Poor flowers on Rose bush

marknbrandon

Hi, relatively new to gardening and having my own little garden to tend to, first year left the garden to it to see what was what, 2nd year started to add my own things and now on the 3rd season.

The rosebush (floribunda / midnight blue) is on its second season of flowering,but the flowers always look really poor.

I have attached a photo, these flowers are a mix of ages,but the.most I'd say 3 days, to me they look pretty disappointing.

I only feed them with standard miracle grow food and was wondering if there was more I needed to do.

celcius_kkw

They look fine to me.. I can see a fresh bloom in the picture that looks beautiful and the foliage is healthy too. The rest of the blooms appear to have gone past their prime and you should deadhead them - this will allow the plant to produce more blooms. In terms of feeding, try using a high potassium fertiliser now that the plant is in flowering mode - tomato feed is a good option. You should probably consider mulching the base of the plant too - with wood chipping/gravel. 

Otherwise it looks like a lovely rose - some roses produce blooms that don’t last long and that’s part of its traits - just enjoy the blooms while they’re in their prime. 

Hopefully our other more experienced rose enthusiasts here can ID it for you too. 

Nollie

I agree with celcius_kkw on all points - looks healthy to me too, burgundy/purple coloured roses often age to a muddy brown, so as soon as they go horrible, dead head! They need lots and lots of water, a good mulch to preserve water and the tomato feed now they are flowering. Levington’s Tomorite with added seaweed is a good un, but don’t overdo it, I use half the recommended amount for a single tomato plant every other week. Too much potassium can be worse than none at all!

When roses are in the ground, as opposed to pots, an organic rose feed in spring and, summer, worked into the soil in a circle around the base, but not touching the stems, is perhaps a better feed option.

marknbrandon

Thanks for the advice. I'll get some special feed on my next supermarket outing.

I didn't know about dead heading, so I'll give that a go as well.

edhelka

Is the rose in full afternoon sun? Dark purple roses often do better with morning/eastern exposure. Afternoon sun can fry their blooms quickly.

marknbrandon

Yep, I'd say full afternoon sun.

As I said I am new to all this so don't really know what should go where, it was mainly a case of filling gaps in the borders 😁

edhelka

It's fine, don't worry about that. Where it is, the blooms look good for 2 days, with less sun it would be maybe 3 days... not a life-changing difference. Some roses have longer-lasting flowers, some are fleeting. Beautiful but quickly over. Just deadhead the spent flowers, there will be more soon.

marknbrandon

Thank you everyone for the help. I was a little worried about asking what I thought would be a silly question and getting trolled, but people seem a lot friendlier on here!

Mary370

Lovely rose.......