Now is the time to prepare your roses to spring in June as Robert Burns suggested. Firstly, if you covered the soil around them with mulch over the winter, now you should remove this. I suggest you do this slowly over a week or so if you can, the mulch has been their winter clothing and it may well be a shock to the system to move from coat, hat and scarf to a bikini in one go!
Once the mulch has been removed, give your roses a good watering if the ground around them is not wet already - then they need some nourishment, take your pick from Top Rose or farmyard manure or even a good multipurpose compost if you would prefer. I always like to add a good handful of Epsom salts to my rose feed but not everyone agrees with this.
Next check your leaves for aphids (macrosipum rosae) like greenfly or black fly. You will most likely be able to see them on the leaves or feel a stickiness (honeydew) from their feed. These are not good for your roses, so you should deal with them now. If there are only one or two the simply squashing them will work, or a good blast of water on the leaves may well do the trick. Dusting your plants with flour may also work as this constipates and then kills them.
If you want a more definitive course of action then I suggest you use Rose Clear. Remember that ladybirds feed on these aphid tormentors and will not do any harm to your rose bushes - nature has an answer for everything!
PLANT OF THE WEEK: PHLOX SUBULATA ‘MCDANIEL’S CUSHION’
This fantastic Alpine is looking at its best right now with a mass of beautiful bright pink flowers. It’s great in borders or your alpine rockery as ‘McDaniel’s Cushion’ is a compact, mat-forming evergreen which grows to about 10-15cm tall with a spread of about half a metre with small, rich green leaves and deep pink flowers from late spring right through the summer. It is also perfectly suited to the Scottish climate and is 100% hardy – a wonderful plant
Colin has been working in the gardening industry for over 30 years and owns 7 Garden Centres across central Scotland and is passionate about Scottish plants.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here