First of all I'm wondering, how do the roses look? Do they look that bad? I wouldn't worry too much about the nitrogen. Few soils are naturally high in nitrogen. It's something I always add and then add again(feathermeal now a days). A lot of soils are high in phosphorus. Mine is. I don't add extra. The same with magnesium. I believe in patiently adding compost. Mostly that's what I've done year after year top dressing. I think compost helps to equalize things and to make nutrients more available. I know this sounds simple and unscientific. I hope all goes well in your garden. I'm sure you'll get some other helpful responses.

Ignore the pH reading. There is a fairly simple way around that - don't grow multiflora types. My guess is you don't already, or we would have heard about the chlorosis. Messing with sulfur is going to cause more problems than it solves, and for most roses, the pH isn't at all bad. Field used to talk about simply buffering a high pH with organic matter.

Nitrogen test results are notoriously inaccurate. Ignore that one too.

There are crops that require a lot of phosphorus and/or potassium. That's how you bring the levels down.

Sammy- I know all clay soils are not the same, but I have clay soil and I mix in a lot of aged horse manure...probably half and half, to make the garden beds. Granted, I have horses, but this might work for you, too. You have to do it in the spring, just as the clay is drying out enough to work with, but before it turns to dust. Here, that's end of April/first of May...but I'm guessing you're going to be there in about a month or so.

Try it in a small bed and see if it works for the tomatoes. Are there any farms near your house? Many people will let you haul off horse manure for free, if you can get a truck to use...and maybe a little help :)

I tried gardening a few times, before doing this...and the dirt cracked and wouldn't hold water, in the summer...and was slime in the winter. The manure makes a HUGE difference.

Mendocino, my roses look very pretty to me, but when I see those from another state, mine seem small in size and bloom. However, my zone is 7A, and I often compare to Texas and California.

Thank you, mad gallica. I don't grow multi flora, but am afraid that the ph is still too high for my roses to absorb whatever they should absorb. I need to research what Field has written about ph.

Lavender Lass, there was a time that I tried desperately to mix peat moss in with the clay. I ended up with peat moss and clay living side by side. Even now if I dig down far enough there is some of that clay that I have to remove. What I really wish I could do is to grow my own compost, but my garden is visible from every angle. If I work real hard at trying to get compost, I am afraid that I will attract too many critters to the dogs' yard.

Sammy

Sammy, I sometimes think that our temperature extremes in this area keep our roses from attaining the height and full richness that some other places seem to take for granted. For instance, my HTs always stay in the 3-4 ft range. I have no idea what people are talking about when they claim theirs grow to 10 ft tall and cause problems. Mine have never even come close to such behavior and unruliness. I just try to accept that that's life!!!

Wish I had other advice for you.

Kate

Sammy, my water is between 8.3 and 8.5. I haven't even bothered to test the pH of the soil. Whatever it starts out as, years of that water (which is also a bit saline -- gift of the aquifers running through ancient seabed) are going to raise the pH. Neither our soil OR our water were intended by the good Lord for growing much of anything other than prickly pear cactus. There may have been topsoil up here once, but over the centuries, it has all washed down onto the Oxnard Plain. There, the topsoil is 10-ft. deep, and grows wonderful vegetables.

Peat moss never helped me much.

Finally, in desperation, I placed a handful of soil sulfur under the water emitters (bubblers, not drip) on plants with a multiflora background. That DID help! In fact, after a few years of that, some of the worst complainers quit showing signs of chlorosis, and I haven't had to add more sulfur.

You may be growing Multifloras without realizing it. Most "purple" roses seem to have that component, and they're the worst complainers. Things with no multiflora at all can eventually adjust.

We DO plant in Miracle Gro -- In fact, we just brought home 10 bags of Miracle Gro GARDEN SOIL, purchased at Big Lots! of all places, at an impressively-low price. May go back for a few more. Horse manure IS a big help. Any composted organics help. Alfalfa Tea helps. Anything that "feeds the soil" is going to help you.

