I feed my roses annually with a granular feed like national growmore, tonk’s rose feed or fish blood and bone,” shares David Allison from the NSALG. using trellis, wires, hooks or nails train and tie in the main new growing stems with soft string or rubber coated wire ties through spring and summer. Encouraging the main branches or stems to grow sideways rather than straight up will help keep the flowers and foliage lower down in later years. Watering established roses regularly

I always mulch roses with good quality homemade compost or manure after any other fertilisers are added in the spring. Those in containers will require more work and are typically provided with a liquid plant feed every second week from the middle of spring to late summer. Why You Should Fertilise Roses Roses are very hungry plants and should therefore be fed regularly throughout their livesto ensure maximum blooms and growth, from first year plants through to 50 year oldramblers.We recommend a good feed of a nitrogen high feed like “ Top Rose Gold” after the late-winterprune in February, then feeding every two weeks throughout the flowering period with ahigh potash feed like “ Tomorite” or " Uncle Tom's Rose Tonic". This is also something that you can make yourself at home, using any potassium-rich leaves from plants like comfrey or other dynamic accumulators of potassium. Mulching Roses

Feeding plants in spring: transcript

We can maintain healthy soil by disturbing it as little as possible, protecting it with living roots, ground cover and mulches, and, of course, by gardening organically at all times. Feeding Roses Growing In The Ground As soon as spring arrives, plants start into vigorous growth and that needs to be supported by moisture from the soil, but also from plenty of nutrition. So, plant feeding is really crucial in the spring.

Uncle Tom's Rose Tonic is a fantastic easy to use product that acts as a tonic/rose feed to promote new strong and healthy growth. Uncle Tom's is a natural and safe product which is perfect for gardeners who don't like to use chemicals within their garden, and also this makes it bee, insect and butterfly friendly. Use every 7-14 days in periods of active growth (April to October) - starting early to prevent disease problems and encourage healthy growth from the beginning of the season, and save the ease of trying to cure an issue. This wild growth will look different, being a lime green leaf colour with a matt finish, which can overtake the growth of the correct grafted rose and eventually kill off the grafted part of the rose if not controlled. I then add a high potash liquid feed during the season to encourage good strong colours in the blooms.” Leaving the flower heads on would mean instead the rose will put all its efforts into producing rose hips with seeds inside for the rest of the summer and autumn and you will not get any further flushes of flowers in that year. With a sharp pair of Secateurs prune off the dead flowers to just above a leaf, cutting 2 or 3 leaves below the flower stalk where the stem growth is strong enough to support a new large bloom or truss of flowers Applying an annual mulchMulching roses is, for me at least, the most important stage when it comes to caring for roses and making sure that they have the nutrition they need throughout the year.