Bart, thanks for putting this thread. Very interesting and I still learn more daily :)

Dchall_san_antonio, that is very interesting topic about cornmeal. I am doing seaweeds and I read about diseases it stops also plus nutrients to plants and roses.

Seaweeds are free on beach. I am still learning more from all you guys. Thank you and Dr Manners also.

Jin

I totally agree with Dr Manners.

Miracle Grow is fine--I use it, plus a lot of so called "natural" fertilizers and composts. Remember, they're all chemicals when absorbed and metabolized by a rose. Diane

Very interesting information here from everyone, thanks so much. As a side note, I wonder which of these products will attract the rabbits and encourage them to eat my roses even more than they do now!

Bart, do something easy now, with the challenges you have. Dr. Manners makes sense as usual.

I am going to try a bit of corn meal

I love a good experiment .

I use miracle grow and add a bit of fish emulsion to that I also use a little bit of super thrive and that doesnt take hardly any to make a gallon.

My sister has been growing roses for 30 plus years and the only time she's ever fertilized was this summer when I said you should feed your roses

Her roses are fabulous and she never does a thing to them other than cut them back a bit in the spring.

So, do what you can . But, I think a lot depends on how good your soil is. Some soil and the Rose's grown there need some help.

But roses have been growing for thousands of years without any help from us maybe the newer roses are more finnicky

I have great success with John and Bob's soil amendments and I find a small amount goes a long way so it ends up being quite affordable. It's just something that feeds the soil in general.

fine mulched leaves can be a free source...

Sheila is correct about Bart's challenges. It's especially hard when it's 100F outside.

Kristine, where does your sister live? Boy, that can make a difference, along with the soil's richness. Some from California have wonderful soil like Cori Ann, and some like Ingrid have more challenging soil (mine falls into that category). I am sooo envious of those with a fairly long growing season. Here it's work work work. Short season of happiness. Deer arrive. Heat sets in. Everything is awful. Then it's cold. Of course, I slightly exaggerate. Nevertheless, I remember flowersaremusic saying that her daughter in Pasadena basically had to plant her roses--then stand back for the show. There have got to be some water issues currently, even in Pasadena. Diane

Dchall- wow! I’m loving this idea of cornmeal for black spot and aphids, I think I need to experiment. I have a few questions...

a heaping handful per rose?

Does this go under or over mulch?

Can it be any cornmeal? Such as one I could buy in grocery store or specifically from a feed store?

How often do you apply?

thanks so much in advance!!!

Diane, she lives in Medford too

She waters like a fiend and that is it.

That girl has a big giant green thumb

Only thing I do not like about Miracle Grow or similar products is they do nothing for soil health... There a quick fix like a candy bar and the rose bush will become dependent on it... like a crack addict....So I'd think about adding manure, shredded leaves, or compost once in awhile also if you can... If you go the MG route...

I'm lucky here and do not have to fertilize... Years of wood mulch, compost, shredded leaves , etc has created nice soil...

Up in the north, I have a very short growing season, many roses won't survive their 1st winter if they don't have a decent sized set of roots. Then it's a battle with aphids, sawfly, japanese beetles, caterpillars etc. & blackspot. So I will use anything to give my plants a good chance for growth. I have very fast draining soil, so I've been adding in compost, manure & mulch annually. This helps add nutrients, but I also use miracle grow & other fertilizers. I try and use the ultra bloom miracle grow, in the shake and feed format. It has the higher potassium to encourage more blooms, versus more foliage. But my husband likes to do foliar feeds with the hose & sprayer on the grass & plants a few times during the season. I do not use any pesticides in the garden either. I would like to try out the rose tone fertilizer that is mentioned on this forum a lot, but I have never seen it in a store in Canada.

Kristine , I love how you said everything. I totally agree about roses growing way before time and did well. I would love to have soil like your sister's rich and full of nutrients. She must have put many years of labor and what not to achieved her goals.

Bart, I would get miracle grow that will help. You have a huge yard and also your health to take care of plus weather challenges. Go for it.

