In this article let’s list out the 10 useful rose plant care tips one by one.
10. Bare Root Roses or Container Roses?
You can purchase roses already potted in soil thats container roses or as
dormant bare-root plants. If you are a beginner, container roses is the best
option, because they are easy to plant and they establish quickly. If you are
planting bare root roses, which are commonly sold online, they need to have
their roots soaked overnight in water before planting them in the soil, and the
roots must be kept always moist for the first few weeks after planting.
9. Repotting a Newly
bought Rose plant
The commonest mistake most of us do immediately repot a newly purchased plant.
Never do this. Keep this newly bought container in partial shade or indirect
sunlight for at least 3 to 4 days for it to settle down and then shift to full
sunlight or consider repotting in a new container and new potting mix of you
choice. Do not remove the entire mother soil from the plant, specially beginners.
Just tease the roots around and then
place in a new potting mix. Then after repotting, water it thoroughly and keep
it in shade for few days to prevent repotting or transplant shock which causes
the plant to wilt.
8. Drainage and Pot
Selection
No doubt, You need a well draining soil for all plants. This applies even to
rose plant. Make sure you have good drainage holes at the bottom that do not
get clogged easily. As you keep the
containers in full sunlight, plastic containers are not recommended. Clay pots
are the best and next comes the cement containers.
7. Potting Mix
Rose is a special plant and we expect a lot of flowers from it. So the nutrient
requirement for this plant is high. As you all know, Any plant requires
Phosphorous and Potassium for healthy flowering and fruiting. Keeping this in
mind while you prepare your potting. Steamed bone meal is the most important
source of phosphorous and a slow release fertilizer. One handful of it will be sufficient to
produce flowering for the entire year. You should also make a proper potting mix with
all ingredients like decomposed cowdung, vermicompost, coco peat or peat moss
and garden soil in proper proportions to make a well draining soil
6. Sunlight and
Location
Rose plant needs atleast 6 to 8 hours of full direct sunlight to produce
flowers and to keep it healthy. You cannot expect flowering without sunlight.
One more important point to remember here is its location. If possible protect
it from hot noon sunlight, like 12 pm to 2 pm sun or if this is not possible,
you can install a 50 percent green shade net to protect from noon sun,
specially in hot summer.
5. Watering
Requirement
Roses need daily watering and a well draining soil is very important and at the
same time moisture around roots has to be maintained by adding stuff like
compost and coco peat. You can add a little more compost like decomposed
cowdung or some extra leaf compost in your potting mix. One important watering
tip for roses to avoid fungus is Water early in the morning before sun starts.
Watering in evening can keep it damp and encourage fungus.
4. Fertilizer
Rose plant requires regular feeding to increase flowering both number of
flowers and also to achieve big sized roses. If you use chemical fertilizers, NPK
20 20 20 and DAP crystals that’s Di ammonium phosphate alternating every week
is sufficient to produce good flowering. But if you are completely organic like
me, Consider adding a hand full of vermicompost or decomposed cow dung in each
container every 15 days after raking or tilling the top soil. Raking or tilling the soil is itself an
important task to improve soil aeration and improve your plants health.
Then, You can also perform a foliar spray by mixing 1 teaspoon of Epsom salt in
1 litre of water once every 15 days for best results.
3. Pest Control
This is most important step. The only regular pesticide I recommend is Neem oil weekly once spray. This prevents and cures a lot of diseases and pests on rose plants. 5 to 10 ml neem oil mixed in 1 litre of water with few drops of liquid soap or shampoo. There are two most common disease attacks on rose. One is the Rose die back disease and the black spot rose disease, both are caused by fungus.
2. Dead Heading
This is another important task most of us are lazy to perform. Just pluck those
dead and fading flowers from the plant. This will conserve the plants energy to
product more new buds rather than diverting the energy in seed formation. Performing dead heading as soon as the flowers
starts to fade is beneficial instead of waiting for the flower to dry
completely.
1. Pruning or Trimming Rose Plants
This is important task most of us neglect. Do not hesitate or be afraid to prune you rose plant. You are not gonna kill it. Pruning is an important gardening secret to healthy rose bush because this encourages branching and makes your plant more bushy as a result more number of flowers. Perform at least a basic pruning what is called soft pruning in early spring season once in a year.
I have a detailed article on Pruning concepts and types of pruning.
Now! Two Bonus Tips:
Firstly About Soil PH: Rose loves slightly acidic soil. If you have a PH testing meter you can check it by dipping into your soil. Rose loves a ph of 6.0 to 6.5. To acidify your soil you can water it by mixing 10 gms of alum in 1 litre of water, once every 15 days or a month. This will certainly improve your plants health and increase flowering because acidic soil is important for nutrient absorption.
Secondly, You can add Mustard Cake Tea or Even used tea dust as discussed in my previous article on Used tea for Plants.
Happy Gardening!
Black spot rose disease is characterized by black spots on the upper side of leaves. This Fungus spreads quickly and can move from plant to plant if intervention is not done quickly. So, these are the 5 important steps to control black spot rose disease.
- Location: Carefully Choosing Your Rose Garden location is very important to prevent the development and spread of this fungus. Choose a location which receives Atleast 6-8 hours of direct sunlight and preferably morning sunlight is best so that the night time dew dries out early. Also there should be enough air circulation around the plants.
- Soil: Water should not stagnate around the plant at any cost. So make sure you have a well draining soil for your potted plant.
- Watering Frequency and method should be appropriate. Watering early morning is best way to prevent fungus so that the leaves dry out quickly rather than leaving them wet overnight by watering in the evenings.
