Growing Roses – Don’t Kill Them With Kindness
Picture this: You enjoy growing roses and one of your beautiful rose plants is starting to turn up its heels. The leaves have been yellowing and falling and the shoots are starting to die off.
You don’t know what could be the problem. You give it a good watering every few days, but it doesn’t seem to be helping – in fact the rose plant just keeps looking worse.
It is often at this stage that you think maybe it needs some fertilizer. So you go get some rose food and spread that generously around the base of the plant. STOP. This is the worst thing you could do for it.
When growing roses, we think that when a rose plant looks poorly all we need do is give it some fertilizer. It makes sense to give it some nutrients we think – there may be something lacking in the soil. Before I became a horticulturist that’s exactly what I would have thought.
However when a rose bush is looking sickly the last thing it needs is fertilizer. You’ll just put an already stressed plant under more duress. You need to put on your detective cap and get up close and personal with your rose. Get your gloves
At the drip line of the rose (the outer of edge of the plant) gently dig a small hole about 4 inches deep to see if the soil is saturated wet. Poorly drained soil can often be the problem when growing roses that have yellowing leaves which fall off and whose shoots die back. The soil can often have a really damp musty smell to it as well if it’s poorly drained.
If it was a disease like black spot or anthracnose, which can also cause leaves to yellow and drop off, you would notice black spots on the leaves.
What to do:
You can’t leave the rose bush there as it will eventually die from lack of air around the root zone – the roots rot and stop growing. Roses need air in their root zone as well as water for the roots to develop properly and be able to carry water and nutrients up to the rest of the plant.
If your rose is not looking too worse for wear relocate it to an area that has better drainage. Trim back the shoots to living wood and don’t feed it with any fertiliser until it’s re-established – at least not for a couple of months, and then only at half strength.. You could give it some extremely diluted liquid seaweed a couple of weeks after its relocated to give it a boost along, but make sure it is very much diluted.
Growing roses can be an enjoyable and rewarding hobby but when they start looking unhealthy don’t reach for more water or the fertilizer, go check the soil first.
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My husband and I planted several healthy looking bareroot rosebushes, and they are just not doing well. The new growth is spindly, pale, with narrow leaves and weak stems. The few buds we got are misshapen. We added soil amendments prior to planting, have added rose food, fish emulsion, bloodmeal, with no results. We are using soaker hoses, and the water drains through within 5 minutes. They get 6-8 hours of sun daily. What are we doing wrong? We are very frustrated-need help!
@Cynthia
What kind of soil amendments did you add to the soil and how long were they in the soil before you planted the roses? If it was composted cow manure that you buy commercially in the bag or bagged compost from the plant nursery then that’s OK to add to the soil just before planting. However if it was some type of manure that hasn’t been aged or composted it could be burning the newly forming roots. Also you haven’t used any herbicides around the area where you’ve planted the roses? Herbicides used around roses can result in the spray drift from the herbicide going on to the roses and it developing narrow misshapen leaves and buds. You shouldn’t be adding any rose food, fish emulsion or bloodmeal to newly planted bare root roses until they start actively growing and have established themselves as the newly forming feeder roots will get ‘burnt’ by all these soil additions. These newly forming feeder roots have very fine hairs on them that can be easily damaged by fertiliser burn and this is one of the most common causes of death in newly planted roses.
Hi there. Great article and the site also. I’m interested to hear your thoughts on how Roses respond to used coffee grounds being used as an occasional fertilizer. Do you have any experience in that area?
Hi Shane
I liked your site too and its message about not wasting coffee grounds and using them in the garden. I have never used coffee grounds around roses or any of my other plants but your question got me researching the use of coffee grounds as a soil improver. In an interesting article written by Linda Chalker-Scott Ph.D, it appears it can be used as a mulch or in your compost pile but with certain restrictions. For anyone interested in doing this be sure to read the very informative article here:http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Coffee%20grounds.pdf
I bought some rose plants about two months ago and they now look quite dead (no life above soil.) Could there still be life in the root system? If so, should I just leave them and keep the soil moist
Hi Dave
I would leave them in for a bit longer, keep the water up to them, but do not feed them anything. See if any new buds start developing along the shoots (give them 6 weeks) and if still nothing I’d say they’re dead and you’ll have to replace them.
Greetings ~
I live in North Texas and have a climbing rosebush that was given to me by my family several years ago. The tag said “antique yellow roses” – that was all. It’s grown quite large & bushy at the top, blooms well, but the bottom from the soil up to about two feet was basically a bare stalk. About a month ago, I was rinsing out a pitcher in which I’d mixed up canned cat food & poured the rinse water onto the base of the rosebush. (Our area is on watering restrictions.) After two weeks of this, new growth popped out of the bare stalk and I noticed more roses were blooming than usual. It’s been two more weeks, and now there are two new branches growing from that stalk at a very fast rate.
Are roses SUPPOSED to like cat food? My family is teasing me now, saying my roses have become carnivorous, and to expect them to start meowing. I’m hopeless with plants (obviously), but I love my roses & I’ve tried very hard not to kill them.
I’ve never put any kind of chemical or fertilizer or them – I just water them and then back away. I do cut the blooms off to enjoy, as they only last a day or so.
I’d appreciate any advice. It won’t hurt my feelings if you laugh – we’re laughing here already. But my roses could use your help to survive.
Cheers,
Sami
Hi Sami
you did make me smile for sure. Roses aren’t supposed to like cat food and I wouldn’t be fertilising them this way. You mention that you have never fed your roses fertilizer so maybe it’s time to start. You would be pleasantly surprised at how well they would respond. Just grab any type of rose fertilizer (there are plenty on the market) and follow the directions to the letter. A lot of people try to over fertilize their roses by doubling the recommended dosage rates thinking the more the better, but that can be lethal for them. If you just follow the directions you can’t go wrong. Make sure you water the soil well before applying the fertiliser, fertilize them every 6 weeks in the growing season (Spring and summer and early autumn) and you will be rewarded with an abundance of blooms and a robust plant. I am also a big fan of using liquid seaweed on my roses as well – it helps the soil and disease resistance of the rose plants. Best of luck with your roses
I have 6 knockouts planted on a hill in front of my house that I put in about 3 yrs. ago. Up until this year all were doing well. Now the largest on has turned yellow- leaves and stems,right down to the soil. I tried trimming it back but it just grew back and turned yellow again. The leaves turn brown and fall off also but it still blooms. I don’t think it’s getting over watered as it’s on a hill and well drained. Like I said, all the others are fine. Can you help me with this ?
Hi Robyn
This sounds unusual – that only one of the six is affected in this way. If it was a fungal disease or a pest you would think it would affect the other rose plants next to it. Leaf yellowing and leaf fall can be caused by a number of things. If I were you I’d check the plant very closely, esp at soil level. Next time you water them, water as usual and then go and check the soil of this unhealthy plant. Have a poke around of the soil at the base. Is the water penetrating through to the roots. Is it draining away or is the soil still soggy compared to it’s neighbor. Have a good look at the plant itself. Is there any evidence of pest attack or webbing under the leaves or on the stalks? Any evidence of fungal disease? Check the stems esp where they join the branches – any sign of boring insects? It could be a nutrient deficiency in the soil. You could do a pH test of the soil with one of those home pH kits to check that’s OK – if the pH is too high or too low, that can stop certain elements being made available to the plant. There could also be some type of nutrient deficiency in that particular section of soil. I’d check all these factors to see if I could find the cause of the leaf yellowing. Good luck.
the flowers on my roses only last about a week.what do you think is wrong?
Hi Lockhart
that’s not unusual for roses to last on a rose bush for a week