I am also using Miracle Grow, Rose tone, fish emulsion and what not. But at the same time I am also amending my soil which is sand. I have tons of challenges in FL and the weather is not helping.

Jin

I use manure, Plant or Rose tone, NuLife compost (love this stuff) in late winter and early spring, but when it's 100F out, I'm not lugging buckets of compost around the yard if my roses need a boost. They might find me face down in a flower bed-ha. My desert soil has only been growing roses for 14 years. I had to break into it and start adding amendments from day 1. There are still areas that are as hard as a rock. Anyway, I use all I can get my hands on to aid the roses. They need it around here. Diane

Kristine, your sister may have been lucky enough to build her home on a former dairy or highly fertilized farm property. It happens in farming areas like my friend's place about 25 miles away. The soil is so much better there. My previous home certainly had better soil than what I have to work with now. What difference it makes. Diane

Diane. I think over the years I have purchased enough soil and compost to build a small island. Lol, very heavy clay. I tossed shredded leaves on everything last fall. I think amending the soil has really helped this process clay soil.

Heehee, Kristine. I could send my granddaughters to college on what I've spent on manure and compost and those blasted "Tones". Too bad we didn't build islands. They might be nice this time of year. With palm trees. Diane

Blondie, would it be possible to get your Tones on Amazon? That is where I buy all mine. I look diligently for the best price in the large sizes, and most important, I buy only from those offering free shipping. Lots of places, including Amazon, have lost $ shipping up to 100 pounds of Tones to me. However, shipping to Canada is a whole different deal, I suppose. Diane

There is another use for cornmeal-cleaning fur. :-)

I used Miracle Grow too in the past, hasn’t done anything this year yet, maybe this weekend. Miracle Grow is much cheaper than plant tone, rose tone.

Kristine, my daughter grows roses like your sister. She doesn't feed, fertilize, use compost or mulch. Has no idea what NPK means. And her roses beat mine by a mile. Her shrub roses are so big she complains that she can't keep them short enough to enjoy at eye level. That's California for you!

I used cracked corn one year and my roses reacted as if they had been fertilized. Strawchicago explained it better than I, but it has the same chemical breakdown as manure from corn fed livestock. The benefits are no odor, can't burn or overfeed, easy to handle, stores well, cheap and you can feed the left overs to your chickens. Or cattle.

Jim, I used shredded leaves around some roses I planted last fall for winter protection. This spring I raked them away from the canes into the rose beds. My problem with the leaves is that the slightest breeze and the spray from the hose and birds or some little creature scatters them out of the beds into the walkways - looks messy. Do you dig your leaves into the soil, or leave them on top? My wood chip mulch doesn't blow around, but these leaves are driving me crazy. I'm sure I'm just not using them right.

Leaves and bark not only blow around here, they never break down because it's too dry. I'd be afraid to try cracked corn because of those things, too, but maybe corn breaks down better than leaves and bark. Diane

Thanks all for your comments. Jim, you are so right of course,and I certainly DO use organic matter, which I think is the most important thing; my poor soil needs so much improving. I buy sacks of manure, cracked corn, and a horse fodder made of alfalfa hay and molasses. I also collect other people's bagged-up grass clippings, etc,as well as using the stuff from my own garden, and when my health once again permits hope to set up a deal with a gentleman who raises horses,hopefully bartering rose plants for used horse hay to use for mulch. But building soil takes time,and it seems to me that the roses just do better when they also get that "quick fix candy bar" once a year in spring when they are growing and getting ready to bloom. I'd never use anything now; no rain to water it in, and besides, the roses want to rest now that it's hot and disgusting outside.

Sheila, thanks for your concern for me; I truly appreciate it. Dchall, please tell more about the cornmeal thing!

flowersaremusic, I shredd them with a mulching lawn mower than just throw them in the beds... And it helps its always wet here...You have to go with what works in your climate/ garden...

flowersaremusic, around here 99% of people do nothing and there roses perform fine! I just wish they would at least prune them...lol..They look unsightly after a few years...Makes me want to get my pruners out ...lol

Thanks, Jim. I do want to use the leaves because we have tons and I'm a firm believer in using what you have. I just need to keep them wet. Mine are also shredded with a mulching mower, and I try not to get the maple leaves since I'm told they tend to mat.

