Help with roses

[alicia-w]

Since the prison camp on the base closed, all the flower beds around the buildings are going to pot. So our secretary and I adopted a rose bed in the back of our building. We weeded out half of it today and cut all the dead stuff off of the rose bushes. Does anyone have any hints at restoring the health of the flower bed?

We've got rose food and plant coke (aka Miracle Grow). We'll see what happens.

[O Town]

Sounds like you are off to a good start. When I had my rose garden I found miracle grow would do wonders for them. Fertilize with it about once every 2 weeks, but to get them going I would do it once a week for 3 weeks or so and then bi weekly. Im not sure what is in the rose food, I never used it, but I know the roses love iron. You can get it in liquid form or granules. I had the granuales and would sprinkle around the base of the plants once a month or so. It makes the leafs really green and healthy. And it was a good move to cut them back you should cut them back to the healthy part of the stems. Even all the way down to about a foot to a foot and a half from the ground would'nt be bad. I think with a little miracle grow and some TLC they should do great. ONce you get some healthy growth going be sure to look for signs of fungus and bugs, they are quit common with roses. Hope this helps some. BTW where is niceville, I have been in Fla. my whole life and and can't recall the city, is it north or south of Orlando?

[Stephanie]

I suse Miracle Gro as well and all of my plants love them!

O Town has covered pretty much everything, but I'd make sure that all of the spent buds are snipped off right above a stem with five leaves. That's where the buds start - you may even see one already coming out. Ditto also on the fungus and bugs. My biggest problem is with the Black Spot (fungus), so buy a spray fungicide and spray every 10 days to two weeks as well (depending on the directions). In Florida, I'm sure that the fungus is a big problem with the humidity.