Jeri on a gravelly hillside in Coastal Ventura County, SoCal

I had good results with adding native oak leaves in with my usual compost. Maybe you could find pine needles if you can't find oak. I used to have clay "cement" for soil. Now I spread the clippings from my tall fescue grass in a very fine layer over the beds whenever I mow. It makes me keep on top of the lawn weeds since I don't want them in with the roses. I pull back the mulch and put on banana and carrot peels, mushy old camellia flowers, tired old tropical foliage (whatever I can get). Then I pull the mulch back over it. Every day is a different rose getting the fruit peels, etc. I just work my way around the yard. Tired old potting soil goes over that. I buy wood chip mulch twice a year and get horse manure when I can. I spread that pretty thin over the whole bed too.

Just get whatever you can and over time the soil improves. Some people say don't add sand to a clay soil but I put a fine layer over the top and it did no harm. The weeds pull out easier where it is. I wish there was a source for rabbit manure nearby. That stuff is MAGICAL. Glad not to have wild rabbits however. Karl helped me beat the weeds by putting down ripped up cardboard under the mulch. Worked great. Fun to see the worms in the corrugations and it improved the soil too.

I heard that getting coffee grounds from a place like starbucks works great as well. I didn't try that yet.

Sammy, your soil test is A WHOLE LOT BETTER THAN MINE. But my garden yielded bumper crops of tomatoes that I tried to donate them to homeless shelter. My pH is 7.7, super high in magnesium, low in phosphorus and potassium, and barely adequate in calcium. Nitrogen test is not reliable, so EarthCo. tested organic matter instead.

Thanks, Jeri, for the info. about "purple" roses and their link to multiflora, such as minis Vineyard Song, Sweet Chariot, and Veilchenbleu. Also thank you, Jeri, for the info. about soil sulfur under the water emitters (what's that? please inform). Hoovb also put sulfur around her roses. I put some this winter around my rhododendrons and azaleas - IT'S A BIG IMPROVEMENT, NO MORE PALE LEAVES.

I put blood meal NPK (12-0-0) around marigolds one time to deter bunnies from my veges. Big mistake! Marigolds became dark green, 3' tall, and zero flowers. Blood meal is an instant source of nitrogen, and it has some iron to make leaves deep green. It's good stuff if you mix in with the soil, rather dumping on the plants like I did.

The Chicago Botanical Garden here reported that their pH is 7.4 with composted leaves and they use a 20-20-20 SOLUBLE fertilizer for their roses. Sammy, your soil is great actually. It's easy to add nitrogen, but much harder to add phosphorus to an alkaline clay soil like mine.

Straberry, we have flexible 3/4-inch tubing strung all up and down the hillside with two Sure-flo bubbler emitters at each rose. The idea is a bit like drip, but they put out a higher volume of water under more pressure than a drip system.

They also don't clog up the way misters and drip emitters do, in our mineral-laden water.

A multi-station timer running water to one level at a time.

I don't even know if these emitters are still manufactured, but they're terrific, and long-lasting. Ours have been in place for 20 years.

Jeri

Hi Kitty: Karl once made jokes about coffee grounds keeping the roses up, and they can't sleep. I actually believed him and was paranoid about coffee grounds. I dumped lots of coffee grounds from Starbucks onto my rhododendrons and azaleas - they didn't mind hubby's coffee ground, but they got pink stripes from espresso' ground. Did they become insomniacs and pinky? (Just kidding)

Michaelg is right about coffee ground neutralizes over time and has zero acidifying effect. The Soil Forum folks agreed too. Predfern from my Chicagoland informed me of a Unversity Extension link that oak leaves are first acidic, but it's a alkalizing result over the long-term, so does another soil expert in the Soil Forum.

Both University of Colorado and University of Florida stated that peat moss has a slow acidifying effect over two years, versus a quicker effect of sulfur which lasts only for one year. So both are good: one for a faster result, and the other for a longer continuous effect.

Sammy, I don't think you have bad soil at all. Do not let that test alarm you. My own pH is up around 8. There are a few roses that hate it - many multiflora types (not all) and rugosas. Our water is also alkaline.

If you apply good compost yearly, you will find that the effects of pH are reduced anyway. I would not apply fertilizers that have phosphorus. I have heard of that problem before. And low nitrogen in the winter is pretty much the rule around here.

