WINTER

• Soil quality is essential for good roses. Feed your roses with Dynamic Lifter, Seamungus, blood and bone and good quality mulch. Roses like a PH of 6.5.
• Buy new roses. Check to see the stems don't looked cracked or dry. Hopefully the roots aren't dry either.
• Never replace a rose with another unless the soil is changed.
• Planting requires trimming of the roots, mounding the soil up in a hole and spreading the roots over the mound. Fill hole to a level where soil covers the graft union.
• In the Orange district prune in August. Only repeat flowering roses are pruned in winter. Roses which flower only once in spring are pruned after they have finished flowering.
• Make sure your secateurs are clean and sharp. Dip secateurs into a bleach solution between roses to kill any fungal spores.
• First remove dead wood at the base, next remove any crossing branches and prune five millimetres above any outward pointing bud. For hybrid teas create a V-shape.
• Dispose of cuttings but do not add them to mulch.
• You can also move roses to a new position.
• There is no need to spray after pruning roses in winter.

SPRING

• Toward the end of September-early October feed roses using blood and bone plus sulphate of potash, Sudden Impact for Roses and any acknowledged rose food.
• When all the leaves have opened spray with a fungicide such as copper oxychloride (not lime sulphur).
• Spray the soil around the rose and under and over the rose
• Repeat spray 10-14 days later
• Deadhead as flowers finish.

SUMMER

• At the end of January, early February feed again for the autumn flush
• Spray again with similar regime as in spring
• Deadhead to enjoy roses until the end of autumn.

DISEASES

• Healthy roses can resist pests and diseases.
• There are three main diseases, all of which are fungal.
• They are black spot, powdery mildew and rust.
• Tackle them with a spray program. Consult your local garden centre.
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