Are your roses grafted? If so, on what root stock?

Jackie

Home test kits, so far as I know, are useless and a waste of money. We can, however, take reliable pH readings ourselves, either with test strips or a meter.

If you post your FAES report here, maybe we can help you make sense of it.

Very sandy soil is a problem regardless of nutrient content at the time of testing. It doesn't hold water or any nutrients and the pH can change rapidly. If you have added a lot of organic matter, this will help hold some nutrients, not all. However, OM burns away rapidly in the Florida climate.

I recommend mixing 1-1/2" of plain clay cat litter into a 12" depth of sandy soil. This will change the soil texture for the better and in a permanent way.

Jackie's question is also important.

This post was edited by michaelg on Wed, Oct 23, 13 at 11:14

nematodes problem maybe?

A university soil test through your extension service should be pretty dang accurate.

Nematodes and PH are definitely possible culprits. Other possibilities could be soil history if you haven't lived their long. A previous owner could have dumped something in that soil that wouldn't show up on a standard soil test. Common culprit would be thats where they parked the car when changing oil/flushing out antifreeze.

My roses are grafted onto fortuniana. Though I have some old roses that do well here own root but not in this area. So nematodes shouldn't be as much of an issue. Other plants do well here in the soil with nematodes, but again not in this area. We've lived here for 14 years. This bed used to grow gorgeous roses, but not anymore. Michael good suggestion on the kitty litter.