Sammy, I use horse manure compost, too, but I have sand not clay. I originally amended the beds from 30% to 50% HMC (replacing the native soil) then I spread it on top every spring. It gives me wonderful dark brown to black soil, pretty crumbly.

I was going to say watch out with that sphagnum peat moss. If it ever dries out in the ground, it is VERY difficult to re-wet since it repels water. It's actually a negative if it dries out which I'm sure clay has a tendency to do. Just today I was preparing a bed (no roses in it) that is amended builder's sand, so I thought I'd put some peat in it down deep. I put the peat in a big bucket (along with some fine pine mulch) and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed it with water while turning it. Even sitting in 6" of water the stuff had dry spots. I almost didn't use it, fearing it would be a problem if it ever dried, but I used it. All this is to say that I would use horse manure compost and not peat. The HMC actually holds water. I also use lots of milorganite which is great for earth worms.

Everything I've read says that applying organics on the surface neutralizes the pH of soil and gradually works its way downward.

I recently lifted a rose that I thought was declining due to my higher pH native spoil that's under the amended stuff. I dug out the area and tested the white clay I found. It was about 6.8 with very low fertility. I also tested the black and white streaky stuff that was abovethe clay. It was 6.0 pH and very low fert. Apparently, the soil sulfur I have been applying had done it's work down to about 3' deep. I replaced the soil there, but I'm not going to do that for another rose in a similar condition. Since the pH isn't low, I'm going to try to fertilize deep by hammering a 1" rod to a depth of 2-1/2 feet (hopefully) and pouring milorganite and liquid humus down the holes. I'll let you know. It's got to be easier than all that digging!

Time for this year's loads of HMC. Very fortunately I get it free.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

If Sammy has been growing in bagged soil, it is already mostly organic matter. Bagged "soil" is usually not soil but various kinds of waste organic matter such as mushroom compost, composted paper, etc. Generally I would recommend using it as an amendment rather than replacing the native clay.

But not to worry, Sammy. You grow good roses. Roses are not that particular and will grow in most types of soil.

Soil that has been heavily fertilized with compound fertilizer or amended with manure will usually test very high in phosphorus. What you have is OK, just avoid adding more. Ditto for potassium.

Available nitrogen is always transient in the soil and will normally test low in cold soil. Since (I gather) you have mostly organic matter for soil, it will release some nitrogen when the bacteria get to work in warm weather. But generally we need to add some nitrogen every year. Two or three moderate applications of ammonium sulfate will do the job and help reduce pH. This would be 1 oz per square yard maximum per application.

I would apply sulfur, but you don't need to if you are not observing iron deficiency symptoms. . Be sure to follow directions, probably no more than 1/2 cup per square yard, and don't repeat. With plants already in place, scatter the sulfur under the mulch, and don't expect any rapid change. It could take a couple of years for the acidity to affect the root zone.

Kate, now that you mention it, I usually cut back more than those in other states. The freeze, heat, freeze episodes that we have here can cause a growing rose to split. Therefore, I cut mine back so that the garden looks good to me rather than the individual rose.

Jeri, I always think of California as a place where the ground is perfect, and you only fight rust, a disease we don't have here. We always amend our soil, and the soil around the roses. We over turn the area around the roses and make sure the water can pass. Then where the roses are and some surrounding area, we put in top soil and mushroom compost. I have avoided Miracle Gro soil because I always plan to put in Mills Magic, and I am afraid that it may overdose the roses.

I purchase at Antique Rose Emporium and Chamblees. I think they are mainly own root, so wouldn't that mean they are not multi flora?

Kitty, I should not be so afraid of starting my own compost pile. I have never really understood how to do it, but I personally always eat one or two oranges, a banana, and an apple a day. I also always have a salad and/or dark green vegetable a day, and tomatoes. That means that we are throwing away not only the uneaten parts of these items, but the old ones as well. I really really need to be more efficient. I am so glad you brought that up.

Strawberry, you have saved me from running out and pouring in what the agency recommended rather than what may be needed. I would be mortified if I ended up with no flowers, but big leaves on roses or tomatoes.

