Hello,

I use this one every 6 weeks. I also add cow manure around my roses during early spring if I can. I am planning on trying some rose toner that a lot of people seem to love.

Buy Rose Tone and follow the instructions on the package.

Please don't use the product shown above or other combo products. IME they tend to cause spider mite outbreaks, especially since the OP is in CA, a dry summer area.

Thank you cecily for the advice. I have been thinking rose toner may be a better option. I live in a very humid place, but I still don’t want any spider mites.

I couldn't find Rose Tone at my local Lowes when I popped in for it so I bought Jobes Organics Rose & Flower. Fertilized on Mother's Day and my roses definitely seemed to appreciate the food. I'll be fertilizing again this weekend. The package directions state once a month so that's what I'll be doing until it's time to let them go dormant.

cecily, thx. Good to know cuz I use the Bayer stuff too.

Espoma Holly-tone (Rose-tone, Flower-tone, Plant-tone all work as well), one cup per plant, two for the Blushing Knock Out that is trying to eat the house, once a month, April - August. Sometimes I can find Dr. Earth liquid organic, and recently Espoma's liquid organic which I use in pots.

dianela7bal, the 3-in-one product makes spider mites worse because the insecticide kills off the beneficial insects that are predators of spider mites.

I'm just getting into fertilizing and probably still making mistakes. I learn from the results.

Now, at the first sign of growth I start my rose tone/fish fertilizer/bone meal/blood meal/epsom salts/manure formula. For more established roses the next feeding in 4-6 weeks will be high in Phosphorus and the newer plants I continue with rose tone so they can get more established. Then the last feeding at the end of the season I use organic since it takes so darn long to release. So I fertilize maybe 4 times a year.

I'm also trying to improve my soil so for the sake of my back some of this has to be done while fertilizing. I've had excellent results with some plants and others seem unchanged but none have been harmed and this is my 2nd year. I have some knockouts that do well on their own and I use this regime but they don't respond. So going forward I'll save my money and skip them.

Anxious this year to try alfalfa meal. I'm not making tea though. I'm just going to spread the meal for now. The ogre will kill me if he smells that stuff sitting around in the heat. He already hates the manure so...

Diane I would love to see that Blushing. I got two this year to fill an empty space and even though it's pretty its so darn flimsy. Please tell me this thing will get some backbone at some point and stand tall?

madakatude6a unpruned, my Blushing KO is 7'+ x 4'.

I'm with mustbnuts - I simply can't fertilize monthly or multiple times or I'd get nothing else done in the garden and no time to enjoy the roses. In a good year, I give the established roses one dose in spring of: .5-1 cup of 10-10-10 fertilizer and the same amount of Ironite (amount depends on size of rose), plus a generous handful or two of alfalfa hay. My new roses are always planted with manure and alfalfa hay, and they don't want anything granular or it can cause damage.

Madakatude, I find that the hay is a safe and easy way to get the alfalfa to the roses. I'm with you that I can't handle the tea, and couldn't possibly make enough for all my roses. I tried the alfalfa pellets one year but they got wet and rolled next to the canes, making a toxic soup that ate away at the bark and killed about 30 roses before I caught it. The hay decomposes gradually and encourages basal breaks, so it is a good partner to the more rapid acting synthetic fertilizer.

I buy alfalfa bales (the chopped is much better in small chunks) and either put it around the roses in handfuls, or gleefully toss it onto rose beds where the roses are planted thickly. Once this fertilizer is down, I reach down and "ruffle the hair" of the mulch under the roses so it's not too thick in any one place, and the alfalfa is disguised under my leaf mulch. I got about 500 roses fertilized last weekend and will finish the other half this weekend, presuming I can handle the uncharacteristic 90+ degree weather that just won't leave.

I have liquid fertilizers that I always intend to use mid-season for all the roses, or more particularly for the wimpy growers, but I never seem to get around to it. So basically, one administration of one round of fertilizer is all any roses get. I have pretty good soil and I faithfully amend it with organics year round, and that also counts as long term "feeding" of the roses in the big picture.

Cynthia