CARE OF ROSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 November 1940, Page 9

CARE OF ROSES

SOME USEFUL HINTS. The present promises to be an excellent rose season, the foliage is in most cases very clean and healthy and the flower buds are developing well. For good blooms it is an advantage to disbud to one on each shoot, and when they are cut for house decoration or for exhibitions they can be cut with good long stalks which correspond to some extent to summer pruning. While the disbudding is being carried out. green fly which collects round the buds and its stalk can be squashed by the finger and thumb, which is a most effective method for their destruction. It is also an advantage to give some feeding now not only to help with the development of the flowers, but to assist with the young growth upon which the second crop of blooms depends, and also the buds for next year’s growth. It is a mistake to give all the manure at pruning time for should the spring be a wet one much of the soluble materials will be washed down into the subsoil or into the drains. Liquid manure is the quickest in action and the most effective and that made from animal manure—either cow, sheep and horse mixed or made in separate containers —is very suitable. When made separately the plants can be given a change every week for three weeks, which should be quite enough at this season. Where smelly barrels are not desired, a liquid made by dissolving a tablespoonful of guano in a gallon of water can be applied, giving each plant a quart, and then after rain or after the plants have been well soaked with clean water, a dry mixture consisting of 121 b superphosphate, 101 b kainit, 21b sulphate of magnesia, lib sulphat of iron and 81b gypsum. This is applied at the rate of four ounces to the square yard and hoed in. It is quite obvious that a dry manure would not be so quick in action as liquid, but it will last longer and do the plants for the rest of the growing season.