove all the affected leaves, I think your roses should recover in time for another second flush.
Last edited: 18 June 2017 18:14:04