That's smart vapovac. I have been buying a zone up as there are very few selections hardy to zone 3 and 4. I know it's iffy for these but even knockouts are not readily hardy here (and bs terribly). The garden centers have no selection so I do most of my shopping online. I don't have pics of my compost but will post in spring. I dont believe it gets enough oxygen. I'll be curious to see how it's doing with the addition of topsoil, leaves and grass...

I'll be anxious to see your compost! I haven't turned mine yet, but am confident it will break down. I think the oxygen just helps it do so more quickly. I used to just pack the leaves in black plastic bags and that worked fined so I'm sure adding all the other things will just make it go quicker. For the past three years, I've just piled them up on my lower level using what I needed while the rest continued to compost. It's all good. : ) I'm only adding these other things to move it along quicker and see what improvements it makes.

I think a useful post might be "What roses are hardy with and without protection in our zones" and another for "What didn't make it even with protection", giving the growth conditions, etc. Does this sound like a good idea, or is there already such posts to which we can add?

Definitely! Riku (zone 3) I think and nipstress? Cynthia (zone 5) had a few based on hardiness that are really helpful.

I put the info. in the below thread, which I gave to Roses Unlimited to guide cold zoners in selecting hardy roses. It has info. from all cold-zoners in forums:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/4240705/links-to-hardy-roses-in-cold-zones-and-best-roses-for-hot-and-dry-climate?n=21

Thanks Straw!

I had 45 large bags of leaves and they have broken down into one half or one third now in all the various locations in my small garden. What I thought was too much leaves collected along with the 60 buckets (two gallon) of spent coffee grounds seems to disappear and be managed and feed the soil. The coffee grounds speeded up the compost and with the milder temperatures everything is good.

Sam, your picture of Heritage is worth a thousand words, just beautiful! I'm getting excited about mine this spring now!

Thanks! Time to prepare the planting soil with some homemade rose compost lasagna bed to get the area ready.

I am so excited to read more about the nutrients specific compost and mulch. I read the book about

Teaming with microbes.

I am reading another book about how plants eat.

Teaming with nutrients.

The next book is about mycorrhizae. It's called Teaming with fungi. That one is a new book it just came out.

Wow, Sam! What a great group of books. Wish I had something like that to read at the moment. You'll have to let us know the salient points. i think I have a pretty good network going on underneath the soil, but I'd like to ensure it stays that way! How is your compost doing?

I am turning my compost it's almost all finished ready to go. It's amazing how the compost heats up in winter.

That's exciting to hear. You'll have to post pics when you're able. I haven't been home for almost three weeks and will be away for who knows how long, so I must get my compost fix from you! :) I wasn't able to get the manure so I'll just have to let nature take its course this spring unless we catch a break and I can get home. I'm worrying so much about my roses. : (

Sam: That looks like a great book. Actually all three of them that you mentioned. BTW, I used 8 of my compost pots during plantation of new roses and for giving a top layer to roses in beds and pots. Each pot contains around 12 -15 kg of prepared compost.

best regards

The Morris Arboretum has successfully completed using compost tea for the one acre rose garden.

Wonderful thread and information here! I couldn't find an answer as to how often to use the tea??? I'm using alfalfa tea this year instead of working the ingredients into the soil. Thank you!

Sam: That looks quite interesting. I tried to search for the complete article that provides details as to how Morris Arboretum has managed the whole project and what have been the results but couldn't find the complete article. Do you have any link?

In the meanwhile. I have many compost pots that are ready.

best regards

Khalid, type in Morris Arboretum Rose Garden compost tea, cease, green cure for diseases. They tried 3 methods separately. I use FPJ , Cornell formula, and aerated compost tea to spray rotating each week. I haven't tried those other products.

I have four Rodale size compost bins going right now. I'm trying to get it right with temperatures and aeration. I like Molly the microherder video. I am trying to compost similar to Molly. Molly says to hydrate the woody material for three days before making the compost pile. This soften the shell of the microorganisms.

https://youtu.be/jErga1eP718

Eric T Fleisher says we have been following the Haber since 1918. The NPK method makes the plant unhealthy. He says we should focus on process not on product.

https://youtu.be/p5ZfbFURdlo

Thanks Sam. Will do that

Sam: I will do that. Thanks a lot.

