Fertilizing roses – tips for rose fertilizer

The fertilizer, along with the water, is the nourishment of your roses, and it is best to put this diet together naturally, if you know which nutrients are already contained in your soil. There are several ways to get on the track, some of which are very precise and the others a little more focused on the general overview:

1. Rose nutrient analysis
You can carry out a special soil analysis of the soil around or for the roses. Such soil examinations are offered under the keywords rose nutrient analysis, rose analysis or rose nutrient analysis. You submit a sample of your soil, which is then examined for the presence or absence of the nutrients your roses need.

This analysis is usually very comprehensive; all possible nutrients, including minerals and trace elements, are examined. You will receive a detailed analysis result and an equally detailed recommendation as to which combination of fertilizer your roses are missing.

2. The simple soil analysis
The minerals and trace nutrients are important, safe. But they are also present in sufficient quantities in any garden soil that is more or less normally cultivated. If you find a special rose nutrient analysis a bit exaggerated, but you are not entirely sure whether the quality of your garden soil is e.g. If, for example, it is still not quite optimal due to past overfertilization, you could also have a simple soil analysis carried out; you can find out in your local community who is examining soil samples in your home town.

Such a sample should be taken in spring at the beginning of vegetation. With the deep-rooted rose, you should take the sample at a depth of at least 60 cm, i.e. in the subsoil, into which the roots of a rose extend. The result of the analysis gives you information about whether everything is fundamentally in order with your garden soil, whether you should make adjustments in individual nutrient areas or whether a more thorough soil renovation might be appropriate.

It is not unlikely that the analysis will show that your garden soil is more likely to be oversupplied – most garden soils in Germany are already over-fertilized with both phosphate and potassium, as the statistics of the soil laboratories confirm every year. Some of the soils in our home gardens are massively over-fertilized, and the phosphate content in particular is very often alarmingly high. This is because around 90 percent of hobby gardeners only fertilize by feeling without prior soil analysis, and they also like to use complete mineral fertilizers that have far too high levels of phosphate and potassium.

So a soil analysis is the safest way to determine the right fertilizer, how you can put together your own fertilizer from the results of such investigations, you will find out below, now it comes down to the time of nutrient supply and the soil preparation, the nutrient supply without the use of minerals Complete fertilizer facilitates:

When should the roses be fertilized?

Like every plant, the roses only need an external supply of nutrients during the growth phase, so fertilization is only used in spring and summer, not in autumn and winter when the roses are resting. The roses should receive the last fertilizer at the end of July, otherwise they will continue to grow unchecked and the new shoots will not be able to lignify enough by winter, they will remain very tender and could freeze to death.

Good soil preparation ensures better utilization of nutrients

Any plant thrives best in good soil, which should, however, contain some nutrients for the vigorously growing roses. These nutrients are best introduced in the form of organic fertilization, because this has other advantages in addition to the supply of nutrients.

Organic fertilizer usually consists of residues of plant or animal origin in which the fertilizing substances are bound in certain compounds. They are usually contained in such a way that they first have to be broken down by microorganisms in the soil before they are available for the plants. That is why they work over a longer period of time, the risk of over-fertilization is much lower, and they are also washed out less quickly than mineral fertilizers. The use of mineral fertilizers, in which the fertilizers are usually bound as quickly soluble salts, is only recommended in exceptional cases in the home garden, not only because of the above-mentioned risk of overfertilization,

Organic fertilizer is not only a supplier of nutrients for the plant, it also nourishes the bacteria, other microorganisms in the soil and saprobionts such as earthworms, which live from decomposing dead organic matter. In doing so, they break down the fertilizer, releasing minerals, in the long term a healthy and living subsurface is created that optimally utilizes any nutrient input and can also hold the water very well.

Another advantage of organic fertilizers is that they can largely be obtained in your own garden: every dead plant part, compost, liquid manure and animal dung is fertilizer. Mineral fertilizers, on the other hand, are made from minerals obtained by mining (i.e. fossil, non-reproducible energy) that are chemically modified more or less intensively.

Every rose location does it z. For example, it is good if you work ripe compost into the soil before planting. In the year of planting, your rose does not need any additional fertilizer, which is sufficient for the nutrients provided by such a soil preparation. In autumn, compost can be piled up around the plants as frost protection. In the next spring, the roses are pampered again with a layer of compost a good centimeter thick, this and the remains of the compost from autumn ensure a supply of nutrients when the rose starts growing again.

