Caxton magazines staff“Enjoy the super large flowers on your rose bushes in April and pick them for your home,” says leading rose expert Ludwig Taschner. He reveals what chores you’ll need to do to care for your roses this month
Lemon Essence
Four tasks to do in your rose garden this April
- Remove spent blooms and pinch out the growing tips:
- Although all the new shoots will be blind, they will feed the bush, and by pinching out the tips, the next growth should produce flowering stems by the end of June.
- It’s ideal to restore or keep the leaf cover on the bush because roses start to withdraw food from their leaves in autumn to store in their stems until next spring.
- Don’t cut back defoliated rose bushes and then fertilise them in order to encourage re-sprouting; these bushes are likely to die or remain half dead.
- Watering:
- Keep roses moist by watering once a fortnight.
- Fertilising:
- In most regions in South Africa the last application of Ludwig’s Vigorosa can be given this month. The April dose of fertiliser is important because the rose is storing so much food for spring that additional nutrients are needed to keep it growing and flowering. Stop fertilising in regions that expect the first frost at the end of April or early May.
- Pest and disease control:
- Keep to the rose care spray regimen for March. If the rose bush has lost its leaves you can stop spraying altogether because the season is almost over or you can wait until new leaves develop and then spray.
Wondering what other garden chores you should be doing in April? Check out this handy guide to garden care.