In the meanwhile many pots of my homemade compost are ready. I will use them as a top layer in the pots and I will also make compost tea and spray it on the foliage every 10 days.

Just to recapitulate what I did:

• I used large size terracotta pots, 18" dia rim and approximately 2 ft high.
• Added a layer of kitchen waste include peels of various fruits and vegetables (apples, banana, oranges, lemons, melons, water melons, mangoes, onions, potatoes, cucumber etc). This also included black tea waste (used tea leaves) and few other organic wastes from the kitchen.
• After every couple of days when this layer would be 3-4 inches thick, I would sprinkle it with chicken manure (obtained from poultry farm of a friend). This chicken manure contains lot of rice husk as well. As per routine practice in poultry farms, when the put a new flock, they cover the concrete floor with a 3 inches layer of rice husk. Chicken droppings are added to it every day. So it is not pure chicken dropping but rice husk + chicken droppings.
• Occasionally I would also sprinkle some garden soil.
• Microbes and worms in chicken manure and garden soil speed up the decomposition process. Chicken manure produces lots of worms that eat the waste and than die in the compost, becoming a part of it ultimately.
• I would regularly water the compost pot, making sure that it only gets wet but nothing comes out of the drainage hole. Occasionally, I would mix some gypsum and micro nutrient supplement (containing iron, zinc, copper, manganese etc) in the water to add Ca and micor nutrients to the compost.
• In summers, it would take 30-50 days for the compost to get ready. In winters, 75-100 days.

Now, I have 4-5 pots of compost ready. Each pot contains 10-12 kg of compost by weight. I will be using them as top layer in the pots as well as for making compost tea for spraying on foliage.

best regards

Thank you Khalid for sharing your rose feeding process. I have always wondered what roses eat. Now I am learning. It takes me two days to see you posts. Huh wonder why it takes time to get through?

This is my favorite thread on the gardeweb. There's so much great information on this thread that's is different from the average discussed roses topics. I like the idea about nutrients specific biological compost. I have learned from here that aeration is good and speeds up the compost process and also a percentage of nitrogen or bacterial dominated compost also speeds the process. I also learned that fungal foods are important to mimic the soil of the forest too. It's interesting to find out what types of compost roses like. I am eager to see the results.

I am finding that I can't make too much compost. Like VV I put the sticks from the sugartyme flowering crabapple tree underneath bin number four. That has the banana peels potatoes and eggshells and grass with shredded leaves.

I have a pile of rose prunings ready to go under the piles 1,2,3 when I get to turn those piles.

Looks super! Thanks so much for taking the time to add pictures as that really helps us visualize all of your hard work.

Pictures of the Viking Queen.

Alnwick Castle blooms

And she's a very pretty color too!

Thanks LL and Valrose It's from the good soil.

Here is a picture of my third batch of Aerated compost tea. I sprayed it on the leaves and gave a good dose in the soil too.

Here's a picture of Cape Diamond and Champlain with the Lupines.

I love the colour combination. It seems lupines go with everything. One of my VQ has put on great growth this, its second summer, and has just finished its first blooms. It's been concentrating on sending out very large basal canes, so I don't care. Sam, when I was at the OARDC OGR site, I saw a magnificent mature specimen growing huge in Z5. I'm preparing myself for another monster, but a fabulous one!

Regarding your ACT, how do the new additions affect it vs. last year's recipe? Do you ever get BS? Do you spray with anything else? Your roses look so healthy. Most of mine need some TLC, but I'm just making my way to tidy up those beds. Growth is so rampant here.

I find that the winter sown lupines grew better and so I'm going to try planning to lupines seeds in the fall to see if I get more. My ACT recipe has the Neptune Harvest fish and seaweed and I have a little bit of molasses to feed the Microbes. I also have two bubblers in the five gallon bucket. I don't need to do a batch every week as I did last year. The roses leaves look really healthy even though we have had a lot of rain. It makes everything grow better.