You are fortunate that your soil is good without all the amending, amending, amending, and digging holes the size of a small car to plant a rose.

You could have a mysterious second life as The Midnight Pruner, and give all those unsightly neighborhood roses a good shearing.

I have done the stealth pruning thing in public places and lived to tell about it here.

Sheila, you brave souls - pruners and rustlers - need to give us a warning before you embark on your mission so we'll at least have some idea of what happened to you if you don't show up here again.

Milorganite - anyone else have great success with it? I put it on everything , roses, shrubs, lawns and the plants respond with tremendous growth and greenery. It’s organic and cheap , $12 for 36 lbs, but stinky. I think about all the good it’s doing, and it doesn’t smell bad anymore to me!

Sheila,

Please come visit my neighborhood, and bring your pruners with you :)

Sheila, how long does the odor last? I've never used it and I am curious.

Rosefolly

Hi Rosefolly

I think your question was directed at me...the odor lasts a week or two, it goes away faster if you water generously. Trust me, it’s worth the bad smell, my roses are crazy about it!

Okay, back by popular demand.

The idea of using cornmeal to defeat fungal disease seems to have been introduced by a Texas A&M website in the 1990s; however, they currently deny that. Nevermind that the website remained up until about 2008 and they started denying it about 2002. Since then they have only become more adamant in their denials. Meanwhile I have been using it successfully to cure fungal disease on my St Augustine lawn. FULL DISCLOSURE: in 15 years of my saying that here at Gardenweb, people in the south generally agree, but people in the north do not get the same satisfaction from using corn meal on their lawn diseases. For me, though, year after year since 2002 it is the only thing that works. It takes 3 full weeks to see results, but then, "all of a sudden," the lawn looks great. The TAMU article online said that cornmeal was as effective as crop rotation to protect against peanut diseases in Texas. The theory is that as corn meal decomposes, one of the decomposing microbes is the trichoderma (try koh DER mah) fungus. Trichoderma is a natural, beneficial fungus, is predatory, and destroys other pathogenic fungi. Apparently it feeds first and grows on the fungus which decomposes the corn itself. Once the fungus on the corn is gone, the large population of trichoderma goes to work on other fungi it finds in the soil. The application rate for a lawn is 15-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. For plants a heaping handful per plant scattered under the canopy of the plant is fine - per month. You absolutely cannot bury your plants in enough of these types of fertilizers to harm the plants. A heaping shovel full will not hurt the plants. It will stink, but it will not hurt the plants. It just lasts longer. Any ordinary ground corn meal from the grocery store or feed store works as does cracked corn. Careful to not get corn meal that has been adulterated with baking soda or baking powder a la Bisquick, Jiffy Bread, or some of the masa products found in grocery stores. Cracked corn is likely to give you a few corn plants, but they die easily. Another type of corn meal is corn gluten meal. This is NOT what you want for fungus.

Another aspect of disease in plants is the growth of the disease in the soil. Black spot, for example, is said to live in the soil. The spores get splashed up onto the plants when it rains. The reason for scattering the corn meal under the plants and not heaping it in piles is to spread the corn meal joy to more of the soil. You want to kill the black spot spores before they "leap" up onto the roses. This would be another reason to mulch under roses. Whether you spread cornmeal on or under mulch makes no difference. The corn will wash down to the soil when it gets wet. If the mulch is more dense than that, like compost, then the soil microbes will be there for the corn at the surface.

Corn meal is an organic fertilizer. As such it will fertilize roses. Someone said it was a chemical, but it is not. It is an animal food. Calling corn a chemical is like calling your roses a chemical. The corn feeds the microbes living in the soil. There are roughly 35,000 species of microbes in your garden soil. When you feed them with real food, they repopulate and improve the soil. Eventually (3 weeks) one of the byproducts of the microbial decomposition is a plant food chemical. So there's the chemical, but the corn itself is not a plant food. For plants in the ground a heaping handful per month works well for me.

