When summer is drawing to a close, hot season begins for gardeners. This is especially true for connoisseurs of the most beautiful flowers in the world - roses. So that next year these graceful beauties delight with their flowering, care for roses in autumn is necessary. Preparing for winter is a complex process, and experienced flower growers are well aware that roses need top dressing, pruning, sheltering the plant.
We will talk about this in detail and hope that the information received will be useful to those who have just begun to grow these magnificent plants in their area.
What happens to roses in the fall?
Today brought a huge number of varieties of roses. They differ in appearance, have developmental features, but the processes that occur in them in the autumn season are similar. Therefore, it is important to understand what care for roses is required in the fall. Preparing for winter is based on the processes that take place in the life of flowers during this period:
- Stem growth and bud development are slowing down. If autumn is warm, these processes may continue. But this does not mean that preparations for winter can be postponed. Intensively making autumn dressings for roses in this period in the hope of active flowering is also not worth it. With proper care, all the necessary nutrients, the culture received in the summer and spring.
- The stalk begins to wood. New bark is able to protect shoots from the cold.
- The root of the bush is fixed in the soil and accumulates useful substances for storage until spring. Therefore, transplanting roses in the fall, as a rule, gives positive results.
- The plant slows down metabolic processes.
By winter, nature itself begins to prepare roses. But usually this is not enough: these plants are thermophilic, and gardeners should take care of their shelter for the winter. Events aimed at preparing roses for winter are best divided into several stages, which are held monthly. In this matter, there can be no exact dates and moreover dates, since such a division is rather arbitrary. For example, in the northern regions of the cold start early, for this reason some types of preparatory activities are delayed by almost a month. It is more advisable to focus on the weather and climatic conditions of the region.
September Rose Care
During this period, staining of trunks, weeding, drying of the rosary are carried out. When preparing roses for winter, pay attention to the condition of the soil. It must be completely clean. Therefore, you should get rid of all weeds and annuals that grow near the bushes. Remove the lower leaves to a height of about twenty centimeters. This will greatly simplify the hilling.
In September, we recommend painting the trunks of roses. Thanks to this procedure, pathogens will not harm the plant. To do this, you can use a special garden paint or a water emulsion diluted with copper chloride. It is necessary to start painting from below and finish at the level of hilling (about thirty centimeters). Feel free to paint the trunks if you find a violation of the integrity of the bark. When the trunk dries, the bush needs to be spud.
If flowering did not stop in September, remove small and withered buds that still will not bloom before the onset of cold weather.
Rosary drying
Too wet a rose garden will not allow the culture to survive the winter safely. Therefore, it is necessary to dry it. Especially this procedure is important in wet autumn. To do this, install over the bushes arcs, which are usually used in greenhouses. Then pull a film on them, creating a kind of roof. If the plants are too tall, they can be bent slightly to the ground.
We continue preparation in October
So, in October, the preparation of royal flowers for winter continues. Pruning in the fall is very important for roses, as it simplifies the procedure for sheltering plants. First of all, short bushes (standard and tea varieties) should be shortened. Otherwise, two-meter beauties will die. The bushes are pruned and applied under them potash fertilizers. The height of the bushes should be reduced by half. Plants with large flowers are shortened by a third. Small-flowered plants do not prune at all. For them, pinching the growth point is enough.
Many flower growers choose the time for pruning according to the lunar calendar. Plants are cut to a waning moon.
Disease prevention
In October, care must be taken to prevent rose diseases. To do this, the following procedures are required:
- Spraying. Experienced growers know that parasites can withstand even very low temperatures. Therefore, it is necessary to protect your favorite flowers from diseases for the winter. A 1% solution of Bordeaux mixture is suitable for this.
- Clearing the site of garbage. The area on which the bushes grow should be completely cleaned of debris and fallen leaves. If you have a compost hole on the site, transfer all branches, leaves to it or burn garbage. This will prevent the development of diseases and the appearance of pests.