I keep coming back to look at Cape Diamond with the lupines, super combination!

God has been good to me this year with the home made compost. It's really good stuff and the way you can tell is the healthy worms in the leaf mold. The color of the leaves show a dark green. I turned the compost at the right time to keep oxygen in it. Thanks VV and LL for the nice comments. Also I am thankful for my friend in Pakistan for starting this thread. I wish for health and happiness for all of us.

Let's not forget what Elaine Ingham says.

Healthy soil gives us healthy plants. Healthy plants means healthy food. With healthy food we have healthy people.

Just thought I'd update my oak chip pile. Kelly, re-reading this post, I realized I never answered your questions. These chips are from from 100yr old oak trees whose 100"+ limbs were taken down last Fall. I had the tree folks dump the chips in my yard where they've become gorgeous mulch over the last 7 months. They can be use raw directly on the soil as mulch and really keep the weeds down... as they're on top of the soil is doesn't deplete nitrogen as it would if mixed into the soil. I used it heavily on my top bed and the area seen in this pic has a super thick layer. I'm still deciding whether to use the rest to cover the new beds I'm making against the brick wall or on current plantings. It was over 2 tons of chips; I can't believe I've already used half!!!

Click to enlarge.

As a side note, I recently realized a large portion of my front yardis now full sun all year!!! instead of heavy shade, so I've been thinking of planting roses along the wall if only as a sort of "nursery" until I can get the lower beds prepped. I'll still replant the dead white pines that don't shade that area, as well as the hemlocks on the other side, as the house needs the vertical interest to minimize its height and shield it a bit. Thoughts anyone?

I bet that wood chips pile is great because it has all the parts of the tree. Leaves and twigs. So it will turn into good compost for the roses. It has to be finished compost otherwise they will cause diseases in the roses. I use ground cover plants and finished compost .My piles of finished Homemade compost are more than halfway used up too. I am slowly working on using it up. I love that the stuff breaks down with all the life so fast in the warmer season.

I'm so happy for you and your new space for roses. So cool.

Thank you, Sam. I use the chips for weed suppression in this jungle. I have very invasive things such as garlic mustard, lemon balm, etc, not to mention wisteria, euonymous, ivy, parthenocissus and at least five species of wild grape. I dig it all out by the roots, but the chips keep new seeds from germinating. I put the compost under the chips, but they are breaking down beautifully. Compost alone on my bed is like feeding the weeds crack! : ) I only have a few roses with mulch, but it doesn't encroach on the drip-line. I'd never heard about wood mulch being bad for roses. I'll have to research that.

I'm working on filling the dead space as I see in my herbaceous borders how well that does work. Maybe this winter I will be lucky enough to grow some other plants as you do. I have a few volunteers from last year that I'm letting flower. Sometimes I start perennials in the summer, but haven't had time this year. Also, I have a squirrel that overturns and digs out all my pots as well as the beds. He's driving me nuts! I suppose I could start some seeds on the balcony. Hmmm. Good idea.

I think your tree chips will be good and Aerated VV. I think Mike McGrath is referring to the wood bark mulch that sits in bags and get the anerobic disease causing organisms and then the spores get on the roses.

VV. that naughty squirrel! Sam has a cute rabbit in his garden too. I don't know how he manages to keep it under control but he does as his pictures look great.

Mayflower

Wow! Sam, I didn't know one could put spinosad in the ACT. I've not ever used it. Your flowers look beautiful, as usual. I managed to grow a cutting of ZD, but it's terribly BSy. Is yours in shade? I don't know where I'll put mine yet.

Great work as always Sam!

Inspired by you guys I tried making unaerated alfalfa tea for the first time. Should I spray the foliage or just use it as a drench?

totoro, how did your ATea work out? How did you apply it? I'd always heard how much it stank and couldn't imagine the smell as I love it when fresh, but I recently left my semi-enclosed bale out in the rain and suddenly realized what everyone was talking about. Whoah! Stinky stuff. I hope it helps my roses. : )

Sam, how is the ACT going this year and how often are you applying it? In my research on rose midge I noticed some old-timey foliar sprays used molasses, so I wonder if that is helping your midge problem. Of course, it could have been the lead arsenate part of the recipe that was so successful! Yikes!!!