Rosefolly, thank you. It may be good to add some compost to my tomato mixture.

Sherry, I also dislike sphagnum peat moss. When the summer gets hot everything can dry out. I target my hoses to the roses and flowers, but the in between soil gets nothing. You are right, it dries, and can cause some problems. I have not tried that for years.

Thanks, Michael. That make sense.

I should not have been so alarmed since I cannot complain that much about my roses. I need to fertilize more, but will not run out and spend hard earned money on expensive soil. I even think I will leave my pots with potting soil, and pull weeds since planting and growing time is racing towards me. (I have a daffodil in bloom as I write this.)

Sammy

Sammy, when I mention multiflora, I do not mean that the roses are grafted onto Rosa multiflora rootstock. I mean that they have been bred from Rosa multiflora and it is in their ancestry. Many roses have such ancestry - Veilchenblau is one that is immensely popular. There are many.

As for compost, I used to add it into the soil when planting new beds. I still do for vegetables and anything that is going into a raised bed, or when I want to change the nature of my soil -- say, where I planted my blueberry bushes. But mostly theses days I put a layer on the top of the soil, then cover that with mulch. Then I sit back and relax and let the soil organisms do all the work of incorporating it for me.

As for peat, the only time I use that is mixed into the soil to acidify it for my blueberries, and there I add sulfur, too. Mixed into the soil it does not have the drying effect it does when used as a mulch, which I heartily recommend no one ever do.

Rosefolly

Just wanted to add my 2 cents worth abt. compost, it is so easy.. I keep a large plastic coffee-can in my sink and toss everything left-over into it...coffee grounds, apple cores, banana peels, egg-shells, potato peels..etc.etc., and almost daily take it out in the garden, dig a hole, and dump that stuff, and cover it w/dirt... I place a piece of board on top to keep the critters from digging it up....within a week or two it is full of earth-worms and nice and black... I work my way around the garden-beds so my offerings are distributed evenly, and when I plant something-anything- it goes right there.... this is in my rose-beds as well as my veggies, and stuff does very well, I also use Black Hen, Milorganite, Alfalfa , Black Kow.... no granular fertilizer, just organics....and leaf-clippings, and pieces of cardboard, newspapers, whatever rots nicely.....I scored a truck-load of oak clippings from a tree-service, for free... they don't want to haul it out to the land-fill, and when they dumped it off the guy told me 'nice clean oak' and I jumped-for-joy !!! Things that make us happy !! sally

Now Sally, what do you do?
Do you use the same hole for about a week? Do you cut up the peelings, like the orange and banana or do you puree them?

I can think of a couple of spots in the yard where I could dig a hole, and start pouring things. I could also cover them with a board, but do you take out a shovel full of dirt, pour in the stuff and cover it up again? Then the next day do you go beside it or over it and pour in some more? Won't you end up with a trash container?

I have a new section, about the last new section in my yard that the dirt was really sticky clay. I could dig that out, but then how long do you leave it there before you put it into the beds, or do you put it directly into the beds?

Sammy

I'm lazy. I don't even dig holes. I just toss it on the ground and cover with mulch. A different spot every day. I think if you dug holes you could get some very nice compost indeed. I have never noticed any smell. The earthworms get busy with it right away. They love cantaloupe and honeydew melons and watermelon especially.

I think that the "roses need more acidic soil" belief is greatly overstated as a matter of concern, although some multiflora type rose (and rugosas, too) tend to get chlorotic in highly alkaline soils.

In 1937, Jackson and Perkins' Dr. Nicolas wrote about his rose travels in Europe, and observed that the pH of the soils tended to be basic or alkaline. The two major rose growing fields of the French Riviera, which sent many thousands of cut HPs and HTs to Paris by train, were pH 8.0 and 7.7. He observes that the two nurseries with the most acidic soil had smaller, less healthy roses. (This is a very enjoyable book, by the way.)

