How not to Grow Roses
Our Mistakes in Growing Roses
We grow Roses, but we often do it 'wrong'. The
conditions here are
rather harsh for roses. The rose is the national flower of England, and
the climate in South Australia is much hotter and drier than England's
climate, but Roses can even be grown in Equatorial areas. I have seen
some good Roses in Mindanao in The Philippines.
It
is normally recommended that used cat litter should not be put on the
garden. We use only the types of cat litter that break down, based on
things like wood (Kat's Korner) Rice hulls (Max's), recycled paper
(Breeder's Choice) or similar types. When the cat's tray needs to be
emptied, it just gets put around the Roses.
Apart from the cat litter, cardboard and grass cilppings we do not fertilize our Roses.
In
our shop, we get a lot of cardboard boxes come in. As many of these as
possible are reused. If they cannot be reused, the cardboard gets put
into the recycling bin, but some of it, for various reasons cannot be
recycled. This gets put round our Roses. It helps to suppress weeds
and probably slows the drying out of the soil in the summer.
To
hide the cardboard we put our grass clippings on top of it. This
combination of organic matter on the surface of the soil forms a rich
A0 horizon to the soil and encourages Earthworms.
Another thing you should not do with roses
is to have other plants growing among them. This is another thing we do
wrong. There are several types of other plant in our rose beds,
including Naked Ladies.
In Australia, you need to use grafted Rose
plants. If you grow them from cuttings the root system is not good
enough. At least that is what the experts say, but we do not know
anything about growing roses, so half of our Roses are grown from cuttings.
Our pruning is more conventional, but it is done over several months, starting in late autumn, and finishing in early spring.
And our results?
Well, our rose plants have survived several years of drought where the
water they get is very restricted. The flowers were hit hard by the 45̊
C (115̊ F) heat recently, but are coming back now. We get a lot of
compliments, and it is common for people to take one of the flowers as
they walk along the road. Looking down our road at the general
impression of the front yards, ours is normally one of the colorful
ones. For a few slides of our Roses, Please See my Slide Shows: Roses and More Roses
We will continue to grow our Roses the wrong way.
Environmental Disasters 
