Growing Rose - First 90 days - Part 4

by Richard Chew

In this part, I like to share about fertilizing.

I think this is very important to achieve favourable results, especially if you have just purchased your rose from the nursery and transplanted it into your favourite container.

I highly recommend organic fertilizer. My favourtite is 2 parts fish meal and 1 part chicken manure. The dosage should cover the entire top soil surface.

And I prefer compost soil over clay/burnt earth soil. Burnt earth soil is lifeless soil unlike compost soil that contains rich nutrients and full of lively soil organism.

With the combination of lively soil organism and organic fertilizers at the top soil, it speeds up decomposition of the organic matter and converts the fertilizer into useful nutrients for the plant roots.

And compost soil has higher ability to hold nutrients compare to clay soil, thus is more effective in retaining nutrients.

If soil drainage is a problem, I recommend applying vermicompost at the top soil or mix it into the soil during transplanting. Vermicompost helps to improve life in the soil and improves soil drainage. The soil life binds the soil particles into clumps, thus improve drainage and aeration.

I feel if you just transplanted your rose plant, you should fertilize as often as you can. The reason is the transplanted soil may not have sufficient nutrients. Another option worth considering is to use liquid seaweed fertilizer.

These are the suggestions for fertilizing that I recommend in the first 90 days. I believe most roses purchased from nurseries are usually fed with synthetic fertilizers. There is high chances that the roots have low rhizosphere. By carrying out these suggestions, I believe it helps to build a healthier rhizosphere in the roots, and build stronger resistance to diseases and help the newly transplanted rose plant to adapt to new environment quicker.



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