Sacramento has fairly alkaline soil, and our city water, mostly from snow melt (let's hope we get some more snow this year!), is treated to be alkaline to spare the pipes. Still, our roses do quite well. We mulch like mad, spreading wood chips, composted manure, and organic compost. The soil in the cemetery is sandy, but at home my soil is dense silt-clay from river bottom. Years of piling mulch on the surface of the soil has greatly improved its tilth. I've stopped using landscape fabric because it impedes the soil-mulch contact that is so key to beneficial organisms that work the soil. Those organisms are a reason to use chemical herbicides and fertilizers sparingly, too.

I do have a compost bin, which I tend to think of as a giant worm bin. I throw in kitchen trimmings (not orange peels unless I blend them), green garden trimmings, and leaves and other dry materials. It's got an open bottom and sets on the soil, and it's got a lot of worms. I keep it moist and turn it a few times a year. It doesn't heat up like they say a good compost pile should do, although it certainly can get warm. The trimmings disappear very quickly and there is no odor. It's easy to do and it just feels so virtuous to re-use the waste rather than putting it into the trash or down the disposal.

So, Sammy, don't be afraid to try some composting, and don't worry too much about your soil's pH, especially if your roses look good.
Anita

Hi Sammy- I don't dig a big hole, just turn one shovel over, dump in the can of scraps, and then put the dirt back over, barely covered... then i set the board on it.... I just dig a new hole each time and work my way around the garden-beds, there's really not a lot in each hole, and I don't bother cutting anything up or 'pureeing' anything, that's too much bother... within a week everything is full of worms.. I have a small pile of old boards and always have a board handy, just abt. the size of a magazine is big enough to cover, but if I don't put the board, I see where a critter has dug it up overnight... possums, coons, who knows ....sometimes I set a brick on top of the board.... I'm pretty old and can remember when times were tough and nothing was wasted or thrown out, so maybe that is what is at the bottom of it all....sally

Sally, I loved reading "I'm pretty old". You're so funny. Please keep passing on the old ways to us. Your use of the plastic coffee can is ingenious and an easy idea that I will try to incorporate.

Anita, everything you said was very interesting and encouraging. I heard a rosarian speak to our Society last year about fertilizing and nutrient availability re pH. Her table showed that all nutrients were available between 6.2 and 7.1 (my memory isn't perfect but that's close.) Above and below that certain nutrients were less available but not totally unavailable until you got way over to the ends of the spectrum. I was relieved by that info, because my amended pH is generally in the high sixes.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Sally, I loved reading "I'm pretty old". You're so funny. Please keep passing on the old ways to us. Your use of the plastic coffee can is ingenious and an easy idea that I will try to incorporate.

Anita, everything you said was very interesting and encouraging. I heard a rosarian speak to our Society last year about fertilizing and nutrient availability re pH. Her table showed that all nutrients were available between 6.2 and 7.1 (my memory isn't perfect but that's close.) Above and below that certain nutrients were less available but not totally unavailable until you got way over to the ends of the spectrum. I was relieved by that info, because my amended pH is generally in the high sixes.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Hi Sammy

There's a lot of good tips posted here by now.

I'm not all sure about extremely alkaline and sodium high soils, but there are sometimes easy ways to improve clay soils. Plants can do most of the work for. For example, if potatoes will grow in your garden you can use them to loosen the soil. They do a great job, and the only thing you need to do is to get them in the ground, all in one harvest. Growing plants like alfalfa, lupines, clover, buckwheat, flax and grasses for a couple of years will totally change the most dense clay soils and fertility will cange a lot. If you can set of an area for this it is the best way about it.

I noticed you used peat moss to amend you soil, which doesn't do much for the soil at all. If you can get hands on composted offcuttings from trees, canes, bushes of any kinds it will work differently, or even just plain ground up offcuts. It needs to be added every year to make a difference. If you have a very hard time making anything grow, start out with the weeds naturally growing near by, and slowly introduce other species. Nothing improves the soil like growing plants. The trick is to not cut them and harvest them, but to let them do their work and let everything return to the soil.

