How interesting! They all look great. I use fish emulsion every once in awhile. I will have to pay attention to the bloom colors this summer. My Munstead Wood also often turns magenta in extreme heat. Yesterday was in the low 90's F. MW blooms are still pretty purple red so far.

I suppose, in general, the healthier the plants are, the more they can brush off stressors and the truer they would stay to their original flower colors. Heat is a stressor.

So beautiful , Nollie!! That would be great to know. I’ve been wishing that I knew what to give my roses to deepen the color. Maybe fish emulsion is the ticket. I do use it some but hadn’t noticed the possible correlation.

I did notice more color in roses in Alaska when I fertilized, and I did use fish fertilizer. I subsequently read that this does not happen, but in my garden there I saw it with my own eyes.

If you've grown the HT Double Delight, you may have noticed that it's very different in the pictures from a west coast nursery and from rose shows in the east. For DD, the difference seems to be how slowly the bloom opens. With cooler, cloudier, northern west coast weather, the blooms are much, much darker. The deep color goes down the petals as they slowly open.

In my warmer, faster opening garden, there's a limited reddish color on the edge of the petals but they open fast and I'd always see the creamy white inner petals fully exposed.

Interesting, thanks for all your responses. Although it’s more evident in the purples, the pinks and reds also seem to be more vibrant, so in general affecting the anthocyanins more? There is no colour intensifying in the yellow/orange roses and they have had exactly the same.

I swear Gertrude Jekyll is definitely more vibrant than usual as well:

Perhaps it IS simply down to more nutrients and not the fish food (Fish Bizz, NPK 5-1-4) specifically. They always get a granular fertiliser feed in Spring which has an excellent balance of macro and a long list of micro nutrients, plus alfalfa so shouldn’t really be lacking anything.

Whatever it is, it’s working, so I will keep slapping on the fish!!

The colors of my roses are plenty deep, including purples and dark reds. I don't plan to use stinky fish emulsion. My roses are spoiled enough. Diane

I'm sure Dr. Manners is right that my thin, poor Alaskan "soil" was lacking something basic that the ff supplied.

Wow! Your roses look great! Whatever the reason... :-)

Stillann,

Double Delight seems like an entirely different rose on the West coast. The stems are long and strong, the stems are thick and healthy, and yes the blooms have richer color. Wherever it is grown, DD will produce a bunch of wonderful flowers with amazing fragrance, but he’s just so much happier out West.

Diane,

Stinky for you, but probably smells better than roses to your cats.

I had to stop using fish emulsion because one of our dogs went nuts for it. She was eating the stuff right off the dirt. Lots of vitamin E for Daisy, but nothing for the roses.

It’s funny how dogs go mad for some stuff and not others, mine ignore the fish emulsion (I don’t find it stinky) but one snaffles up the alfalfa pellets. I have to spread them and immediately mulch on top to hide them, preferably when she is locked in the house!

We get racoons and possums digging in the roses and pots when I use fish emulsion. I dont use it that often due to the digging. Pots are worse because the raccoons will dig to China looking for the wretched fish and pull roses completely out of the pots. I have a 5 gal bucket of alfalfa cube tea brewing right now. I'm sure they are gonna go nuts over that too. I kinda forgot about it for awhile and now I'm afraid to take off the lid 🤢🤮

Ewww. Sultry. I'd never put up with that, and I'm so glad I don't have raccoons and possums around here. Deer and voles are bad enough.

Ben, kitties have better manners than to eat fish fertilizer. We have only one kitty allowed outside, and he likes mainly processed kitty food and raw shrimp. Very upscale kitty, except for the vole and mice heads he likes as an hors d'oeuvres. Diane

My cats love fish fertilizer, Diane. Even my most sophisticated, up-scale kitties.

My experience with fish fert was like that of sultry-it attracted badgers to my garden who were incredibly destructive and very, very difficult to evict. I had to spend two years putting up and anti-badger wire "skirt" around the whole fenced perimeter of my garden. Never, ever again!

Fortunately, I think the dogs keep away the wildlife. We have badgers, foxes, deer and wild boar sneaking under or over the fence at the top of our wooded, steep plot but they‘ve never come down to the lower garden terrace - so far.

Once diluted in the watering can, the Dutch brand I use, Bart, Bio-Bizz Fish Mix (I just call it Fish Bizz) via Am*zon, is virtually odourless. Even the concentrate is not really smelly, but I totally understand your caution, post badger-gate!

Eek! Badgers are mean!

Nollie, badgers have an incredibly good sense of smell; I think they're like dogs,being able to pick up odours that humans can't. So now I avoid animal-based fertilizers: no fish emulsion, no blood/bone meal, etc. I can't risk it.

