I've been foliar feeding all along. I don't put anything special down in the fall.

My soil already has sufficient Phosphorous in it as per my soil test, but I did add some potash about 2 weeks ago. No nitrogen of course.

No, this is probably a superstitious practice. Plants go inert once the soil temperature falls to 40 F, and neither roots nor anything else is growing once the leaves are damaged by hard freezes. Energy for growth comes from sunlight, not fertilizer. Without sunlight on functioning leaves, plants cannot use nutrients. If your soil contains clay (to hold P and K indefinitely) and if it is deficient in P or K, then it is OK to add these at any time, including fall. But if you have been fertilizing, chances are a soil test would show an excess of both P and K.

Many exhibitors chronically overfertilize in a futile attempt to get another inch of stem length.

I agree that this is a "superstitious practice" in your climate zone. Unfortunately, many rose societies promulgate advice that has been shown over time to be just silly, but they keep doing it. It is the old "conventional wisdom" - hard to get rid of.

In my warm climate, and with 100+ roses, and being over 60, it takes me from Oct to Jan to just get around to my once per year pruning. I do my once a year fertilizing (osmocote - 9 month version) as I go, also mulching. My tea & china roses keep blooming through the winter, and also some of the old HTs. I think that's the climate, however, not some magic food formula. Also that we don't pick up all of the "leaf litter" from our 2 dozen trees - it magically makes its own mulch on the ground. Ever thought about the fact that no one runs into the forests madly spreading fertilizer, but somehow they survive & grow anyway?

Jackie

Unless you have had a soil test for ph done, hold off on the lime. You can get your ph out of whack. IF you need lime get a ph test done and then apply according to the recommendation.. You may require more than a cupful.

Thank you for all the good advice. I didn't think this sounded right for my roses, but wouldn't you expect a rose society newsletter to be better informed?

Unfortunately no. People reprint the same advice over and over, and readers can get real testy if you don't give them the conventional wisdom. 12 years editing a RS newsletter here. I'd run something from American Landscaper or the local Extension office outlining some new research on horticultural practices, and people would keep doing the same old things. They like the familiar, and exhibitors are a real superstitious lot.

We lime in fall here but no fertilizer. Our soil does tend to be real acid. I'll add organic fertilizers or composted manure towards the end of winter. 0-10-10 for root growth is a myth. Roots will grow so long as they have healthy soil to grow in.

The guy that writes the Sunday newspaper article from our local extension just wrote last Sunday that everyone should be out cutting back all their roses to 18 - 24" above the ground right now. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Oh no! Never ever prune them down that short in the fall! Unless you really like having 2 inch tall stubs by spring. I don't do any pruning in the fall except for really long wild canes that would blow around all winter. Even those I stake and tie first and then cut to the top of the stake and no shorter.

There are a lot of old wives tales and "traditional" methods floating around out there. I suggest people try different things and see what works best for them. Every garden is different and you need to know your plants and conditions and go from there.

Our news letter also said to prune short. I knew better than to do that, but I thought it might be for hybrid tea growers.

Fall pruning in z. 5-8 is not a traditional practice (for hybrid teas or any rose) unless in windy z. 5 areas where some people feel it reduces the threat of dessication over the winter.

Mainly you see fall pruning of roses being done by the sort of yard-keepers who meatball their forsythias and azaleas each year.

One year, I topped my modern roses after dormancy and got a lot of botrytis canker infections starting in the pruning wounds. Fortunately I didn't prune low, so it didn't spread down the bud union.

Fall pruning is the conventional wisdom here, to keep canes from being damaged by wind, or from the plant being yanked out of the ground by the wind. I've had that last one happen a few times, with smaller roses in very gravelly spots. We have very gravelly glacial till soil, which is waterlogged in winter, offering no traction to plant roots when hurricane-force winds come ripping through in winter. Timber companies can lose miles and miles of trees when that happens, forests are turned into piles of pickup sticks. Some places are still cleaning up from a storm in 2007.

At any rate, I've mostly given up fall pruning, because of the cane canker problem. I'll stake plants, or figure on restabilizing them after big windstorms. Our society garden is pruned to waist height by hedgetrimmers in fall. They don't seem to get much cane canker, but they do get crown gall on the stems at fall pruning height.