Best of luck

I have some really horrid soil with just about NO organic contest that I plan to make into a rose bed. At least it is not sodic. I just got my yearly wood chip mulch delivery, about twice as much as I generally get and of very high quality. It is mostly oak and pine (I really like pine) with a smattering of other woods, citrus and olive and the like. Lots of leaves which really enriches the nutritional content. Since I have so much extra I'm going to dump a lot of it on this bed and just let it compost for six months to see it that helps. It ought to help some. Originally I was going to plant the roses this spring, but since we are having a year with practically no rain at all, I think I'll wait until the fall. Meanwhile I'll just pot my liners into gallons and my gallons into three gallon pots and let them all size up a bit longer.

Sammy, if you saw the soil I'm about to use, you would have no complaints at all about yours. Even weeds struggle in this area.

Rosefolly

We have cold compost piles which takes longer to cook, but suits our life style.
The only thing I would like to add is we do use hard boiled egg shells, but not the raw egg shells.

Here is a link that might be useful: FAQ Composting

Hi Sammy,

For adding nitrogen to the soil have you considered putting in some nitrogen-fixing plants from the pea family to your rose beds? I'm aiming to have a more sustainable/self-supporting garden, and one of the things I'm doing is choosing companion plants that benefit each other. With the nitrogen-fixers ability to convert nitrogen in the air into a form plants can use and thus enriching the soil, I hope to decrease my use of fertilizers.

I've recently added a thermopsis next to Sydonie, a bush lupine in between Henry Nevard and Duchesse de Rohan, and a lotus next to R. borissovae. I have on order some baptisia to be placed next to other roses. Last year I tossed some wildflower seeds in the rose beds. A number of legumes came up including scarlet clover, Austrian winter peas, and birds-foot trefoil. The one bed where multiple of these came up seems to now be extra fertile (and particularly full of worms!). The Austrian winter peas came back on their own as have a small number of the scarlet clovers. The roses adjacent to these plants are now leafing out with particularly lush leaves. Just something to think about.

Melissa

What an informative thread !! Tessiess, I read with interest your comanion planting. I have put perennial herbs (sage, thyme, oregano) around and between Pope John Paul II and Chrysler Imperial. These two roses got zero bugs last year. I am wondering if there is a correlation.

Thank you, Melissa and Notrafficinga: I have been checking on companion plants after observing praying mantis and lady bugs in my dill patch. I also saw lots of beneficial green lacewings on my potted Marigold (Calendula). The higher the quercetin (anti-inflammatory) of an herb, the more it attracts beneficial insects.

Hi Rosefolly: I like pine mulch too. I noticed that the pots at HomeDepo have pine mulch mixed in with the soil for better drainage. It lowers the pH. Hi Sammy: about ammonium sulfate, it's better than bloodmeal. I saw a picture posted by a SF gardenere who puts ammonium sulfate around his hydrangea to make the blooms turn blue. His plant is loaded with blooms - it depends on the percentage of nitrogen that ammonium sulfate comes with versus the percentage of sulfur.

Thanks, Notrafficinga, for mentioning about sage, thyme, and oregano. I have them in my herb garden and will plant more next year between roses, since they are not as invasive as garlic chives (recommended by Pearl Roebuck for its tested success on aphids and mites).

Thank you, Anita, for a very informative post about soil pH. The pH of rainwater is 5.7, that's enough to neutralize any alkaline soil. Thanks for informing about the pH of French Riviera to be higher than 7.7 - I notice that the Romantica roses give MANY TIMES more blooms than the stingy Austin roses at the nearby rose park. We have high rainfall like England, but our Chicagoland soil is more alkaline.

I'm glad Anita mentioned about water treatment plant putting lime so pipes don't corrode. It's even more alkaline with well-water like mine drawn from limestone sub-layer. eHow said to put sulfuric acid, vinegar, or citric acid into the water. My preference is citric acid, sold for $5 a lb. at health food store (also used in canning to preserve fruits). I have been testing the effect of citrus peels in acidifying the water. We make lots of lemmonade from fresh lemons, and I put used peels in kitchen water. I tested this "citrus water" on one of my rhododrendrons, and it works faster than sulphur.

