Sam: I love that purple color in your slightly acidic soil. Other folks in alkaline soil posted dark-red Ebb-Tide. Purple color is hard to get.

Beautiful....

It was seeing some of these pics of Sam's Ebb tide that I bought an Ebb Tide couple of months back. The bush is a July 2015 graft and is now 9 months old and is blooming profusely. Fragrance is very nice spicy clove kind but moderate at the moment. I cut down around 20 buds out of 37. Few pics...

Straw: Your views on shade of my Ebb Tide? Does it indicate an acidic soil?

best regards

That's a beautiful bush-shot, lots of blooms which I can never achieve !!

Khalid: Your color is deeper purple than Sam ... more blue means more aluminum available (more available in acidic soil). The hydrangea site stated that UP the potassium, will shift the bloom to blue-zone, and UP the phosphorus shift the bloom to red zone.

Thus your soil has plenty of potassium, as evidenced by cluster-blooming, and deep bluish purple. Khalid, I'm glad that you asked me about Pat Austin in the other thread, which makes me realize that Austin roses are best in partial shade & morning sun. Austin roses are bred in a foggy & less sun & rainy climate.

I had 3 Austin roses in full-sun .. all got mildew when it gets hot & dry. I got tired of watering them so I gave one Pat Austin away (still keep the 2nd one), then I moved Radio Times to partial shade. My heavy clay retains water well, but I still have problems with Austin roses' dislike for hot & dry.

With Mary Magdalene in full-sun, I piled up tons of soil (every year), so it's VERY DEEP rooted, thus don't get dried out. But one can't pile up soil on top of roses in pots, so they get dry out faster and become mildewed.

When I piled up leaves, they are soaking wet below .. way more wet than piling up soil, or wood-chips. One solution is to build a shade-cloth tent to shade your pots, the put leaves on top weekly during hot & dry weather. Just a thin layer of leaves on top is enough to retain moisture for 2 weeks in partial shade, way-better than wood-chips or alfalfa hay.

Straw: Thanks for pointing out the affect of direct sunlight on Austin roses. I was also feeling the same. Actually, my porch and driveway is all concrete but from scenic point of view, it was the best place in the house for keeping roses. But with summers setting in, I realised that it was reflecting heat which was not good for roses in pots. In the past week or more I have shifted many roses in the law, some of the them under the small trees where they are in dappled shade. In my driveway, roses get sun for 8-10 hours a day which I guess is too much on concrete floor. In lawn near trees, none of them gets more than 5-6 hrs direct sun perhaps plus soil doesn't reflect heat so it's relatively cooler there. My Austin bushes have shown good growth in the past one week.

Regarding availability of phosphorus and potassium, I have endeavoured that less phosphorus is fed to my roses. There is enough that comes through cotton seed cake and a bit of chicken manure that I mix in the river soil while making the potting mix. Then, the compost that I make contains lot of tea leaves and there is enough (not excessive) phosphorus in it. Most peels that I use (potato, banana, citrus, cucumber etc) all are rich in potassium. Calcium comes from egg shells and wood ash that I mix in it. So I guess my compost is a balanced one for roses.

With all this already in the pots and beds, there was not need for putting extra gypsum and potash in my pots and beds but I was just greedy and thought that my roses will get enven better. I was very impressed with Jess's roses and didn't realise that she has an alkaline soil which is perhaps inherently not as rich as my organic matter rich river soil. In my slightly acidic soil which is so rich in organic matter (lot of leaves, compost, a bit of chicken manure (while making the pits / potting mix, not afterwards), and in which I have been regularly sprinkling wood ash during rains, there was perhaps no need for feeding anything more. I overfed my roses perhaps....

I couldn't buy Potassium Silicate this week. Will have to go to some chemical shop to buy it. It's not available in natural form I guess and what I would be buying would be a chemical, right?

best regards

Khalid: I would skip potassium silicate since its effectiveness was tested in a shady greenhouse setting, and it won't help with the sun drawing moisture faster than your pot can hold.

A shade cloth does wonder for roses .. I had seen that in 2 nurseries ... their roses are so lush & healthy foliage compared to the ones in full-sun. Even with plastic pot my rose broke out in rust fungus in hot & dry & full-sun, when I forgot to water it daily .. that's when I used MiracleGro soluble fertilizer NPK near 20-20-20 so there was salt-accumulation.

After that I put my pots in shade, put pea-gravel, and zero mildew despite constant rain. Silicon (silicate) is plenty in rocks & clay, and your roses already have plenty of potassium.

I would put pebbles or rock-dust for silicon and to UP the pH. The white, or yellow gravel has higher pH than the darker color gravel. Then I would put leaves on top of the rocks ... plus using a shade cloth above.

As to de-salt your pots ... any organic matter on top would absorb the salt, be it potato-chunks or greens (cooks use potato to soak up salt in soup). Last year mixed alfalfa pellets in the upper few cm, or inch. of the pots. That green-organic on top serve as a buffer to absorb any salt in fertilizer added, plus the decay provides microbes to help plants utilize minerals/fertilizer added.

