Monday, November 16, 2009

Help with half dead roses?

I moved into the beautiful old house where the previous owner did NOTHING with her yard for 3 years. Literally. No mowing, no trimming, no pruning. The daffodils have grown wild since, and I love them, but the poor roses look terrible. They are the tea type so they have grown tall, but where they haven't been trimmed and pruned for a few years, they are very sparse. I thought about cutting them down and seeing what will happen, but I don't want to kill them. The same for the azaleas and rhododendrons. What can I do for them?

Help with half dead roses?
Roses are very tough. Give then a good hard prune to size them down and shape them - preferably in winter when dormant (however, I have done mine in summer too when necessary and give them a good water and they've never suffered).


As for the grass, I recently scraped off just the top of my lawn to get rid of as many dormant weeds as possible, bought some lawn seed, loosened the top soil, sowed the seed (thicker than recommended as the birds kept eating it lol) and follwed the rest of hte seed pack instructions. After about 6 weks it looked really nice.
Reply:Have you ever thought of laying banana skins round your roses and just adding a little soil over the top of them. As when they rot down they produce potassium which really gives a good boost of fertilizer at not much cost to yourself. Report It

Reply:To save time later spraying roses for green fly and black fly grow garlic round them as the roses draw up some of the flavor of the Garlic and really makes them think twice to settling in your roses over the summer or you can use Lavenders but remember to leave enough room for the rose and Lavender. Report It

Reply:Cut them back, don't cut them down. It sounds like you have got great soil. Plant a vegy garden and a herb lawn. Have a great time gardening.
Reply:its early April so you can cut roses back hard to 18 inches then water in some rose fertilizer (it sounds drastic but the reward will be worth it), leave the daffodils to die off naturally and if you want to move them leave that until October, it wont be long before the azaleas and rhododendrons will be in flower leave them alone for now, when they have died off remove all dead flowers and sickly thin bits of stem leaving only healthy strong stems feed both with Azalea feed, do the same every year. hope I've been of help
Reply:Your best bet is to go to a nursery and find out what to do. everything you mentioned has different fertilizer needs and pruning.


you might be the lady that did nothing in her yard for 3 years if you ask people on yahoo a big serious question. you need to spend some money honey.





EDIT...if she did "nothing" in her garden for 3 years, she probably did "nothing" inside that old house for much longer. I hope you had a home inspection.





EDIT#2: If you had a flea problem, you might also want to check for termites. since it was an older property. best wishes, really.
Reply:you cant go wrong if you follow the advice of the second answer. good luck.
Reply:1. Tea rose care:





http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/...





http://gardening.about.com/od/rose1/a/Hy...





2. Azaleas care:


http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/hgic1...





3. Rhododendron care:


http://www.demesne.info/Garden-Help/Flow...





Grass:


It would be best to let a professional lawn service or landscaper put in a lawn for you the first time. Be sure to ask them how to take care of it.





It would also be best to put in an automatic lawn sprinkler system because water is what makes a lawn pretty. It is a must to have a good weekly watering and mowing schedule.





But if you want to do it yourself, go here:


How to grow a lawn, click this link


http://www.wikihow.com/Grow-a-Lawn-Easil...


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