Here's a post from the Garden Experiment Forum:

Posted by aznative40 z7bAZ (My Page) on Fri, Oct 24, 08 at 12:38

"Alkaline water?....Come here to Cornville AZ I will give you all you want. I'm on a private well and grew my garden the first year with compost, manure, and well water. The first year everything went well, the second year everything was stunted. Okra grew a whopping 8 inches tall, cukes were yellow and hard at 2 inches, and even Zuccinni which will grow everywhere, was hard and yellow even at a few inches long. They looked and felt like gourds. I did a pH test before first year planting, 7.1 at the end of second year 9.2. Left the ground fallow for 2 years and will try it again, with a filter."

Sammy,
this is just something I've read but I am going to try because I too have a lot of vegetable and fruit leavings and misc kitchen stuff I can't put outside because of the raccoons, rats, and other rodent types I am trying to discourage. I don't even feed the birds here because of the raccoons. blech.

It's composting in one of those large plastic garbage cans with a fitted top. You just throw the kitchen stuff into the can after you drill some holes in the bottom and add paper and leaves and other brown kinds of compost to balance it out. Here's a link because I don't think I explained it very well.

http://organicgardening.about.com/od/compost/a/cancomposter.htm

There are some you-tubes too you can watch, just search for "trash can composting." Supposedly it composts in about 3-4 weeks.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, Sammy; you can compost w/o it being such a huge hassle. You have beautiful roses, don't be discouraged about your soil.

I re-read your post, Sammy, and understand that you are looking for good soil. So do I, after the bagged EarthGro topsoil at HomeDepo killed my decade-old orange summer phlox, plus my peony, and put my Japanese Maple tree on life-support. Nastara, zone 5, informed me that this past summer's bagged soils were contaminated with Herbicide, resulting in complaints from farmers.

I tested the pH of my soil, EarthGro's topsoil, and Menard's "American Countryside" brand. EarthGro's topsoil was the most alkaline (greenish blue in red cabbage juice), my pH of 7.7 native soil (professionally tested by EarthCo., turned blue in my red-cabbage juice test), and least alkaline is Menard's.

I would place EarthGro's topsoil at pH of 8 and Menards pH of 7.5 or less. Moo Cow-manure is the worst, pH of 9, same color as baking soda in red cabbage juice. There was a post in the soil forum about the offensive odor of top soil from Lowe's. Actually stinky means good - because they haven't put lime in it to deodorize the soil, thus shooting up the pH to the 8 to 10 range. I'm buying Lowe's bagged soil this summer (I used it in the past and it didn't kill my plants).

Menards' top soil is OK for pH, but it's loaded with weed seeds. My neighbor turned her lawn into a weed patch after using that stuff. The professional lawn company had to put lime plus other chemicals to kill her weeds. The best soil is what you make yourself with your own compost and you know what goes into it. Store-bought bagged soil often contain boiler-ash (#1 industrial waste) to make it pitch-black, plus biosolids (human waste)and lime to deodorize, thus raising the pH.

Tapla, professor of horticulture, has a recipe of potting soil: 5-1-1 (5 parts ground composted pine mulch, 1 part perlite, and 1 part peat moss). Here's a clip of his recipe and below is the link to his website. It's the same ingredients recommended by Douglas Green, Ontario nursery - and the same ingredients listed in Ball's planting mix. Ball is the largest nursery here.

My Basic Soils
5 parts pine bark fines
1 part sphagnum peat (not reed or sedge peat please)
1-2 parts perlite
garden lime (or gypsum in some cases)
controlled release fertilizer (if preferred)
micro-nutrient powder, other continued source of micro-nutrients, or fertilizer with all nutrients - including minors

Big batch:
2-3 cu ft pine bark fines
5 gallons peat
5 gallons perlite
2 cups dolomitic (garden) lime (or gypsum in some cases)
2 cups CRF (if preferred)
1/2 cup micro-nutrient powder (or other source of the minors)

Small batch:
3 gallons pine bark
1/2 gallon peat
1/2 gallon perlite
4 tbsp lime (or gypsum in some cases)
1/4 cup CRF (if preferred)
micro-nutrient powder (or other source of the minors)

Here is a link that might be useful: Al's Tapla container soil mix

I've been using Lowe's Sta-Green brand for several years and have been very happy with it. It has a nice consistency to it. I've never noticed any particularly strong odor to it. It's a lot cheaper than the Miracle Grow soil too.

