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Even if the owners are not very concerned about decorating their personal plot and use every piece of land to grow useful crops, there will still be a place for a rose on it. Of course, a bush of edible honeysuckle or irgi looks great, and well-groomed actinidia and table grapes decorate any gazebo no worse than clematis. But it is impossible to do without flowers completely. And the landscape designer will definitely give the rose a place of honor, and will organically fit it into any of the many existing styles.
But the flower will show itself in all its splendor only with strict adherence to the rules of care, one of which is feeding. If in the spring or summer we usually give the rose all the necessary fertilizers, then in the fall for some reason we often completely ignore them or use them incorrectly. And then we are surprised that the bush overwintered badly and blooms poorly. Today we will consider a very important stage of care - feeding roses in the fall.
Why feed roses
Fertilizers contain food for plants, enhance the extraction of useful substances contained in the soil by their roots. They regulate the growth processes and development of rose bushes, increase their resistance to pests, diseases, and negative environmental influences. Some nutrients enter the soil from the atmosphere with precipitation and through the action of microorganisms, but this is not enough. Roses are very demanding for fertilizing. Flowering, especially repeated flowering, leads to a high consumption of nutrients that need to be replenished.
Spring dressing, containing a lot of nitrogen, helps the bush to quickly build up green mass and stimulate the formation of buds. In summer and autumn, the need for nutrients changes, first they promote the development of shoots and support flowering, and then they help the wood to ripen and winter successfully. But that is not all.
The lack of a particular nutritional element immediately affects the appearance and health of the rose. The bush begins to ache, which leads to its weakening, and sometimes death.
Autumn feeding of roses
Before feeding the roses in the fall, let's briefly look at what chemical elements fertilizers are made of, and find out how they work.
Types of nutrients
The substances necessary for the successful development and flowering of bushes are divided into basic, additional and microelements. All of them are vital for the plant.
Roses need essential nutrients in large quantities. They are called macronutrients:
- Nitrogen is a building material for all parts of the plant. Promotes the growth of green mass - leaves and shoots.
- Phosphorus is needed for the normal development of rose bushes and root growth. It accelerates the ripening of the shoots.
- Potassium is involved in the formation of buds, increases the resistance of roses to diseases, adverse external influences.
Additional items are required in limited quantities. It:
- Magnesium is a very important element in the life of roses. With its lack between the veins, reddish necrotic spots are formed on the leaves, while an excess will lead to poor absorption of potassium fertilizers.
- Calcium is needed for the development of both the aboveground and underground parts of the rose bush. With its lack, the development of roots stops, the buds fall off, and the tops of young shoots dry up.
- Sulfur is involved in redox processes and helps to mobilize nutrients from the soil.
Trace elements should be present in rose fertilizers as traces (vanishingly small doses).These are iron, boron, manganese, sulfur, copper, zinc, molybdenum. Despite the scanty amount of microelements, roses are vital, in their absence, the bushes lose their decorative effect, get sick, and sometimes they can die.
Organic fertilizers
Fans of organic farming can completely abandon mineral fertilizing by using organic matter - ash, bird droppings, manure or green fertilizers.
- Ash contains a lot of potassium and calcium, little phosphorus, but nitrogen is practically absent in it. Burned plant residues serve as an invaluable source of trace elements and protect rose bushes from many diseases.
- Manure is an excellent supplier of nitrogen, it also contains other essential nutrients and trace elements, but in much smaller quantities. It is strictly forbidden to use pig waste to fertilize rose bushes - they clog the soil and are capable of destroying any plant.
- Bird droppings contains much more nitrogen than manure, and less other nutrients.
- Green manure prepared by fermenting plant residues. Depending on the source material, it contains a different amount of nutrients, only there is always a lot of nitrogen. As a fertilizer for roses in its pure form, it is rarely used. Usually ash or minerals are added to the solution.
What dressing do roses need in autumn
The main purpose of the autumn dressing of roses is to prepare for winter. We need the bush to get stronger and the maximum number of shoots to ripen. If, before the onset of the dormant period, nitrogen fertilizers are used that stimulate growth processes, the result will be the opposite. The green mass will receive an impetus for further development, instead of throwing all the strength into the ripening of already existing shoots.
From this it follows that the autumn feeding of roses should consist of phosphorus-potassium fertilizers. At this stage, these two elements are vital to the bushes. Potassium will help roses to survive the cold better and strengthen the immune system, while phosphorus will allow the wood to ripen and strengthen the shoots.
Starting from the end of July for the northern regions and the beginning of August in the south, no nitrogen-containing fertilizers are applied for roses. In late summer, some gardeners use manure to feed the bushes. This cannot be done, since with rains or during irrigation, the nitrogen contained in them passes into the soil, and from there it is delivered to the roots.
Rules for making autumn dressings
Most experienced gardeners apply rose dressing twice in the fall. The first time - in late August - early September, the second - either during Indian summer, or just before the frost. If you don't have the time or financial capacity, be sure to apply the fertilizer at least once.
The first autumn feeding can be given both in liquid form and in granules. Special nitrogen-free autumn fertilizers for all types of plants have now appeared in retail chains. True, they are much more expensive than universal ones. If finances allow, you can just buy a finishing top dressing for roses, use it according to the instructions and calm down on that - the manufacturer himself made sure that our beloved flower received all the necessary substances.
And how to fertilize roses in the fall, if for one reason or another you cannot or do not want to buy a special fertilizer? There is a magic wand called potassium monophosphate. This top dressing is suitable for autumn care for all the plants. The drug dissolves well in water; on large areas it can be used by sprinkling it on wet soil before rain or watering.
Granular fall fertilizer is usually poorly soluble in water. It needs to be sealed in moist soil under a bush. The area to be fertilized should cover a circle with a radius of about 25 cm centered at the base of the rose.
The second autumn dressing, if carried out in a warm season, can also consist of any phosphorus-potassium fertilizer, liquid or granular. It is delivered to the roots with watering or by embedding in the ground.
If you want to feed the rose just before the shelter and the onset of frost, you can do one of the following:
- Cover the soil with difficult-to-dissolve granules of phosphorus fertilizers and scatter a glass of ash around the bush.
- Mulch the soil around the rose with well-rotted manure. Place under the bush a glass of wood ash and 1-2 spoons double superphosphate.
Residents of the southern regions, where the shelter for the winter of roses consists in the construction of a high earthen mound, do not really have to worry about which fertilizer to choose for the second autumn feeding. The bushes can be sprinkled not with fertile soil, but with matured compost.
Watch a video on the use of phosphate-potassium fertilizers:
Conclusion
Don't forget to feed your rose bushes in the fall. Not only their health depends on this, but also the quality of flowering in the coming season.