Compost is a good organic fertilizer that has a long-term effect because the nutrients are slowly broken down in the soil. It has a lasting effect, at the same time strengthens the roses and will ensure that they develop many well-developed flowers. How much compost you use does not have to be measured precisely, the roses can more or less help themselves with the organic substances, as the nutrients are gradually made available.

These are the nutrients a rose needs

Before you start thinking about which fertilizer you should give your roses, here is a brief overview of which nutrients roses use:

• Nitrate = nitrogen: the main component of every fertilizer, responsible for plant growth and green leaves
• Phosphorus: the main component of every fertilizer, nowadays mostly available in abundance in the soil, responsible for the formation of flowers
• Potassium: Third main component in every common fertilizer, responsible for the amount of flowers and color
• Boron: Helps in the formation of calcium and sodium
• Copper: I’m responsible for building protein, controls various enzymatic processes, kills fungi
• Manganese: Needs the rose for photosynthesis, participates in the formation of organelles (cells for photosynthesis) and in protein metabolism
• Molybdenum: Activates various enzymes, participates in the energy metabolism
• Zinc: indispensable trace element
• Magnesium: crucial building block for the leaf green and for protein synthesis
• Iron: Also involved in the formation of leaf green
• pH value: Should be slightly acidic to neutral for most plants, a garden soil with a pH value between 5 and 6.5 normally guarantees optimal nutrient uptake.

Fertilizing in the course of constant soil improvement

When you are pretty sure that everything is in order with your garden soil, you can just limit yourself to applying organic fertilizer every now and then throughout your garden, a little more often around the plants that are growing very vigorously.

Organic fertilizers, ie fertilizers made from natural components, have “many faces”, and you can use some substances for fertilization that are incidentally incidental. As compost actually does, but there are many other organic fertilizers out there, and many of them are much less work than compost:

• Banana peels are quite rich in potassium, and they also contain magnesium. Cut into small pieces, with water in the mixer, off to the bed.
• Coffee grounds contain an abundance of “plant delicacies”: nitrogen and phosphorus, potassium and minerals, they can replace a complete fertilizer.
• Ashes from untreated wood are good organic potassium fertilizers
• Fresh straw-like cattle manure, like compost, contains all nutrients in a balanced composition
• Horse manure has similar nutrients; as a “hot fertilizer” in spring it can help warm the soil

Panacea: Manure
You can even make your own liquid fertilizer, and it’s completely free. Because manure from a wide variety of plants are powerful nitrogen and potash fertilizers with which you can give your roses a fast-acting fertilizer boost during the growing season. For this purpose, the liquid manure is applied in a fairly concentrated manner, but you can also dilute the liquid manure very strongly to form mild liquid manure solutions. Instructions for the production of a manure manure can be found on the Internet, together with the suitable plants.

Tips for real rose delicacies

If your roses seem a little weak and you neither have the time to prepare a liquid manure, but also do not want to use the mineral liquid fertilizer immediately, there are a few tidbits from the organic area that you could give your roses:

• If you want to really pamper your roses, add a few horn shavings to compost or liquid manure.
• The rest of the charcoal from the last barbecue should not be disposed of, but rather scattered under the roses.
• The compost for roses outdoors can also be enriched with pressed cattle manure, which roses also enjoy very much, it is rich in potash.
• Your roses also like to have wood ash from the open fireplace around them. Wood ash is rich in potash, contains lime and trace elements, has an inhibiting effect against fungi and rot.

Fertilizer as needed
When you have carried out the soil analysis mentioned above, you can have your fertilizer mixed in the composition you require. This service is offered in most Raiffeisen markets, for example, information from Raiffeisen Waren-Zentrale Rhein-Main eG in 50668 Cologne, www.rwz.de/ Pflanzen/duengemittel.html.

Conclusion
There is no such thing as “rose fertilizer”. Those who want to nourish a plant optimally cannot avoid finding out what this plant needs. If you want to nourish your roses well with as little information as possible, you can usually do it very well with soil improvement and organic fertilization. If you want to find out more, in addition to a soil analysis, information about how deficiency symptoms and excesses of certain nutrients affect the roses will also help.