Thank you, Seil, for recommending that particular brand (I'll look for Sta-Green). Someone else reported Schultz potting soil as draining better than MiracleGro. I had problem with MiracleGro potting soil NOT draining well with last wet year of 49.8" rain & flash flood. It has too much peat moss, quite acidic - good for faucet-alkaline water, but turns more acidic with pH 5.7 rain water.

In his book, "The Complete Roses...", Field Roebuck doesn't like peat moss either. He listed many recipes for peat-less potting soil, which is similar to Roses Unlimited's recipe for the planting hole: superphosphate, dolomite lime, alfalfa meal, gypsum, compost, top soil, and red clay.

Field Roebuck also advised putting garden soil into potting soil mix for its microbes. Soil bacteria has been known to suppress plant pathogens and fungi. I saw Rose-Tone sold at Lowe's with a long list of beneficial microbes. Any experience with this product? Thanks in advance.

I always cut my commercial potting mix with either perlite or vermiculite to lighten it up. It's too dense for hot humid Florida for most plants. I've tried to cut back on my use of peat moss since I read it's not ecologically sustainable. We're destroying the Canadian rain forest or something like that. For that matter, vermiculite isn't good either, but I prefer it to perlite.

Strawberry, where do you get the micronutrient powder, and what is CRF?

I grew roses on 8.0-8.5 tan sand in the Dallas area and just added locally made compost. I fed with bloodmeal and alfalfa. After 2 years most of the beds tested 7.5 and I decided to be content with that. A local organic gardening columnist swore that the soil pH could be improved with just compost and organic amendments and since that was the easiest (!) advice I received I followed it. Was glad I did!
I really wanted rugosas and hybrid musks but I decided to spare myself the frustration. Now I'm back on an acid soil and can grow them again, such is life!\
Roses that became immense for me: White Lady Banks, Mermaid, Fortune's Double Yellow, and Reve d'Or.-- all of which are probably too tender for you up in OK.
Shrub roses which would probably get nice size for you-- any of the Bucks esp. Carefree Beauty, Earth Song and Quietness.

Hi Floridarose: CRF stand for controlled released fertilizer, or slow released fertilizer. I was looking at the fertilizers at Lowe's and some of them are a blend of organic and chemicals together. Chemicals are added to provide the micro-nutrients such as chelated iron, boron, etc. I tested one brand, "SuperGreen" for my rhododrendrons and it worked well (it has dried chicken manure, blood meal, bone meal ... and micro-nutrients like chelated iron added).

Too bad we don't have the Aussie brand, "Organic Life - Terra Firma" with NPK of 4.5, 3, and 3. People in the Aussie Rose Forum raved about it as being way better than Oscomolite. It has "Blood & Bone, Fish Meal, Seaweed extract and composted animal manure blend in slow-released pellets"

I used Oscomolite 19-6-12 for my potted herbs - I am NOT impressed by it. My neighbor used a soluble fertilizer with ammonium nitrate and chelated iron and her plants put mine to shame: dark green and twice taller than mine. You definitely get better result with a soluble fertilizer.

For low salt chemical fertilizers, it's 20% superphosphate with a low salt index of 7.8. For nitrogen, it's anhydrous ammonia with salt index of 47. For potassium, it's monopotassium phosphate with salt index of 8.4 - if you are lucky to find them.

Alfalfa meal NPK is 3-2-2, and can be used instead of peat moss in potting soil. It's less acidic at pH of 5 to 6, versus 4 pH for peatmoss. Peat moss has zero nutrients, and you have to add lime to counteract the acidity. I use alfalfa meal to break up my heavy clay, and it works as well as peat moss.

As a respiratory therapist who works in a hospital, I must quote one of the axioms we live by which can be applied to gardening. "Consider the condition of the patient (i.e. the plant) first, not the lab findings(soil test)!" If your roses are blooming and have decent foliage then they must be compensating for soil deficiencies. That's how our bodies work too- we have many compensatory mechanisms that attempt to keep us in balance and thriving.