Building a rose care programme

Hello again,

So, a novice rose gardener here. Having learned that my garden conditions (very sandy) might not be ideal for roses, I have already planted a fair few and I'm determined to give it a go.

I've been browsing this forum to figure out a good regimen for year round rose care.

One thing I'm curious about it spraying. I've said before that I'd like to avoid this if possible, mainly for the side effects on beneficial creatures. However, are there other intrinsic benefits - would this make for stronger roses over time as they have had to fight off pests, fungus and disease themselves, or is that a fantasy?

Is natural soil improvement better than the chemicals? Manure/mulch and FB&B etc?

 

Most plants become more vulnerable to pests and diseases when they are stressed due to unsuitable growing conditions or extremes of weather like drought, cold and wet. Keeping them well watered and fed with healthy soil is better for the plant and environment than using synthetic pesticides and chemicals.

 

I wouldn’t worry, spraying Roses is not done by many very successful Rose growers.

 

If your roses are well fed and watered they will be more resistant to disease. Greenfly can be rubbed iff with your fingers or sprayed with soapy water.

Most roses start the season well but as summer wears on a lot do show signs of blackspot and even rust. I don't bother about it. I just gather up the dead fallen leaves when weeding and put them in the bin. Don't put them in the compost. In winter I remove diseased leaves that haven't fallen.

Some roses are more resistant than others.

 

Like @Busy-Lizzie I don’t worry about rust or blackspot. I’m probably lazier as I don’t always tidy up and dispose of any fallen leaves.

I was vigilant for a couple of years, removing diseased and fallen leaves, but in my experience, it didn’t seem to make much difference. I think some roses are more susceptible than others but they all mine seem to recover and still flower well. I find the level of rust/spot seems to vary naturally year to year, some bad and some will very little.

 

Not really a programme, but this is what I do. My roses are in clay, but I imagine adding organic matter will still be useful with your sandy soil. Of course it helps to choose the more disease resistant varieties — mine are David Austins (with a ‘best for health’ tick), a Pheno Geno and a Flower Carpet.

• No spraying. When I started growing roses, seeing aphids covering the buds really dismayed me, but I began to notice all the predator insects/birds that came to feed on them, so now I get quite disappointed when there aren’t as many aphids on my roses… Spraying to stop fungus/rust, well I think it’s more important to have good ventilation (through pruning, regular deadheading and probably getting positioning right and avoiding overcrowding) and if I get some blackspot, usually later on in autumn, I just cut off the affected leaves that look really bad. Sawflies I kill on sight, removing leaves with the waving little caterpillars.
• Pruning and mulching with manure compost in late winter/early spring
• Empathy rose food in spring just when the leaves start to come out, trying to time it before heavy rainfall; maybe I’ll try the David Austin one next time
• From May, weekly watering with liquid seaweed feed (Envii Seafeed Xtra) for potted roses; the ones in the ground get liquid seaweed less often, if or when I remember
• Regular deadheading
• Picking up all fallen leaves from the ground in autumn/winter — I don’t have many roses so it’s not as much of a chore, but as @Butterfly6 said it may not really be needed

A few photos of my roses here. I have to say I’ve learned everything about roses from
@Mrs Hillard and the GW forum rose group, huge thanks to them!