I feel like this question is right up @strawchicago z5's alley

I like badgers. They got rid of the gophers that were living in the gully just below us. All those badger burrow disappeared within a short time after we moved here and we had resident badgers. Now it's been nearly 20 years gopher free. Dogs do not keep away gophers. And cats do not get into fertilizer. I use Plant Tone and have never had it bothered. Diane

Ebb Tide. No fish emulsion needed.

Twilight Zone

Gopher free and then badger free when the gophers got eaten up.

You must have the perfect purple climate or purple fingers, Diane, they are unreal!

Ooh. I have some of that BioBizz fish stuff, too (as used by Dtuch marijuana producers). Haven't used it this year but tempted to try it on a few favourites (like Bathsheba and Twilight Zone) just in case your theory has anything to it!

It does attract my nosy dog but then everything does...

Yes Nollie, Diane has a purple thumb. What do you think makes your purple roses so purple? I’ve seen others’ purple in Idaho ((the two HMF Diannes, Jean Marion), and whilte they have good coloring, they are not nearly as purple as yours. Tom’s own TZ, ET, WBY are not that purple!

Agree that the purple is unreal! Diane, do you know your soil pH?

PS. The combination your EbbTide with Ashley would be die for!

@DianeBrakefield Wow, those purples! Like @BenT says, you DO have a purple thumb :-)

Thanks everyone. There is a faint purplish tone to my battered gardener's thumbs. The soil here is alkaline. It's a semi arid desert, and we get about 10 inches of precipitation a year, though this spring has been more wet than any recent springs. Our water is good and seems to be quite "normal" with no strange tastes. We do irrigate regularly during the growing season. Diane

Ebb Tide 2024

Love Song 2024

You know who.

Twilight Zone 2024

Wild Blue Yonder 2024

Wild Blue Yonder in a previous year doing his Clown Prince thing. It hasn't been hot enough yet for him to become the purple clown.

From previous years:

TZ next to Augusta Luise

Angel Face which had all her buds eaten this year by deer.

Hills when the light green from spring rain has fled.

Ah, Diane...what can I say? Your purple roses are "dreams come true"...

By the way, does TZ tend to have "bare legs"? I'm thinking of getting another from Barni next fall; the one I have is own-root, but I am SO impresed by the difference betwen my own-root Ebb Tide and the grafted one from Barni that I am definitely tempted. But for placement I'd love to know the habit of the whole plant; if it's one of those tall ones with flowers at the top of the bush, I'd like to place it so you'd see the flowets and not the legs.

It’s probably mostly aimed at the marijuana growers here too, Sarah, many fertilisers are! Which reminds me, I must order some more of my magic juice. Fish Bizz I mean 😆

Bart, all my roses are grafted--purple, Austins, Meilland, Carruth, and others, except for one Julia Child and dear old Twig Darby. Most are on Dr Huey with a number grafted on multiflora rootstock. I know Europeans use a different rootstock, but I recommend grafted no matter the rootstock. I don't think Twilight Zone or Ebb Tide have much of a bare legs problem, but if I can't find a good pic illustrating this, I'll take one. Munstead Wood is literally the only rose I grow that I think has some bare leg problems.

Nollie if you happen to take a trip to the US, try to find some Lilly Miller Organic Fertilizer for Acid Loving Plants. That might help with the purples. It can't hurt. Also, I use Plant Tone and Holly Tone. Rose Tone is always higher priced than those two and they are all about the same. Try Amazon if you can't find any of these in Spain. Also, I use NuLife Organic compost once every year on roses. It has chicken manure in it and mycorrhizae, which probably do nothing and the word is just impossible to spell. But I swear by this compost. I think it's only available in the NW part of the US. Diane

Eglantyne, not purple and proud of it. 2024

I'm trying to avoid going outside in 95F to do chores. From last year. The first is Ebb Tide with blooms to the bottom of the plant.

Twilight Zone. Not much in the way of bare legs. This rose is much bigger this year. Julia and Augusta on the sides.

In back yard, Twilight Zone plopped between two Munsteads. This is mostly TZ, and no bare legs.

Thank you, Diane!

Bart I’m hoping to finally get a TZ this year (possibly from Barni to accompany Quicksilver). It seems to sell out so fast I always miss it. All mine are grafted on laxa since that’s what the vast majority of nurseries sell. I hear the petals fry in really hot sun, so I will find a morning sun only space for it.

Ugh, 95 in early June is horrible Diane, for you and your roses. It got to 90 here on Friday and that was bad enough. Fleeting, fortunately, it’s back to cooler weather now with accompanying rain and thunder.

I also spread some manure (sheep, lower pH) around the roses and top with acid compost, plus use Vitax Azalea organic pelleted food for acid loving plants - probably very similar to Lilly Miller. Nothing can change the underlying pH of my very alkaline soil but the acid compost and feeds do help buffer it. And possibly maybe the fish food as per original topic! If rain is scarce and I have to use my alkaline well water for irrigation, then chelated iron is my friend.