Someone worried about attracting pests with the corn or other organic fertilizers. That does not seem to happen. I think that, given a choice between fresh plants and dried alfalfa pellets, a wild animal will go immediately to the fresh plants for nourishment. Now my dog, on the other hand, loves corn gluten meal. He may seem wild, but for food he is my captive. Looking at his bag of dry dog food, whaddayaknow. It has corn gluten meal in it.

Also note that I don't mention manure or compost for roses. Those are not good fertilizers. It takes 280 pounds of finished compost to equal the fertilizer power of 1 pound of alfalfa meal. No wonder people are disappointed with compost. Back before science knew anything about the populations of microbes in the soil, compost was all we had. Rodale was The Man for organic gardening for 60 years. Now that we know how and why the grain type organics work, we can focus on tuning it up.

Ben, do you use Milorganite without any other amendments? Once, in the spring or several times a season?

I have had great results with biosolids which is Milorganite without the trademark. Here in Newberry, Florida, we have a fertilizer supplier called Growers Fertilizer. They market a mix of biosolids, urea, and minors to make a 6-6-6 blend. It is a dirt cheap fertilizer and works great.

If you place Milorganite under the mulch then there is very little smell.

Ben, microbes might eat organics to produce Milorganite, but I would not consider it organic when it is treated sewage sludge and who knows what's in it, medications, cleaners etc. In 2007, PCBs were found, costing $4.7 million in clean up. In 2014, the U.S. Geological Survey 45 chemicals were found.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milorganite

Hopefully it is okay most of the time and many people find it effective. It is even approved for vegetable growing. However, it is not approved for organic vegetable production.

Dchall, I confess, it was I who said corn has the same chemical breakdown as manure from corn fed livestock. As I was typing, I knew chemical was not the best word - I should have said that corn breaks down into something akin to manure, or at the very least, has a similar effect. I'd best leave these scientific discussions to those who know what they're talking about and can say it better. I'm still learning.

Please explain more about compost. I understand you were talking about not using it as a rose food, with alfalfa being a better choice. But, what would you mix with rock hard clay in the planting hole? I'm not talking about the rich, black homemade compost, but the kind delivered by truck load. I'm sure it is not as nutrient rich as homemade.

Diane, just read your post above about water issues in Pasadena. A big resounding yes! to that. My daughter has slowly removed most of her roses because of the water restrictions. I think she only has 2 left. She would like to replace all of them with small scale roses, but at this point, she's not planting anything that requires water.

Flowers, I'm sorry to hear that, but it's not surprising, and such a shame in the city of the Rose Bowl.

Sorry to write this, Ben, but Milorganite--gah! Diane

Dchall, is alfalfa meal as effective as corn? Looking more for encouraging growth rather than disease prevention I guess.

Milorganite is a great fertilizer for roses. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. It seems to me it is better to dispose of some of our sewage waste by using it on non edibles than burning it or burying it.

The reason Milorganite cannot be used on certified organic foods is not due to safety but due to the EPA definition of certified organics. Other manures that are allowed on certified organic foods come from animals that are treated with all sorts of dangerous chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Milorganite smells really bad though, it can keep deer away.......it must be really stinky. I grow roses for fragrance, I don't want any stinky smelly human poop in my garden. Sorry, you can still love it, but I'd stay away. :-) Cheers

I have never used Miracle Grow Fertilizers on in ground roses but I did try the plain blue crystal MG fertilizer on our potted rose this year and I'm having troubles and now must figure it out...lol...MG moisture control potting mix which I used in the past with no problems...I used fish/kelp liquid in the past in pots with good results..But this year I decided to use the MG fertilizer at half strength twice a week...

I'm getting distorted young leaves and yellow spots on leaves...???...Guess I'll stop using MG fertilizer and see what happens...

Oh I waited 6 weeks before starting the MG liquid fertilizer since potting mix was new...Trouble mainly started after starting the MG fertilizer at 1/2 strength???

BenT, thank you.

