How to Grow Roses Organically

Don't believe the naysayers! You can grow roses organically. Plant wisely and grow with sound organic techniques for beautiful roses every season without chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• 1-gallon Garden Sprayers
• Anvil Pruners
• Bonemeal
• Fertilizers
• Fish Emulsions
• Hand Cultivators
• Mulch
• Organic Matter
• Rose Bushes
• Insecticidal Soaps
• Buckets

1. Start by designing your rose garden so organic practices can succeed. Choose a site in full sun and make it big enough for the roses you want to grow. Each mature bush needs one foot of space all around it to provide excellent air circuation and dampen the spread of leaf diseases.
2. Buy roses grown organically if you can, or get them from any reputable source locally or regionally. Read labels and catalog descriptions to find disease-resistant roses and favorites grown for years in your area. They'll be less likely to demand the chemicals you seek to avoid.
3. Look for roses with several sturdy, blemish-free stems. When you choose bare-root roses that's all there is to see.
4. Consider stems (or canes) and leaves when shopping for potted roses. Look for a uniformly healthy shade of green in evenly spaced leaves close together all along the stem from soil level to the tip.
5. Give your roses very well-drained soil to promote healthy roots that deliver water and nutrients to the top of the plant. Amend your soil to build it organically and consider a raised bed if drainage is a chronic problem.
6. Soak a bare-root rose in a bucket of compost tea for several hours before planting. Dig a hole in your rose bed as deep as and wider than its roots. Mound up enough of your good organic soil mixed with an equal amount of compost in the middle to spread the roots out and down from where they meet the trunk. Plant the rose so the point where the stem breaks into roots is at soil level or one inch below it if your winters are very severe.
7. Examine the roots of a potted rose before planting. If the roots grow in a tight circle, use a knife to cut a slice straight down each of its four sides. Dig a hole 2 inches deeper than the container and twice as wide. Mix your organic garden soil with an equal amount of compost and gently spread the roots out into the soil mix with your hands.
8. Mulch your roses to prevent weeds and water-stress problems, fertilize regularly with an organic rose food and establish a watering schedule.
9. Water roses deeply at planting time and at least weekly during the growing season to encourage deep roots. Time watering so leaves can dry out before nightfall.
10. Cultivate the top inch of soil around each rose and fertilize monthly with a balanced organic fertilizer. Choose between a granular type you can work into the soil or a fish emulsion or seaweed-based product you mix with water. Read the label to be sure the fertilizer contains some of all the basic nutrients - nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium - plus others needed in smaller amounts like iron and calcium.
11. Get ahead of pests organically by monitoring for their presence with traps or yellow sticky bars made for this purpose. Put one in every ten square feet of rose bed. When a population of pests first develops, start by blasting them off the plants with a strong water stream. Move up to insecticidal soap for bigger problems, then to specific organic pesticides for serious infestations if the entire bed is threatened.

Tips & Warnings

• If leaf diseases appear, try spraying frequently with 1 tbsp. baking soda in a quart of water (up to every three days in wet or humid weather).
• Use a hand pruner for roses - cut off one third of their top growth at planting time and remove any spindly or weirdly angled canes.
• Lightly prune repeat bloomers throughout the season to keep them compact and flowering.
• Steer away from hybrid tea roses for your first organic roses. Bred for flowers, they aren't usually hardy enough to sustain themselves without chemical pesticides.

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