The other approach of mixing alfalfa pellets INTO the soil didn't work, it got soaking wet in the pot, and roots didn't like it. Below is a pic. of alfalfa pellets (it's like ground-up grass). I use Standlee alfalfa pellet with no salt & no sugar.

If I have to de-salt a pot without alfalfa pellets, I would use black-eyed peas, high in potassium & magnesium and known to lower blood pressure in human .. but I would test that 1st before recommending to anyone. Below is a science abstract on the silicon-availability of banana vs. green beans:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2744664/

" Bananas have a high Si content (about 5·5 mg/100 g), but preliminary evidence suggests that Si absorption is negligible (about 2 %) compared, for example, with green beans, which are high in absorbable Si (about 2·5 mg Si/100 g and about 50 % absorbed."

I agree with Straw that potato has a lot of potassium.

You say you know where roses grow in Nature. That is so cool.

Bob Cannard would say to use a handful of dirt from where roses grow in Nature for the aerated compost tea.

Hopefully that would create the proper microbes that the roses like.

My Dad and I drove the Jeep up to a old farm road up on the mountain, that was lined with roses from 200 years ago. That is good rose soil. Here is a picture of that rose from last year.

Most people when you ask them where do roses grow in nature they will say

"roses grow in nature?"

yes , my friend Khalid sees them all the time.

To take those conditions mimic nature and give it to the rose, guarantee success.

Both Khalid's and Samuel's Ebb Tides are magnificent! and with such wonderful advice and info especially the soil...Thanks Straw, Khalid and Samuel...

Khalid why do you say you might have over-fed your roses? I can only see beautiful magnificent roses in the photo's you share with us

the roses you mention sound wonderful Samuel...the pink rose above is lovely.

Jess: I'm glad you drop in. Your cheerful & positive words are like a sun-ray in this forum. How's your back doing?

Straw: I think I will have to search for light coloured pebbles or rock dust. Actually so many of such rocks are available here that I am not sure which is the one you are recommending. Unlike US, sellers do not mention the contents on rocks / pebbles etc and knowing our local mountains, I know lot many different kind of rocks are available.

But now I am afraid of putting anything more. I may put a spoon of Magnesium Oxide powder in each affected pot but otherwise, my pots and holes are very rich in organic matter, lot of Potassium, Calcium and Nitrogen already available. I think I need to be careful before putting anything extra. My best growing roses at this moment are the ones that were not given extra doze of gypsum. Actually there is no problem with the growth in any bush.... there are two problems. 1. Fragrance is very low. 2. Few bushes are suffering from mildew. But I am quite hopeful that after giving a couple of dozes of Magnesium Oxide, they will be ok.

Jess: My roses are doing very well. The only affect, as mentioned above, is the loss in fragrance and since I grow the roses for fragrance mainly, it matters a lot for me if there is no fragrance or very little fragrance in my roses. Mildew is a minor issue and I know I will get over it. It is the lack of fragrance that bothers me much. But I am quite hopeful that with such wonderful advises from Straw, fragrance will be back soon.

best regards

Khalid: All your colors are really deep: deep orange, deep pink, deep red, and deep purple in Ebb-Tide. I'm trying to achieve deeper colors for my roses .. and the only time I got deeper pink color was with cow-manure. The other time it was kelp and fish-bone meal in Alaska pellets.

Alkaline soil, be it clay like my garden, or loamy like Chicago Botanical Garden have really pale-blooms ... really blah. I wish I can find the recipe to deepen my blooms' color !!

The below link has good info. on organic sources of phosphorus .. didn't know that fish-bone meal has more available phosphorus than steamed bone-meal. Phosphorus is what shift color to the red-zone ... so pink roses become deeper.

http://www.grow-it-organically.com/organic-phosphorus-fertilizers.html

Ebb Tide with buds. One new growth shoot.

Oh wow.... The whole setup looks so nice

Smokey Ebbtide

Sam: I really like that color and many petals. Intrigue has that color too, but with exposed stamens .. which I'm allergic to.

These are a little darker.

Deep purple is hard to find ... Nice foliage too. It's a warm & earthy color. Ebb Tide is on my wish-list !!

That's a wonderful shade Sam. My Burgundy Iceberg gets this kind of a shade. Fabulous. Please keep sharing these wonderful pics.

oh wow this is such a beautiful and healthy rose, thanks so much for sharing it with us Sam.

More blooms than leaves.

Wow !! So many petals .. Gorgeous bouquet .. I wish I could smell it. Nicest cluster of Ebb Tide ever. Is Ebb Tide low thorn?

These are wonderful blooms Sam, much bigger than what I am getting nowadays but you climate is much cooler too.

Sam this is the kind of rose every rosarian dreams about - more blooms than leaves, with such vibrant color and healthy leaves.

Straw and Sam - How much rain are you getting, and what are your highest temps now - that yesterday was summer solstice for you? (and winter solstice for me and yes, now I can feel it is winter at last)

Are there any differences over where you are Khalid?