Today, I dug the grass and weeds from around my rose bushes. I have eleven of them. Ten are Blaze climbers and are along the fence between us and the neighbors. Someone gave us the other one and it's not marked so it will be a surprise when it blooms. I don't think it's a climber though. Anyway, I made a little water well around them. I was going to apply some fertilizer the other neighbor gets from a ranch. It's dry and aged. dr said he thought roses needed a more specialized food. I had some Miracle Gro for shrubs and trees so I mixed it up and applied it to the roses and the little trees we bought and the crepe myrtle and the lilac bushes. It wasn't rose food but there was a picture of roses on the box. I planted the roses last year in May and they didn't do much last year but this spring they are really growing and getting tall and have lots of leaves. I'm hoping for lots of flowers. Do you think I could alternate feeding them the ranch fertilizer and the Miracle Gro. Do I need to get the Miracle Gro rose food? Generally all I do is water them but since they didn't do very well last year I thought they needed a boost. dooley
I don't use a specific rose food Dooley. All I do to feed them is dig some of our home-made compost in around the plants every spring and they seem to be happy with that.
I use well-rotted steer manure, applied in early spring (now), and after the first flush of blooms. Then in August or September I give them another feeding to encourage the fall growth/blossoms. Our roses are either "antique" roses or David Austins and are pretty hardy. If you want to encourage blooms, use any fertilizer that has a high middle number (for example, 10-20-10).
