ROSE RAMBLER 19.2.2015 …

Hello dear rose friends as I recall that this time last year, I was head down writing my book ALL ABOUT ROSES.  I was sharing that experience whilst speaking with a lovely bunch of gardeners at the Hobson’s Bay Garden Club earlier this week – lots of them purchased a signed copy of the book after I told them how readers had told me they use the book as a constant reference … it has the organic spray management recipe in it, there are very useful tips about mulch, fertilizing and watering.

ALL ABOUT ROSES is a very handy book which covers all aspects of rose growing – buy yourself a copy and also put it on your ‘gift list’ for a gardening friend!

WATERING THE ROSE GARDEN …

Don’t let up on watering the garden even though there’s been a bit of rain!  Noticed that some of our ornamental trees are stressed so we are on a mission of deep soaking, seaweed solution application and layer of mulch around every single tree in the gardens.  Phil Kenyon, our Arborist was here this week removing more native trees that have succumbed since the Black Saturday fires and he told us that a tree will grow 40% more in a year when it is adequately mulched!  Roses are no different!

It was a very worthwhile project to have a professional Arborist give an assessment of all the trees in our garden – highly recommended consultancy if you love your trees and want them to continue flourishing!

GRA’S GARBLE …

PRUNING ROSES IN TIME FOR AN EVENT

If you have a special event in your garden during the coming months, you can trim your roses so that they are flowering magnificently on THE DAY … when I say ‘trim’, I want you to take stems about 15cms (6”) long and cut just above an outward facing bud.  This forces the stem to produce a very strong shoot that will be loaded with flowers within 55 – 60 days … its magic!

After you’ve trimmed, lightly fertilize the ground around the bushes, mulch if necessary and water over the organic rose management program.  If you use seaweed solution with a bit of eco-aminogro (or other fish emulsion type liquid fertilizer) every fortnight you’ll be amazed at how rapidly the bushes will produce masses of blooms in time for your event.

I turned over a compost heap yesterday and am impressed with the humus content – corn growing nearby needed watering so the compost heap has been regularly watered too.  If you are composting your putrescible waste, frequent watering will hasten that waste turning into beautiful humus which you can then apply around the roses and veggies.

ALWAYS place mulch over the humus to retain all those precious microbes!

Here’s my joke for this week … Q. What do you call an elephant in a phone box?  A. Stuck!

OUR ROSE OF THE WEEK …

This amazing rose has an incredible range of colours – dark orange/chocolate brown/blue-grey … these are all my own photos of HOT COCOA which is a continually free-flowering, tall growing bush with the most glossy, healthy foliage – very highly recommended rose!