Khalid, I haven't seen you post for a while. You must be busy with work and your new house, but I really want to know what insights you've gleaned this year and how all your roses are doing. We now grow many of the same roses ie. Cl. Crimson Glory, and I'd love to compare notes when you have a chance or feel so inclined. Your presence is missed.

I think the plants had a growth spurt as a result but it could be the cooling weather too. It did stink a little but not as much as the manure tea i made later. I burned some roses with that. I don't think i will bother with manure tea. Really difficult to know and control how much nitrogen you are applying.

Is it possible to burn plants with ACT?

I'm trying to answer that same question!

This year too, I have 45 bags of leaves collected. I got them from the town truck. have mostly old leaves in them. A few of the bags contain pine needles and then a few bags full of grass clippings. I put the shredded leaves as I am shredding in the mower bag on the roses flowers beds. I have two compost piles four feet in size. I haven't been able to get the coffee grounds yet. My nitrogen in the grass clippings will replace the nitrogen I would like to get from the coffee grounds. So the compost is half nitrogen and half carbon.

totoro, my roses have really responded well to the tea. It's the best they've looked all year, so I'm bummed it's getting cold. I so hope all my buds eventually open. I also "accidentally" made some compost tea so I sprayed that with a little bit of AT directly on the leaves to combat BS. It's hard to know if worked, but even the worst offenders haven't caught BS yet, so who knows. Usually those grow back with BS, though. I'll try it from the first of the season next year now that I see how easy it is with my new Chapin mosquito sprayer.

Samuel, you are so far ahead of us. We haven't lost any leaves and everything is still green. That will probably change with the cold this week. I've been putting the remainder of this years compost in bags leaving just enough to help with the microbes. I really need a source of nitrogen. Nobody bags grass around here so maybe it's time to try the coffee grounds. The thought has crossed my mind that applying it directly may help with midge due to the ph, but I haven't read any research on that. I have a separate place for my food waste. I'd still like to try turkey manure, but I lost access to a truck so It's bagged for me, I guess. What other easy sources of N could I find?

I brought in all my houseplants and cuttings/rootings. I think I can leave my 5gal. potted roses out a bit longer. I don't think my coal cellar is that cold yet. I wonder what the temp needs to be to induce dormancy?

Sam, you gave me a great idea with the paint strainer bag for sieving the tea. I googled it and found voile is the best fabric. Before I destroyed some old drapes I had hanging around, I came upon an old fabric shower curtain I'd kept as a drop cloth. It had been washed with bleach which destroyed its water repellency, but made it perfect for my purposes. I just used part of in to line a sieve; it was super fine, but strong! I'm going to use a french seam and make a couple of bags for both a 5 gal. bucket and a trashcan running a rope through the grommets to pull it shut. This has been my hold up with the teas and now I have a great free solution!

Wow , that's awesome. I like that idea. Thats Super fine. So much fun growing roses. Making the compost tea reminded me when I was a kid playing on the beach in Lake George there was a little tributary brook there. It came down off the mountain. This summer, I get up early in the morning to make it for the roses and play in the dark brown water and spray it on the rose leaves. It's so muddy and messy. I love it. It's full of life.

I like Elaine Ingham compost tea recipe on Soilfoodweb. Also I like the Bob Cannard recipe.

Thanks Sam, but the link is down right now. That's amazing that you were even aware of roses at such a young age, lucky you!

Thanks LL and I can't wait to hear about VV compost tea. Making compost tea for roses now in the present reminds me of when I was young and at the beach in Lake George. There was a small tributary brook that met the beach with the most beautiful compost tea. It just smells so alive. When I make compost tea now in the present, I am mimicking nature and the little brook next to the beach, that I played in as a child. It's the same. I like the famous quote from Albert Einstein, I have discovered that a calm and modest life brings more happiness than the constant pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness. I found that using the compost and compost tea makes me happy like riding a bike.

What a lovely post. and words to live by!