A few months ago, I was touring through the gardens of Chateau Chenonceau in the Loire Valley in France with my husband. A guide had told us that the chateau used organic gardening methods for all the plants. As I walked past the gorgeous rose bushes, I wondered how the gardeners made them so healthy and beautiful. They had no black spot disease, no pests, and their blooms were vibrant and vigorous. What was their secret?
As I was about to leave the gardens, I saw a man leaning over a rose bush while sprinkling something brown around its base. Nearby, leaning up against an ancient stone urn next to his wheelbarrow, were two bags of coquilles caocao. I have had enough French training to know that the bags were full of chicken manure, and he was fertilizing the roses with them. This momentary experience transformed me from a chemical rose grower to an organic rose gardener with much better results. Here’s how I care for my roses now, and they have never been more beautiful.
Chicken Manure
I have roses under the window in my front yard, on my side yard, all along the lawn in the back, and a raised bed of my prized tea roses on the other side of the house. I’ve fertilized them, sprayed them, clipped them and I’ve always had problems. As soon as I got home from France, I bought six bags of chicken manure and spread it at the base of every rose bush. I was smelly. The mosquitoes seemed to like it, too, and they bit both me and my husband. I drank wine in my lawn chair with the smell in my nostrils. But it was worth it. Slowly, day by day, the rose bushes became stronger and their diseases cleared up. I didn’t use the fertilizer or disease control liquid at all. The chicken manure, which contains large amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, revitalized my roses all by themselves. And that smell, it’s gone now.
Vinegar Water
It took several days to almost two weeks for the chicken manure nutrients to be absorbed by the rose bushes, and while that was happening, some of the rose bushes had mildew. I did some research and found another organic solution to this problem. In an empty spray bottle, I combined a quarter of a cup of apple cider vinegar and one quart of water and sprayed it on the mildewed leaves of stems. I kept this container of solution near my tea roses so it was easy to use whenever I found problems. It worked. Now, two months after first applying the chicken manure and spraying the mildewed stalks and leaves, my roses are as healthy as the roses at Chateau Chenonceau.
Bone Meal Fertilizer
I was on a roll, and I kept reading about organic gardening for roses. What I found out next is that bone meal is good for promoting blooms. Its phosphorus and calcium strengthen the plant and promote bloom growth. I applied the bone meal, and low and behold, my roses staring producing more roses that ever before. I also gave some bone meal to my African irises, and they gave me the most beautiful white, yellow and purple irises I had ever seen. I only have to apply bone meal every four months since it releases its nutrients over time.
Clipping Old Blooms
I have known that a good rose gardener should clip off the old roses in order to preserve the rose plants energy for the new blooms, but when my plants were diseased and ugly, I had little incentive to do this. In the last two months, however, I’m excited to take a pair of sharp clippers and to snip off the spent flowers, making sure that I cut the stalk just above a five-pattern of leaves. While I’m clipping the old blooms, I also clip the vibrant flowers to take into the house to enjoy in a vase on the table.
I never expected that my life would be changed by walking through an ancient garden in France. Even though my roses didn’t go to France with me, I brought them back something better than a souvenir: healthier lives.
Photo by Yuliia Dementsova on Unsplash
Tessa M. Perko's Blog 