Jim, I have a similar look to my rose leaves on small own roots that were container planted in Miracle Gro potting soil. Do you have any idea what causes it? I wonder if the fertilizer concentration is too strong for young plants? The grafted Palatine roses are fine but the small own roots from various vendors all are exhibiting this trait. Some have since been planted in the garden but in the pot soil some are still in pots and the planted ones have the same look. None of my established roses have this yellow mottling to the leaves. I hope it doesn't kill them since they look so unhealthy!

Cracked corn. Been there, done that. Unfortunately, at least in my garden, it attracts garden pests like voles and chipmunks which will tunnel under the soil to get at it. So not an organic fertilizer for me. I tend to use the various "tone" fertilizers if I remember to fertilize at all. I can get an 8# bag for around $8 so fairly reasonable compared to some other organic fertilizers. I prefer Tomatotone since it seems to have a better balance of NPK than Rosetone which is heavier on the nitrogen.

My biggest challenge is lack of sun. Sadly there's no "miracle" fertilizer for that.

sharon

I have had good luck with cornmeal for fungus on fescue grass. It stopped it from spreading immediately--interesting to know it's the breakdown into trichoderma.

Stan, do you mix it into the soil or just top feed ?

enchantedrose, the FIJI rose I put in a pot of MG potting soil is going on its 3rd year, it just hasn't grown in the ground much so I figured maybe it would take off in a pot...NOT SO! So I put it back into the ground recently.... That potted FIJI rose did not like the MG potting soil or MG fertilizer!

Now our Zinnias in a pot love the stuff! AS does our other potted flowers...(MG potting mix and MG fertilizer...)

Sharon, I am soooo with you on needing a magic fertilizer to replace sun. Only one or two of my beds really get enough sun, and the roses sulk about that (and don't get me started on tomatoes - 15 huge plants and barely enough to snack on).

Dchall - thanks for the terrific and well researched tips about the various organic fertilizers and what they might be doing under the soil. I think for Flowers' sake and others that are trying to improve the soil, that's still a huge function of compost, manure and other organic materials. It's not so much providing a direct boost of nutrients as getting the soil into a condition that the roses can be planted and thrive enough to be able to access those nutrients through their roots. Soil that can't maintain moisture or is too rock hard to transmit substances through it can't be optimal for nutrient uptake no matter the type of fertilizer

Oh and to address your question about leaves blowing away Flowers, a lazy solution is to layer down 2-3" of leaves then scatter a thin layer of the wood mulch on top of that to hold the leaves down. Over time the leaves break down and they need an additional replacement layer of leaves over the mulch with another thin top layer (repeat as needed). The shredded leaves can also be the top layer instead of the mulch if you're cheap like me, but if my neighbors didn't provide the pre-shredded leaves for me in the bags I collect all fall I wouldn't be using them. Too danged lazy to shred them myself.

Another alternative to Milorganite for those like me that simply can't tolerate the smell is to use Ironite. It's similarly cheap with a 40# bag for maybe $20, and it provides a more direct nitrogen boost plus some extra iron that roses tend to like too. Frankly, I'm swearing off any solid synthetic fertilizers because of some serious burn issues I've had in my yard (that I'll post about when I get the time), but that's me and my gardening style.

Cynthia

Cynthia, you had me at 'lazy'. Thanks, that's exactly what I will do. It's about time for a fresh layer of mulch, anyway. I've been trying to keep the leaves in a nice neat circle around the bushes, but it's looking a bit ratty. My soil needs all the organic matter I can give it, and it is getting better every year. I envy those who can dig a hole just large enough to fit the root ball in. What a luxury that would be! I have compost delivered by truck load every year and use manure as well.

Milorganite gets temendous growth and greens up plants alot. I grow a lot of brugmansia and other sub/ tropicals that can take all the fertilizer you can throw at them. I personally hate milorganite due to the smell gives me the worst headache (something wrong w that) but the plants love it. I also rig up the fish patio pond pumps to run into bucket or flowerbeds when I do partial water changes. They love that.

I have a friend who grows fabulous roses, most of them in pots. He has only grown them for a couple of years. He feeds only triple13 - puts a little on every couple of weeks and he has amazing growth and healthy roses. I tried it once, saw fairly immediate results and plan to follow his routine this year, while still using my other fertilizers [not at the same time].