Preparation for warming roses
A properly conducted sheltering procedure stimulates the active growth and flowering of the crop in the spring, and also helps to keep the plant alive. But the shelter, organized illiterate, can destroy these fragile and tender beauties. This procedure consists of several stages:
- Leaf cleaning. All leaves are removed from the plant. This guarantees the protection of plants from fungal diseases. Digging the ground For this purpose it is necessary to use a pitchfork: thus, you do not injure the roots of plants. If the plant has long shoots, they must be dug up on one side.
- Hilling. Dry materials are suitable for this: loose soil, peat, sand. Having poured earth under the root, it is necessary to create a mound about twenty centimeters high. This procedure will protect the kidneys from death even in severe frosts.
Shelter of roses
All shoots should be collected and laid out on the ground. After that, they need to be covered with a layer of at least ten centimeters. You can use warming and thicker, it is important that it does not harm the plant, which can suffocate or break. Covering material can be spruce branches, dry grass, burlap, brushwood. During the frosty winter, special shelters will be needed. Around the bushes it is necessary to build a frame that is insulated with polyethylene or cardboard. In November, roses are insulated with snow. Bushes so covered, even very fragile ones, will survive the cold well.
Why do top dressing in the fall?
Summer blooming of roses requires a huge consumption of nutrients from the plant. When it is completed, the bushes need to restore disturbed balance. Therefore, autumn fertilizer for roses is necessary - this is a mandatory event that must be planned in advance.
Experts recommend feeding bushes in the fall twice. The first is in late August or in early September, when flowering will end. The second is at the very end of September or at the beginning of October. With the onset of winter, the growth of rose bushes stops, but as soon as the temperature rises slightly above zero, which often happens in the middle lane and in the south, the plant “comes to life” and sap flow resumes. During frosts, the juice freezes, the bark expands and may crack. Pathogenic bacteria start in the cracks.
In addition to autumn pruning, garbage collection, shelter from the cold, autumn care for beautiful roses also involves properly fed.
When to make autumn fertilizers for roses?
August is the month in which the last autumn fertilizers for roses are introduced before the onset of cold weather. Soil is fertilized with phosphorus. In addition, potash fertilizers are added. In the fall, these chemical elements make plants more resistant to diseases, stimulate the maturation of wood in young plants and flowering plants.
What other fertilizers are applied in the fall under roses? Some gardeners use a rather specific type of fertilizing. In the soil under the bushes, they bury banana skins, which contain a lot of potassium, which is very useful for these plants.
And manure should not be used as fertilizer. This organics is a summer top dressing. A rose nourished by manure in autumn produces young stems that only interfere with the culture.
The second feeding is carried out at the end of September. For climbing species and bushes, the best fertilizer for roses in autumn will be:
- potassium (potassium magnesia, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfate, potassium chloride);
- phosphorus (double superphosphate and superphosphate simple);
- calcium (wood ash, chalk, dolomite flour).
At the end of September, it is necessary to use potash autumn fertilizers for roses. To do this, you need to prepare a special solution: fifteen grams of potassium superphosphate and sixteen grams of potassium monophosphate are diluted in ten liters of water.
You can prepare phosphate fertilizers for roses in the fall in the proportion of: 10 liters of water + 10 grams of magnesium sulfate. Or in a liter of hot water it is necessary to dissolve superphosphate (50 grams). Dissolve the resulting infusion in ten liters of water and spray the plant.
Calcium top dressing is obtained by dissolving a tablespoon of calcium nitrate in ten liters of water. In October, organic fertilizers, such as rotted compost, must be added to the soil. Top dressing is stopped in November, so as not to provoke rapid growth of shoots.
Features of autumn top dressing
- In the fall, liquid fertilizers are best replaced with granular ones, for example, Autumn. Such top dressing is not immediately, but gradually absorbed, providing nutrition and protection to the plant, even under a layer of snow.
- Root dressing can be successfully replaced with foliar, for example, spraying. In this case, the concentration of starting materials is reduced by three times.
- It is better to use autumn fertilizers for roses in the dry season in the rainy season. This will protect the soil from decay.
Many gardeners do not deny that roses cause a lot of trouble. But the amazing beauty and wonderful aroma of these beauties in the summer will convince you that your efforts were not in vain. If you correctly conduct autumn arrangements for caring for roses, then in the spring and summer your garden will be decorated with healthy and strong flowers.