The first three steps I discussed are mainly preventive measures and also a part of treatment of this black spot fungus in rose plants. Now moving on to the two most important steps for actual treatment or the complete removal of this problem. - Pruning: If your black spot disease is not so extensive, so soft pruning or remove only the affected leaves. Trim off all the affected leaves and branches and keep them away and dispose them safely so that your other plants should not get infected. Better use a trash bag and dispose them.
- Now before moving on to the actual remedy for black spot rose disease, we should understand the pattern of this black spot or brown spot rose disease:
- They are Circular black spots or brown spots on the leaves.
- The lower leaves tend to be infected first, and then it spreads quickly to the whole plant.
- The leaves then turn yellow and fall off.
- Then eventually the plant becomes weaker and it either blooms less or stops blooming.
Many recommend spraying with broad spectrum chemical fungicides like imidacloprid, mancozeb which is a component of SAAF powder and other like trifloxystrobin, Ziram, chlorothalonil and many others. Even Copper and Sulfur fungicides work great for black spot rose disease treatment. I think you can reserve this if your conventional organic treatment fails.
What I recommend is an Organic Solution – that is NEEM OIL SPRAY. 5ml neem oil in 1 liter of water weekly twice for 2 weeks and then maintenance dose of atleast monthly once or once in 15 days.
So, there we have it folks. That was a quick gardening tutorial on how to cure black spot rose disease. Please Share this Article by clicking on social share icons. Also comment your feedback below. Happy Gardening.
Hibiscus or Hibiscus plants have gorgeous flowers that can make any garden look spectacular. The flowers are bright and colorful with different colors like red, yellow, pink and white.
Remember: the only way to make your hibiscus produce flowers is to KEEP IT HAPPY AND STRSS FREE. And this is really not a difficult task and with very little efforts like following these 10 tips, can keep it blooming everyday throughout the year and it is actually possible.
10. REPOTTING: This is the first job you do when you bring your hibiscus plant from a nursery or a garden store. This is the most important step, because you need to mix few important ingredients into the soil during repotting and these things you will learn further as we go on with the other tips till the end.
9. CONTAINER SIZE: The concept here is: if you choose a deep container, it will focus more on root development and less on flower production. The best one is a container that is wider than the usual nursery pot, but still not too deep. This way you will make your hibiscus strong and make it produce more flowers.
8. LOCATION: the Hibiscus plants should be grown in areas of the garden that are situated away from the traffic and pollution. And also in a location that’s not disturbed by frequent movements from people and animals or even your pets. Best places with plenty of sunlight are the patios, balconies and terrace.
7. SOIL: Hibiscus prefers a slightly acidic soil and a soil rich in organic matter. You can use the well draining Universal Potting Soil plus add few extra things which will be summarised at the end of the video. Please watch my separate video on the Universal Potting Soil and Potting Mix after your finish this video from the end screen links. Anyways, During repotting, add Additional 10 percent compost like decomposed cowdung or horsedung or even vermicompost. For making it acidic, if you have a soil ph tester its really good, otherwise you can water it weekly with about 5 – 10 ml Vinegar solution mixed in one litre of water.
6. FERTILIZER: Its just a flowering plant, you can use both inorganic and organic fertlizers for this plant. You have to follow a cycle of Alternate use of NPK and DAP crystals every 15 days. You can use NPK 20 20 20 crystals about 5 to 6 larger crystals or about 10 smaller crystals into a 12 inch pot and then the next 15 days, you can use DAP crystals about the same quantity. You can watch my detailed video on NPK crystals at the end of the video from the end screen links. If you do not have NPK, you can use decomposed horsedung or cowdung powder on the top layer of the soil once every month after raking the soil.
5. RAKING THE SOIL: This is an important step before applying any fertilizer or manure to your plant. Raking the soil is recommended once every 15 days. Make it a habit to rake the soil and then apply your fertilizer.
4. WATERING: If you are growing in containers, daily watering is must and do not worry about over watering if are using a well drained soil. If its planted in ground, watering twice weekly is sufficient.
3. SUNLIGHT: Place your plant in a location where you get adequate sunlight. Atleast 6 hours to 8 hours DIRECT SUNLIGHT is compulsory for hibiscus.
2. PRUNING: Pruning hibiscus from time to time is essential for maintaining blooms in hibisucus. Remove any dead or unhealthy looking branches. You can also prune those branches which do not have buds or which have already produced flowers.
1. PEST CONTROL: The Most important factor according to me, to keep the plant healthy and blooming. Examine the plant closely for pests and insects including underside of the leaves. Common pests like whiteflies, aphids, mealybugs can be easily eliminated using either neem oil spray alone or a mix of neem oil + liquid soap in water. I have a detailed video on this topic – on 5 ways to eliminate Aphids, Mealy bugs and White flies. Please follow this from the card at the top right corner of this video or at the end screen. But first lets complete this video.
Now finally a SIMPLE HACK – Which is a nursery secret! I have already disclosed this in one of my video called Bone in Gardening. Once I incidentally found a small piece of long bone during repotting hibiscus bought from a nursery store. So, this hack perhaps keeps releasing the element phosphorous into the soil for producing good blooms in these plants. SO you can either do this or use STEAMED BONE MEAL POWDER easily available at garden stores or even online. Mix a teaspoon of bonemeal powder into the soil during repotting.
So, there we have it folks, those were the top 10 tips to increase flowering or boosting your hibiscus blooms. If you like the tips, please share it on social media and friends.